Are A Levels Getting Easier?

So it's A Level results day. And the press will be full of the usual debate around standards falling while at the same time parents, teachers and students will be in uproar saying that A Levels are something to be proud of. This happens every single year, has done for, well, basically forever. And always will.

Ok, let's start with this. Kids: you've done well, good on you. You should be proud. We are proud of you. The exams were probably the hardest thing you've ever done. Celebrate. Enjoy life.

But... here's the thing. I'm sitting here with the A Level mathematics papers from 2012, 1992 and 1972.

Is the paper from 2012 easier?  Yes.

Much easier infact.

In terms of mathematics, in terms of being a mathematician, the problems are simply not as demanding. They do not require the same level of thought, they do not require the same understanding of interrelated concepts, they do not even cover material at the same level of difficulty (some bits do, granted).

The papers are easier. It really is undeniable.

But are A Levels easier that they used to be?  No.

Seems like a contradiction, I know. But it's about the journey. It's about the preparation and readiness.

For the kids who sat the 2012 paper, they were every bit as daunting and demanding, every bit as challenging and as difficult. Their triumph was every bit as great.  The A Level was not easier.

Because their experience until that point had readied them only for that level of paper. They would not be able to do the 1972 paper, not because the paper is more difficult (which it most certainly is), but because the educational experience they had encountered throughout their schooling had set the bar much lower.

There are many reasons for this. For one, the curriculum is much broader now and mathematics is being used to serve many more purposes, so the time for really getting to grips with the subject is less.  It's not a dumbing down of mathematics as such, more a replacing mathematics with something considered more appropriate to the masses.

A Level mathematics is an easier paper now. Sorry, but it is.

But imagine a moment, if you will, you are taking part in a high jump competition. Suppose your entire build up to the competition was practising jumping bars set at 1 metre. Your competitor on the other hand had been practising bars set at 2 metres. At the competition you are asked to jump 2.1 metres. You'd have no chance... all of your routines would be useless... it is the experience leading up to the challenge that matters.

Should A Level mathematics be more difficult? I'm not sure. Rather depends on what you want it to achieve. If it is a qualification that is supposed to ready you for a mathematics degree, then heck yes, it should. If on the other hand we want it to serve as something more diverse, then perhaps not.  As a mathematician, I'm biased.  I'd go for a much more rigorous curriculum and demanding exam.

But if it should be more difficult, this means tracking the mathematics curriculum all the way back in to primary and setting the bar much, much higher so that it is actually possible to achieve on a much more difficult exam come Year 13.

Let me just end by saying, though, to all those who got their results today: well done. Your achievement is equally as great as those in 1972 and don't let any sod tell you any different.

Mathematics Shouldn't be Easy

On a few separate occasions over the last couple of weeks, I have asked groups of teachers 'what does a good maths lesson look like?'

A very common response was that the kids get everything right.

This is so sad.

Mathematics is not about wading through question after question of the same old tedium – effectively repeating what some teacher has just spent 10 minutes showing on the board. Jesus.

Mathematics is about discovery. It is creative. It should take real thought.

Above all, mathematics should not be straightforward. The joy of the discipline is that it takes huge amounts of creativity and inspiration. Mathematics should be about overcoming apparently insurmountable problems. That's where the learning of mathematics happens. Through the struggle, the connections, the inventiveness.

Drill has a place. Most certainly. But they are not the good lessons.

The good lessons are the ones that make kids struggle, where they have to dredge up long forgotten knowledge and create new ways of working, new ways of seeing a situation.

The response from these teachers that kids should get things right also makes me worry about the subject knowledge of the profession. Where are all the mathematicians?

When I was a mathematical modeller, my colleagues and I would spend weeks, months, maybe years on a single problem. Struggling. Fighting. Getting within tasting distance and then having it all fall away.

It is through the rigour that complex problems demand, that mathematical learning becomes rich and lasting.

So a plea to mathematics teachers everywhere: don't design lessons for kids to get everything right, design lessons that stretch their minds and their understanding of the beautiful field of mathematics.

There are simple, practical ways in which to achieve this. Instead of demonstrating and then asking kids to repeat, ask them to prove from first principles. Instead of asking kids to remember some division facts, get them to prove it always holds. Instead of lists and lists of repetitive questions, get one meaty question and let the kids have 3-4 weeks fighting with it. The mathematics will come. Trust the nature of how mathematics arises.

Blended Learning 2015

Blended learning will become an increasingly important methodology in delivering education at school level. There is already good research emerging that indicates that a blended approach can lead to greater student gains than either a purely traditional face-to-face or a purely delivered online course.

The definition of blended learning has evolved over the few years that it has been around, but is generally accepted now to mean a course of learning that includes some face-to-face (co-location) work and some distance work through an online element. Its success seems to make obvious sense; by adding in the distance learning element, students can continue (and are encouraged or required to) their learning beyond the usual timeframe. They can have time to reflect, and community elements of the online environment means that they can also act in the role of knowledge creator, contributing their own thoughts and ideas.

Blended learning is settling in to a definition that requires co-location and distance work. But what if, just as we are agreeing on a definition, the definition itself is about to become redundant?

There are different cognitive activities taking place when working face-to-face compared to distance individual work. It is about the human interaction, the ability for the learning to adapt to reactions, the being a part of a learning network, the access to external expertise (usually in the form of a teacher), the skill of the teacher to plot an infinite number of routes through the learning based on the reactions and emotions of the group, and the whole spectrum of human emotions that come with feeling a sense of togetherness with peers.

Suppose, then, all of these aspects could be replicated without co-location. Would that element of blended learning be necessary?

Increasingly we, and particularly children, are forming social and emotional relationships without face-to-face interaction. Social media and Web2.0 have enabled this. But add to the mix intelligent algorithms that can lead to true Learning Analytics and Adaptive Learning, then we could have an online element capable of high level artificial intelligence, able to play the role of the external expert.

Learning Analytics is not the same as data analysis. It is not tracking. It is not taking data from tests and the like and then spitting these out at a teacher to interpret. Learning Analytics is real-time, live analysis of the interactions that students are having with a learning environment. Imagine the thought processes that a teacher has when watching a child working on a problem – they tweak the experience, they prompt, guide and assist, based on what the child is doing and their own experience of observing hundreds of children attempting the same problem in the past. They have built up an understanding of the behavioural patterns and are able to predict where the child is heading and therefore how to best intervene.

Learning Analytics brings the same observations. And Adaptive Learning plays the role of guiding. Combined, if the algorithms measuring behaviours can be got right, Learning Analytics and Adaptive Learning can behave as an artificial intelligence.

The learning environment can operate just like a teacher with a class of varied students.

Co-location is now no longer necessary.

We're not there yet. The algorithms are really tricky. But as I explore early artificial intelligence – funded and driven largely by the gaming industry at present – I can see how close a truly intelligent platform might be. 2015, I'd say.

So perhaps in the very near future we might have to revisit the definition of blended learning once more and ask ourselves seriously whether or not co-location is a necessary ingredient anymore.

Bully

I recently had supper with a chap as a sort of job interview. Nick is 6'5", handsome, witty, intelligent, thoughtful and kind. He makes for really easy company. He is equally a good listener as he is able to entertain with urbane bon mot. On the surface, Nick has everything going for him. He walks with a confidence and air of friendliness that make him attractive – people want to spend time with Nick. Having graduated from Oxford with a first class degree, the world is his oyster.

Or at least it should be.

Throughout the evening, I ask him about his life and what dreams he has for the future. I like him a lot. Several times during our meal I think to myself that I will be pleased to offer him the job.

But there are tell-tale signs. Signs I have witnessed many times in people that I have met over the years.

As we order, I ask Nick what sort of wine he would like with the meal. He tells me that he doesn't really drink alcohol, and I accept this and move the conversation on. But he subtly becomes submissive – his eye line lowers, his hands pull in to his body. Just tiny movements. And he tells me that he'll drink whatever I am drinking.

As it happens, we have some shared history. I'm always pleasantly surprised how often this happens when meeting complete strangers. His parents live in the same small town in Cambridgeshire as I do. We talk about some local restaurants, walks, bars, shops and characters. It turns out that he attended the fine public school that dominates our little town. How small the world is.

I ask him carefully about his career to date and his achievements. There are words that he uses, facial expressions, the crossing of his arms and other almost invisible giveaways that lead me to proposing that perhaps his weakness is a tendency to procrastinate. He agrees – and far more willingly than a man in a job interview should. He tells me that he finds it difficult to get motivated. But that he is very loyal, and accurate in his work. Precise, is the word he uses.

As each course is served, he waits for me to begin eating. As conversation flows, he continually gives way to any point I make.

I ask him to tell me about his best qualities and he struggles to talk.

And so I ask him: "were you badly bullied at school?"

We talk long in to the evening, retiring to the bar. Nick tells me about the constant mocking and abuse that he suffered at the hands of the boys at school. They would tease him for being so tall, they would berate his inability to play football well, they would sneer at his intellect.

At home, his father would constantly tell him that he wasn't doing good enough. And in Nick's mind nothing would ever be good enough.

Nick is 30 years old. And still he carries with him the scars of bullying. The procrastination, the lack of belief in his own opinions, the automatic submissive role that he will play in debate.

He has had a string of unsuccessful relationships. He has few friends and finds it difficult to feel close to anyone. Nick's career has been a patchwork of dead end jobs and time spent in academia, where he feels safer.

I have met far too many people like Nick.

I need to confess that I have never been bullied. I have no idea what it truly feels like to have suffered at the hand of a bully. And so, and this makes me feel ashamed, I struggle to empathise with those who have. There is an ingrained belief in our society that for bullying to occur there must also be a victim – that this person has some deficit, that they are equally to blame for the situation. I don't believe this to be true, but it has taken me many years to overcome that commonly held prejudice.

Nick is not a bad person. But for whatever reasons life had not equipped him in a way that would prevent him from being bullied. He was different; by age 14 he was already well over six feet tall. So there was a hook. There was something notable about him that could be commented on. And for whatever the reasons, be that his upbringing or other influence, Nick was not able to respond to the taunts with a shrug of the shoulder. He was not able to not feel hurt.

Thousands of adults carry the same burden as Nick, the same self-doubt or loathing, the same tendency towards procrastination, the same low aspirations.

On paper, Nick is a complete success of our education system. He carries with him in to the world the currency of 12 top grades at GCSE, 4 good A Levels and an honours degree from one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

But what if we measured the success of our system in a different way? What if we traced individuals on their journey through life and considered their success? This success could be their ability to contribute to society in a meaningful way, their ability to form loving and lasting relationships, their motivation and aspirations. This success could be – come the end – whether or not they had a happy life. Of course these are difficult things to measure, but what if our schools were benchmarked against these in addition to their exam results? What would that mean for the way in which they operated?

Even at the cold, hard level of economic success – which it can be argued is a key function of the education system – it would be seen that those who carry the burden of being the victim do not contribute as much as their happy peers. The lack of drive and ambition, the procrastination so often a feature of the bullied, harm the economy.

Bullying debilitates its victims for many years, maybe a lifetime. It is utterly corrosive.

But it is also a hidden disease. Nick is beautiful and charming, as dashing and entertaining as a movie star. To the world around him he is the happiest of men. But to Nick, every single day of life is a struggle. Every day means convincing himself that there is a reason for going on. He knows he can't talk to anyone about how he feels, he is full of self-hate and pity.

You will know someone just like Nick. But of course, you probably won't know.

I do not believe that it is the role of schools to solve all of our society's ills, but it is a fact that schools have the ability to create a period of safety in young peoples' lives. It is also true that schools have the ability to create environments that ignore bullying and treat the bullied as invisible citizens.

The culture that schools create, the values that are espoused and how individual staff choose to act on bullying can make a huge difference.

Don't let it pass. Don't allow the Nick's of the world to be sentenced to a life of pain. Stamp it out. Now.

National Curriculum Review?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

What does the National Curriculum need to look like?

We are in the middle of another review of the National Curriculum. All new governments feel the need to assert their beliefs on the education system as soon as they can after taking office. Which is fine, because part of the reason that they were voted in was that citizens made decisions based on what they think our schools should achieve.

So, the government is starting to publish, bit by bit, its thinking around education.

What would you do if you were Secretary of State for Education?

It is really tempting, and understandably so because we are all human after all, to come to a view that the beliefs one espouses are the right ones.

I think there are several phases of wisdom. Firstly, one acquires facts and skills and can use them in a way that they have been shown. Then experiential learning leads to these being applied in ways that are effective. These then become embedded behaviours and people live within their own experiences. This, I guess, is where most people stop. These behaviours become beliefs, fundamentals, foundations, that shape our lives. We espouse these because we have internalised them and experienced their repeated impact.

But going beyond this, one can step out of one's own experience, as though looking at oneself through the eyes of an alien anthropologist. One can observe and notice oneself and the impact that one's actions have. Further still, one can detach oneself from belief systems and look at the evidence to be gleaned from others' experiences. Allowing these to challenge one's own knowledge and understanding. This journey never ends. It is this ability to go beyond one's own experiences, to critically analyse evidence and to continue to evolve thoughts and beliefs, that also allows one to say without fear, 'I don't know best'.

I believe that no Secretary of State for Education knows best. They can't. And that is a good thing.

But what if they don't realise this? What if they have not moved beyond espousing their own beliefs that are based purely on their own experiences?

Well then that could lead to a situation, understandably as I said, where a Secretary of State for Education believes that they know the right medicine to give the patient (to paraphrase Thatcher!) It could lead to a situation where they feel they should (and have the right to) prescribe in detail a National Curriculum and the methodology by which it will be delivered. This is a dangerous position. To dictate a system based on a sample size of one person is obtuse.

So what would I do if I were Secretary of State for Education?

There are conflicting pressures. Firstly, to not fall in to the trap as outlined above, secondly to serve the public who put you in office.

I believe that the public are asking from politicians for the schooling system to achieve certain things, and that as a democracy politicians are duty bound to deliver those. But they are asking for the outcomes, not prescribing the journey. At a local level they may wish also to do the latter.

So what I would do is this: I would work with the community to define the end points, the outcomes, the goals, the purposes. This could be as a set of criteria for students to achieve at the end of their schooling.

And then?

Well, that's it.

I would then leave it to those professionals working with children to define the paths that get them there.

At school level, headteachers and teachers would map out the journey children would take from entering the system to leaving it so that they have the best possible chances of achieving the national goals.

Secondary and primary schools would work together in doing this. Schools might want to form larger support networks too so as to share knowledge.

In otherwords, I would trust the schools entirely. Scary, eh?

A National Curriculum is in place so that children across the country receive a consistent offer, and I understand why this is desirable, but I think that centralisation has lead to a massive de-professionalising of the profession. By handing back true developmental issues to schools, by asking each and every person working in a school to contribute to creating the learning pathways and growing their own pedagogy, then the probability of students having a school experience that will lead to greater life chances greatly increases.

Autonomy for schools and for their communities.

With this, though, I would also insist on absolute accountability. Part of the reason that no Secretary of State has ever taken an approach such as this is because they fear that individual schools will fail due to poor leadership.

But true education improvement is, terrifyingly for a Secretary of State with an eye on remaining elected, entirely a leap of faith.

There are failing headteachers, this is true. Sack them.

But I think there would be fewer failing headteachers if their job were to lead rather than to respond to initiatives and whimsy. If they had autonomy, if they were able to feel and observe the impact in their driving learning, if they were able to focus on their learners and invest in their staff.

Because a handful of headteachers might not rise to the role is not a good enough excuse for controlling at a national level 25,000 headteachers. They know best. That's the point.

The Secretary of State could work hard to ensure that the route to headship actually leads to the highest calibre of candidate. They could ensure that serving heads are constantly engaged in learning networks. They could put in place rigorous accountability measures. They could give power to the local community. There are all manner of means for ensuring the quality. But treating a headteacher or school like a puppet on a string is not the way to achieve the most from out schools.

Secretary of State: go beyond your experience, try to see that the knowledge of those who have dedicated their life to education is valuable. Trust.

Take a leap of faith.

Why Touch Technology is what Mathematics Education has been Waiting for

For many years, mathematics education specialists have joined forces with software and hardware developers to create new tools for learning. But still, decades on, the mathematics classroom remains one largely about teacher exposition and bookwork practice. Technology has made little impact.

Yet, technology in mathematics can help to de-abstract-ise the subject. All those apparently meaningless processes that we have all been taught at some point in our lives can suddenly be made to come to life. Just watch a Gapminder animation or use a virtual manipulative and you will see what I mean. No longer does the mathematics teacher have to explain some new concept while drawing inadequate diagrams that contradict their words. Technology can solve this. So why hasn't it?

The answer is simple: the technology, although the solution, has also been the problem. Teachers, even those most adventurous and brave, will give up when the technology is a blocker, and until now it certainly has been – whether that be the unreliability of hardware, the sheer confusion of understanding the operations of a programme or the lack of logical pathways through a piece of software.

But touch technology, in the guise of an iPad or the like, brings with it what good design always should – an intrinsic understanding of how to operate it. There are no longer blockers. Through touch, interfaces suddenly make sense. They become natural when well written apps come to life.

The trouble, at the moment, is that no-one yet has taken the step of creating a truly difference-making, meaningful, student centered, pedagogically sound app for mathematics. But they are coming.

I have talked (ranted) for years now about the need for someone to create such an app and bemoaned the deluge of opportunistic, superficial apps that have flooded the market in anticipation of securing a slice of the enormous student/teacher/parent purchasing power cake. There are many apps for mathematics, but none that bring anything new to the equation. So I have been really excited recently by a group of developers that I have met who are creating a mathematics app that will up the ante and change the face of learning apps.

Through touch-tech, there is no longer the need to prelude the learning with lengthy instruction on using the technology or learning operating systems or the idiosyncrasies of a particular piece of software. The children in our schools are already at ease with using the devices and technology is a routine part of their lives.

So we can now take the step that was always the hope for technology in the classroom – to enhance active engagement, interaction, feedback, micro-teaching, analysis and problem-solving skills, make connections across and within subjects and contextualize and internalize the learning in a way that connects to students' own realities.

The tech can at last meet the curricular objectives.

Technology, and particularly hand-held technology, can create an environment where the teacher is effectively split into 30 individual teachers. With each student having access to information, prompts, reflections, guidance, challenges and support any time they need it. Students are no longer bounded by the need for a lesson to be timed for a group of children with wildly different abilities. The technology can take them on the learning journey, while teachers guide the experience like an orchestra conductor. The teacher is in turn freed up to actually teach – not just transmit information – they can work at the individual and group level. The student remains engaged in learning for a much greater proportion of the time because they have instant access to progression.

The relationship between student and teacher can be greatly enriched when technology is integrated effectively. This takes a shift-change in pedagogy, but teachers can take on the role of advisor, knowledgeable other, and mentor.  This shift-change will require investment in terms of time and money for teacher professional development - for every penny spent, I think the breakdown should be 20% on tech, 80% on teacher professional learning.  This is not just about how to use devices, but about what the pedagogical implications are for changing from the traditional transmitter of held knowledge to one of an artist creating the right environment for children to be knowledge creators.

And in mathematics, we can finally move towards what the subject is truly about. The technology can make school mathematics less focused on calculating and more on sythesising, modeling and interpreting. Students at any age can see visualisations of the most complex mathematics and draw inferences from them – mathematics is suddenly opened up as it should be.

With the internet, students are able to access any information that they need. Information is no longer the preserve of the teacher. So students can learn from external sources, or knowledgeable others, so that they themselves can become knowledge creators.

Unlike many technological devices of the past, touch-technology becomes simpler and more intrinsic as we move forward. In many aspects of life, touch-tech is now the interface that we meet. It is epitomised by its simplicity, by its universal approach of guiding the user through the process. This removes the apprehension that many people feel about technology. And this is a key point, for it is only those of us that are adults that feel this apprehension. To children in our schools it is simply part of their life. So through touch-tech, teachers are now able to feel comfortable about creating a tech-based learning envinronment, where they do not have to understand the technology or learn how to use a keyboard or mouse.

Touch technology is what mathematics education has been waiting for. It is the conduit that will allow the generations to come together and will remove teacher bias towards their comfort zone. We're not there yet, because appropriate apps have not yet been written, but they are just around the corner. Over the coming year, I believe that a product for mathematics will enter the market that will help us all to take the last steps to integrating technology in the classroom.

Michael Gove's speech, Conservative Party Conference 2011

Many people have asked me this week what I thought to the Secretary of State's speech at the Conservative Party Conference, and maybe at some point I will get round to writing up a response.

In the meantime, I thought that some of you might find it helpful to catch up with what was said if you were unable to attend the conference, so here is a transcript of Michael's speech.

(if there are spelling errors or such like, well tough, I was typing pretty damn fast!)

Note: Michael took to the stage immdiately following a speech by Quddus Akinwale, a pupil at Burlington Danes Academy.

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There are some moments in politics you never forget. And I'll never forget the first time that I heard Quddus speak. It was at a fundraising event for ARK, the fantastic charity that supports so many brilliant schools.

And when I heard his story, I was moved. As I know many of you will have been.

And I vowed then that many more people would hear his story because it is inspirational. Quddus reminds us of the real face or London's young people. Ambitious, aspirational, loving their parents, proud of their school, wanting to do well in the future. And I think if there's one image that we should carry away from this year of young London, it is Quddus and everything that he stands for.

There's another moment that stays in my mind, and that's a moment that occured when I was in China, last November on a trip with the Prime Minister. I was being shown around a school in Beijing and the headmaster handed over a book just as I crossed the threshold. I opened it and I saw lots of Chinese characters and then the odd word in English and the odd equation. "Thank you for showing me your text book," I said. He smiled pittingly at me. "It's not a textbook," he said, "this is actually a collection of all the papers in academic journals which have been published by people in this school." "That's amazing," I said, "the teachers, as well as having time to teach all the students also have time to do their own academic research. That's fantastic!" And he paused and smiled at me pittingly again and he said, "it's not the teachers who are writing the academic papers, it's the children."

Think about it. On the other side of the globe, there are15, 16 and 17 children educated so well that they can hold their own with the world's graduates and post-gradutes. If anyone asks why it is that our education system needs reform and change, remember that fact. In other countries, not just in east Asia, but in Canada, in the United States, in Australia and in New Zealand, education systems are being reformed because every single one of those nations knows that unless they are at the top of the education tree, unless they're making sure that more young people have the skills and the knowledge that they need to succeed, that their countries will fall further and further back in the global race for prosperity.

And one of the sad things about the last few years, is that under the last government we fell back in the global league tables for education.

We used to be 4th in the world for the quality of our science education and now we're 16th. We used to be 7th in the world for the quality of our children's literacy and we're now 25th. We used to be 8th in the world for the quality of their maths and now we're 28th. And it's not just our national pride that has knocked by this decline. What it means is that for millions of young people who've been through the education system under Labour they go in to a world economically more competitive than ever, where demands are more strenuous then ever, where jobs at the moment are scarcer than ever. And they are not as well equipped as children in other countries to succeed, to win those jobs, and to win those college places.

And that is why I am so angry about whay happened under the last government. Because I fear that they failed those whom they were elected to serve: the next generation.

And what makes it worse is that the big divide in education in England is not between us and other nations. The really big divide in education in England is between rich and poor. There are five schools that serve some of the richest children in England that get more children in to Oxford and Cambridge than 2000 of the schools that serve our poorest young people. No one can believe that that is either fair or just. From an economic point of view, it is an act of self harm to leave so many talented young people from poorer background in a position where they cannot use their talents. There are young men and women across this country, every bit as intelligent and bright and ambitious as Quddus, that are not getting the chance to become the engineers of the future because our education system hasn't equipped them as it should. And we are all losing out.

And that is why when people say what is this government doing for growth, I say the best long term growth strategy is a school reform strategy.

But it is not just about economics. It is also about social justice as well.

John Dunne once said that no man is an island entire unto itself. And we know what he meant. We know that I am my brother's keeper. We know that we have a responsibility to others in our society beyond simply paying our taxes and obeying the law. We know that the parable of the good Samaritan made the point that the Pharisee and the Levite, even though they obeyed the law, even though they were respectable figures, were found wanting because when someone was in need they walked by on the other side.

We're not going to walk by on the other side.

We are not going to leave those who have been languishing in poor schools and in poor schools for far too long to wait for another saviour. Children only have one childhood, it's the most precious time of anyone's life. And we want to be there to make sure that they are happy, fulfilled and that they are successful in the future.

And if we need to be reminded of the consequences of allowing children to grow up in poverty, not just material poverty but with a poverty of aspiration and a poverty of hope, then we were reminded this August of what it means to allow children to grow up without the right values.

The first and most important thing to say about the riots which scarred so many parts of urban Britain is that, when we look at them, we need to keep moral clarity. It's important to recognise that what we saw on our streets was a conflict between right and wrong. Between the police who were working so bravely to ensure that we were safe and a lawless, thuggish minority, amoral, contemptuous of the rules by which the rest of us live, intent only on the pleasure of the moment, people who had nothing to lose and were thumbing their nose at all the values that keep our society civilised.

But at the same time as we must maintain that moral clarity as our first response, we also have to recognise that a truly ordered society can't be kept peaceful by having every night thousands of uniformed officers policing our streets. Our streets will only really be safe when millions of individuals police themselves and make sure that they exercise self-restraint, self-discipline and self-respect.

And that's why it is so important that those values are instilled in the home and in school.

That's why, in the work that I do, with my colleagues in the Department for Education, I am so anxious that we should make that children have the best possible start in life. That's why we should emphasise that the most important job that any man can have is being a father. And that your responsibility to your child is life long. If you were there at your child's conception, you should be there for the rest of their life.

And schools have an important role to play as well because we all know that one of the sadnesses of our time has been that so many of those children who believed that they had nothing to lose were children who had been failed by our school system.

Let me repeat again the overwhelming majority of our young people do well at school. The overwhelming majority of our schools and teachers are doing a fantastic job. But it's still the case that far too many of our children are failed.

Sixty percent of white boys eligible for free school meals at the age of 14 are incapable of reading properly.

And there is an iron clad link between illiteracy and criminality. There are children who arrive at primary school from disorganised and dysfunctional homes, there is indiscipline in some schools, they are not taught properly to read at an early age. They arrive at secondary school incapable of following the rest of the curriculum. So they act up, they act tough, they cause disruption, they risk becoming excluded. Many of them will truant and as a result they become the recruits of the gangs of tomorrow.

Because it is so vital to break that link, it's one of my aims to do everything possible to eliminate illiteracy in England. If you can't read, then you are condemned forever to live in a prison house of ignorance. And for those children who can never read, they are all too often the recruits for our prisons of tomorrow. Because we know that more than three quarters of young men in prison are functionally illiterate. They've been failed by a system that didn't ensure that they had hope, that's the reason that so many of them went off the rails and that's why it's so important that we get reading right.

And that's why I'm so glad that my deputy Nick Gibb is a passionate crusader for better reading. He's the person who's been responsible for making sure that every school will receive additional funding so children are schooled in the best method of learning to read: systematic sythentic phonics. He's going to make sure that every child at the age of six is screened, so that any children who are falling behind, whether they are dyslexic or have been poorly taught can be identified and supported. And it's also why Nick is leading a campaign to make sure that children also learn to read for enjoyment. That the glories of English literature, the best that has been thought and written are passed on to the next generation. So that the heritage that is there for all of us, and which all of us in this hall can enjoy, becomes every child's inheritance. And for that crusading zeal, I'm so grateful to Nick.

Now, when we reflect on what happened this summer, there's one image which I know for many of us will sum up everything that went wrong. And that the image of the CarpetRight Warehouse in Tottenham, which was in flames. Torched by people who simply didn't have a respect for property, a respect for their community. And one of the many sadnesses about that image is that the person who owned that warehouse, the person who founded CarpetRight, the person who's given jobs to many young people is a great man, a great supporter of this party, Phil Harris, Lord Harris of Peckham. And the great thing about Phil is that as someone who has built his business by the sweat of his brow, he has ensured that now that he has time and a little bit of money on his hands, that time and that money is devoted to giving thousands of children a better start in life. He's set up a chain of academies across the whole of south London, taking schools out of Local Authority control when they were failing, given them great headteachers, like Greg and Sally and made sure that those schools embody what the best independent schools embody as well. So those schools have great discipline, a proper uniform, there's no bullying in the playground, and there's respect for teachers in the classroom. They teach traditional subjects in a rigorous way and they have uniformly high aspirations for all children whatever background they come from. And under Phil's leadership, those academy schools have made amazing strides forward. There's one school that he took over in Peckham, which when he took it over from the Local Authority had only five percent of children, one in twenty, getting five good GCSEs. In just a few years, thanks to his leadership and academy status, those numbers increased by ten, by a thousand percent, fifty percent of children getting five good GCSEs. And what's been achieved in the Harris Academy chains is being achieved in academies across the country. We heard a little bit about what's happening in Burlington Danes, but it's not just in London. In Leeds there is a an amazing woman called Ross McMullen, the principal of David Young Academy, who is transforming education for poor children in West Yorkshire. Just down the road, here in Manchester, in Moss Side, a school that used to be one of the worst in the country is now transformed thanks to a wonderful headteacher called Kathy August. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in Nottingham, visiting the poorest part of that city and there's a school there, Nottingham Academy, led by another wonderful headteacher, Barry Day, which is now ensuring that every child learns a foreign language from the age of five and that every child regards themselves as university material. It's that level of aspiration and that commitment to excellence, which is the best of British education and I think that we should show that Conservatives are on the side of those hero and heroine headteachers who are fighting to give the next generation the best possible chance.

And we are on their side because those academy schools are essentially the children of the City Technology Colleges that were set up by Lord Baker, Ken Baker, one of the best education secretaries this country has ever seen, a visionary reformer who inspires us today.

So the schools are essentially a Tory invention. And it's thanks to the election of a Tory Prime Minister that we now have 1000 academies open. We inherited just 200 from Labour and we've increased the number massively and at the same time we now have 1.2 million children benefiting from academy status, academy education, real excellence in education. It's an achievement of which you should be proud.

And as we saw in the video earlier, these new schools are being joined by 24 new free schools and shortly they will be joined by new University Technical Colleges, schools which are devoted to giving children, from the age of 14, a superb training in vocational and technical education. Again, it's thanks to Lord Baker that these schools are being started, and I hope that when we announce them that we will be able to repair the historic gap in our education system that has existed since the second world war. Countries like Germany have had a superb technical education for children that want it, we haven't. For far too long the technical, the vocational, the craft skills, the apprenticeship route has been undervalued in our society. Now at last this coalition government is making sure that those who pursue a vocational or technical course can hold their head up high with the same degree of pride as anyone who pursues an academic course in life.

So new schools but also, and most important of all, a new attitude for the entire education system. This government is unambiguously on the side of teachers. And we know that there are three things that are critical if we are going to support teachers in the work that they do. The idealistic, inspiring, world changing work that they do. We need to back them on discipline, we need to give them a curriculum and set of exams which are fit for purpose, and we need to make sure that they can take pride in their profession.

So what are we doing on discipline? Well we're making sure that teachers have the powers they've been denied for too long. The powers to search children for items that might cause disruption, the power to impose detention on the same day that school rules are broken, the power to exclude disruptive children and know that that decision won't be overturned by bureaucrats outside the school, and the power to be protected from the sort of false and malicious allegations that undermine those teachers who are going the extra mile to keep order.

And on exams and the curriculum? Rigor is back. We know that people enter the classroom because they love their subject and they want other children to be inspired by it as well, so what we are doing is making sure that the dumbing down of our exam system ends. At GCSE level we're sweeping away modules, we're insisting that once again marks be given for spelling, punctuation and grammar. We're asking universities and academic experts to help us ensure that our exams are the best in the world. And we've already said that we're going to judge schools explicitly on whether or not they are teaching children more of the hard and rigorous subjects that universities and employers want and fewer of the sorts of soft subjects that were fashionable under the last government but condemned so many children to unemployment and poor prospects. And that's why, that's why, I'm so glad that in the last year as a result of those changes that we've made, we've seen the number of students studying history and geography and modern languages rise by 25 percent. And I'm so pleased, in particular, that we've seen the number of students studying physics, chemistry and biology rise by more than 80 percent.

And at the same time as making sure that we have exams and a curriculum that reward rigor and stress the importance of subject knowledge, it's also the case that we're doing everything possible to enhance the status and prestige of the teaching profession. Let me say it again, we have the best generation of young teachers entering the classroom now, we should be proud of what they're doing. But we should never stop asking ourselves what more we can do to support them. And that's why I'm so glad that teach first, a scheme that takes the best graduates from the top universities in to a classroom, is expanding under this government. It's why I'm so glad that we're moving teacher training out of the ivory towers of so many universities and back in to the classroom where practical teaching skills can be passed on from the best in their field. And it's also why I'm so glad that money has been made available so that we can give bursaries of up to £20,000 pounds to those graduates in mathematics and science who are going to give the next generation the skills that they need to succeed in the 21st century.

New schools and new attitude.

We're fortunate in this country that we have so many good schools. We're fortunate that we have so many great teachers. And we're fortunate that there are so many young people who are ambitious for the future and are doing well.

But I'm not going to rest until every school in this country is as good as the best. I'm not going to quit this job until I ensure that every new teacher is as well trained as the best. And I'm not going to leave until I make sure that every child from a poor home has the same opportunities that are currently enjoyed by the most fortunate in our society.

I'm a parent. I know that I would never accept second best for my child. I know you wouldn't either. And that's why I will never accept second best for this country

Thank you all very much. Thank you.