“I’m delighted to give my support and put my enthusiasm behind this project. In the field of education innovation, I hope the Edtech incubator will play a key role in generating the ideas that will help transform education over the years and decades to come”

Matthew Hancock MP, Minister for Skills, Department for Education

Co-founder of the Education Foundation Ian Fordham will be the Director of the Edtech incubator which includes 3 phases and areas of work: an Edtech club, Education Innovation accelerator programme and an Edtech Venture Philanthropy Fund. More details can be found on the Edtech incubator website and photos of the launch on our Flickr site.

We are proud at the end of our first year of work at The Education Foundation to recognise the achievements of a cross sector, nationwide group of practitioners in schools, colleges and universities who have brought about the most change in their sector and beyond in 2012.

* Sally Coates, Principal, Burlington Danes Academy, London

For leadership in disadvantaged areas and as chair of the Teaching Standards Review Group

* Ty Golding, Headteacher, Barry island Primary School & Janet Hayward, Headteacher, Cadoxton Primary school, Vale of Glamorgan

For pioneering new approaches to technology and for their engagement in the Welsh Government Digital Classroom review

* Sajid Raza, Principal and Founder, Kings Science Academy, Bradford

For the development of one of England’s first free schools and its focus on character education and STEM

* Sir William Atkinson, Executive Headteacher, Phoenix Canberra Schools Federation

For leadership in disadvantaged areas and a lifetime commitment to education and learning

* David Carter, CEO, Cabot Learning Federation, Bristol

For collaboration across structures of schools, innovation in pedagogy and improving achievement

* Hugh Howe CBE, Principal, Beauchamp College, Leicester

For the creation of a dynamic learning environment and leadership in the college and the local community

* Lynn Watson, Headteacher, Percy Hedley School, Newcastle upon Tyne

For board membership of Schools North East and contribution to the Early Years Foundation Stage Review

* Greg Martin, Principal, Durand Academy, London

For an entrepreneurial approach to leadership and the development of the first state, non fee paying, boarding school

* John McNerney, Head of St. Peter’s Secondary School, Manchester

For strong leadership in secondary education and an inspiring approach to the future of education in Manchester

* Andrea Hemmens and John Butcher, Headteacher & Director of Campus, Wood View Learning Community, Plymouth

For the creation and development of a new model, cross phase campus with inclusive learning at its heart

* Dr Anthony Seldon, Master, Wellington College, Berkshire

For tireless leadership of the connections between independent schools and the state sector and the formation of the Festival of Education

* Fintan O’Donohue, Principal and CEO, North Hertfordshire College and Dick Palmer, Group CEO, Transforming Education in Norfolk; Co-founders, The Gazelle Group

For pioneering work on the future of further education colleges in the UK and globally

* Asha Khemka OBE, Principal and CEO, Vision West Nottinghamshire

For leadership in the further education and business sector

* Jim Wade, Principal, JCB Academy, Staffordshire

For the development of one of England’s first University Technical Colleges and its focus on improving the links between business and education

* Professor Janet Beer, Vice Chancellor, Oxford Brookes University

For a solutions-based approach to the debate about higher education and leadership of the University Alliance

* Tony Gallagher, Pro Vice Chancellor, Queens University Belfast

For a commitment to dialogue and debate on the future of education and learning in Northern Ireland

* Leslie Evans, Director General, Learning and Justice, Scottish Government (Honorary Award)

For leadership in education and learning and driving reform in Scotland’s education system

* Sarah Sands and campaigns team, Evening Standard (Honorary Award)

For their work on pioneering media campaigns in London – Get London Reading and Ladder to the Top

Ty Goddard, Co-founder of the Education Foundation said of our inaugural list of the top education reformers in the UK:

“The Education Reformers of the Year 2012 list celebrates the people who are looking at fundamentally changing the way education and learning is being delivered in their communities. There are education reformers in every school, college and university across the country who are trying new ways to teach and motivate young people. Often too, these reformers look beyond old structures and create new partnerships better able to serve their vision. They are the Best of Britain”

As many of you will have read in last month’s issue, the Education Foundation, the UK’s first cross sector education think tank, were fortunate enough to welcome a delegation of leading American education figures to London recently, with the aim of sharing best practice across the Atlantic. We were delighted that Mary Laura Bragg, Director of State Policy at the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), Florida, was able to join us for the tour, highlights of which included school visits, a policy discussion at Number 10 and a meeting with senior Department for Education officials. (In addition, subsequent to the article being written Ian Fordham attended a reciprocal visit to the Foundation for Excellence in Education’s Education Reform Summit in Washington DC in November 2012)

Mary has been part of the drastic improvements that have taken place in Florida’s education system over the last 10 years. In 1999, a reform movement was instigated by Governor Jeb Bush with good results. After being one of the worst performing states at the beginning of the process, Florida’s students are now achieving well above the national average. Interestingly, some of the big advances have been made by students of Hispanic and African-American heritage. The Florida model has now been exported all over America, by both Republican and Democrat States, and the Foundation for Excellence in Education has attracted backing from heavyweights such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So how was this transformation achieved, and what lessons can we learn from it?

One of the major drivers of change was to offer schools monetary rewards, directly related to elevation of grades. $100 per student is given directly to schools for improving a letter grade, i.e. moving a student from a C to a B. The majority of these funds are used to provide bonuses to teachers and staff, which in turn helps to attract the best people to the profession. Similarly, incentives are also offered to schools by the Race to the Top programme, a $4.35bn (£2.68bn) initiative that was introduced by President Obama in 2009 in the form of an inter-state competition that challenges States to meet certain educational criteria.

Whilst the UK has no direct equivalent offering performance-related incentives for improvements in educational performance, the worthwhile Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) does occupy a similar space. The EEF describes itself as “…an independent grant-making charity dedicated to raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in English primary and secondary schools ”. Rather than rewarding educational excellence per se, its mission statement is more related to innovation and the scaling-up of projects which are cost effective and replicable. It funds trials and projects within a research framework, in the hope that they will then be worked up and introduced on a wider scale.

Initiatives like of EEF and Race to the Top reflect the growing emphasis that is placed on education reform in the States and in the UK. Whilst education remains a politicised policy area in the States, the debate can often be far less vitriolic than in the UK. Witness, for example, how Jeb Bush’s pioneering reforms have led to him being courted by the Democrat party. He is working with the former Democratic Governor of West Virginia on digital learning, and last year President Obama said that he was “grateful to him (Bush) for the work that he was doing” after Jeb showed him around an improving Miami High School. In the UK, will we see the same level of cross party cooperation outside the coalition relationship?

The successes of the incentive programmes in America suggest that there is scope for similar schemes in the UK. The process of structural reform initiated by the Labour government and accelerated by Michael Gove is now well underway, and approximately half of state secondary schools are academies or planning to convert. But by introducing incentives for those schools related to attainment, not just structure, could we further consolidate and grow the practice that defines success?

These incentives seem to work because they are positive – and structured within a ‘challenge’ mentality. Could we frame incentives for excellence in the UK, alongside or indeed within the pupil premium that further encourage schools and pupils to strive to be the best they can be?

Postscript: It is also noticeable that the bipartisan nature of the education reform movement in the US is taking hold, based on the view that to solve such a major challenge as the reboot of the American education system will take efforts at Federal and School district level on both sides of the political fence. Indeed even Randi Weingarten the head of the largest union in the US, which holds significant power both politically and on the ground, seems to be moving to a position of consensus around issues such as teacher recruitment in her Wall Street Journal article which argues for a ‘bar exam’ for teachers to raise the status of the profession and the quality of entrants to schools. (Ian Fordham)

“At The Education Foundation, the UK’s first cross sector education think-tank, we are working to ensure that the future of learning is in the hands of those who know it best and need it most – namely, the teaching profession and parents that want the best for their children. Education in the UK over the century has been characterised by tumult, overhauls, fragmentation and often politicisation.

Whilst we will perhaps never reach complete consensus, surely we can agree that reform is imperative? There is however a convergence of views between Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives that schools should have the freedom to teach and structure themselves in the best way they see fit. The growth of the academies programme demonstrates an appetite for autonomy that will be very difficult – legislatively and politically – to put into reverse.

The UK is not alone in this bottom up revolution. The Education Foundation was recently privileged to host a delegation of education leaders from the United States where the reform movement is more deeply ingrained and advanced. Amongst our distinguished guests were directors of state policy, and superintendents, including Paul Pastorek who had helped rebuild education post Katrina.

All our guests had in many different ways been encouraging and laying foundations for reform on the front line. In our discussions with them about the parallels between our school systems, it was the organisation of the growing number of Charter Schools in the states that we found particularly interesting and whether we can learn any lessons from the way their ‘academy’ system is growing and developing in the US.

The UK academy landscape is nascent, but during the visit for our American colleagues we took them to an ARK school to show them what has been achieved already. The ARK model has arguably become a pin-up of Academisation in this country, with 18 schools now under its banner as of September 2012. Of the academies that have been inspected since being taken over, all but one has been rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted. The chain has developed a strong identity, and a strong ethos , which has seen improving results and expanding waiting lists. And ARK is not alone – the UK has around a dozen of these chains, including AET, Oasis, The Harris Federation, United Learning Trust and E-ACT that are all growing at pace. We now have 1,957 academy schools in the UK – including almost half of all state secondary schools – with more added every term.

But where will this expansion take us, should we progress at speed and is there a tipping point when a school chain can no longer succeed? Whilst the United States is by no means a blueprint for the UK, it is interesting to examine the system across the Atlantic, where the first autonomous Charter Schools were introduced twenty years ago, back in 1991.

The growth of charter schools in the US has been slightly bumpy due to the federal system and each state having to pass charter legislation – but now such laws exist across some 41 states and within the District of Columbia. Similarly to the UK, pupil academic performance and demographics have been a driving force behind the call for reform in the States. For instance where there are a large proportion of Hispanic populations, charter laws have tended to been passed earlier. In the UK too, the fastest growth of academies has been in urban areas with higher levels of social disadvantage.

The US model would indicate that this is a trend that is set to continue. Knowledge is Power Programme (KIPP) schools – which often take from more disadvantaged demographics – form the largest non-profit chain in the country with 109 schools franchised under the model. And eager competitors like Rocketship – which successfully turned around the fortunes of a number of Hispanic and Latino dominated schools in California – are now aiming to be ‘the biggest chain in America by 2020.’

But looking at the numbers in the States, what is very interesting is that, although the reform movement has a much more vocal parent lobby – set to be the subject of forthcoming Hollywood film, ‘Won’t Back Down’ – the pace of growth in academy chains seems to be steady. It has deepened and widened cautiously, rather than towards mass coverage of public schools.

Notably, the best successes in academy conversions in both the US and UK have not been achieved by merely converting a school, but by recruiting the very best from the teaching profession to staff it and putting in place strong leaders committed to transforming the school and unafraid of organisational change. Unafraid too, of imaginative partnerships within communities and with parents. This is what must not be lost as our academies chains grow in the UK. We cannot afford to compromise getting the staffing right nor building support and understanding of organisational change. After all, the growth of successful chains must surely rely on the strength of every link in them?

So from the land so often associated with ‘biggest’ and ‘boldest,’ when in comes to education reform, what we may be beginning to learn is to move ‘steadily’ and ‘thoughtfully’ to get it right. As Mike Feinberg, Co-Founder of KIPP says: “We feel a heightened sense of urgency […] But if we aggressively try to address all of it tomorrow, we’re going to fail. We have to have a maturity of patience.”

Ty Goddard is the Co-founder of The Education Foundation – the UK’s first cross sector education think tank

With key speakers including Rt Hon Stephen Twigg MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Graham Stuart MP, Chair of the Education Select Committee and Russell Hobby, General Secretary, NAHT – they focused on Celebrating Education and Learning across the country as well as a forum for sharing the Education Foundation’s work so far, our plans for the future and a chance to network with educators, policy makers and politicians.

Further details about receptions the are available below and photos from the events are available here

Education Britain Manchester reception - 2nd October (Labour Party conference event) at The Castlefield Rooms, 18-20 Castle St, Castlefield, Manchester M3 4LZ

Education Britain Birmingham reception – 9th October (Conservative Party conference event) at Birmingham Ormiston Academy, 1 Grosvener Street, Birmingham B4 7QD

Munira Mirza, Deputy Mayor for Education and Culture was the keynote speaker, alongside Councillor Andrew Harper from London Borough of Barnet and London Councils and showcase presentations from City Year London, London Leadership Strategy, Generating Genius and Mozilla. Munira praised the work of The Education Foundation:

“I welcome the Education Foundation’s focus on fresh ideas in this new education landscape for London”

The Summer reception celebrated the achievements and work of key people engaged in education and learning in London. On the eve of the London Olympics and Paralympics, it was a great time to take stock of the significant effort and success in London’s schools, colleges, councils, universities and other learning settings and the way in which London as a city has come together to harness the potential of young people’s learning. From the London Challenge to world class education and learning institutions to Tech City – London has led the way in how modern cities approach education and learning for the 21st Century. The event shared the rich diversity of the capital in its approach to education and learning.

The event was kindly supported by City Year London and the London Leadership Strategy. Photos of the event are available here.

BBC politics video : Tackling the shortage of primary places

Participants

Participants gathered from across London and beyond – from council leaders, directors of children’s services, school organisation and capital officers, designers, technologists and policy makers – with a challenge methodology created by the Education Foundation – to start to find innovative solutions to this major problem. We are now looking to work with schools and councils to develop and ‘prototype’ some of the solutions that emerge, and then to share this learning with local authorities and policy makers across the UK.

The list of attendees was as follows – the session was chaired and facilitated by Ty Goddard, Co-founder of the Education Foundation:

• Cllr Steve Reed, Executive Member for Children and Young People, London Councils
• Jason Lever, Senior Policy Officer, Greater London Authority
• Wendy Michael, Head of School Admissions, Triborough Authorities
• Fiona Dixon, Project Manager (Architectural & Technical), LB Camden
• Cllr Andrew Harper, Cabinet Member for Education, Children and Families, LB Barnet
• Linzi Roberts-Egan, Director of Children and Young People Services, LB Newham
• Alison Cunningham, Adviser for School Organisation, Norfolk County Council
• Joy Hollister, Director of Community & Children’s Services, City of London
• Martin Wilcox, Education Planning Officer, LB Southwark
• Cllr Brian Gate, Portfolio Holder Children, Schools and Colleges, LB Harrow
• Calvin Coughlan, Capital & Asset Management Manager, LB Tower Hamlets
• Tom Procter, Service Manager Contacts and School Organisation, LB Merton
• Manjit Bains, Team Leader, School Place Planning, LB Redbridge
• John Farry, Commissioner for Capital & School Places, LB Havering
• Lester Lorzillus, Partner, EWA Architects
• Jennifer Duxbury, Head of Admissions and School Organisation, LB Haringey
• Mike Pocock, Divisional Director, Education Estates & Capital Projects, LB Lambeth
• Nick Mirchandani, Director, Architecture PLB
• Michal Cohen, Principal, Walters and Cohen
• Caroline Mayes, Partner, Stride Treglown Architects
• Angus Kaye and Marc Bird, Directors, Kinnarps UK

The event was kindly supported by Kinnarps UK, who have had experience of tackling the school places issue in the UK and Sweden.

Media coverage

@_AnnaDavis from the Evening Standard posted a preview article today about the event here where @Ty_Goddard says:

The capital’s growing population is an “enormous challenge. It is one of the rare times that education experts, councillors, council officers, designers and others will get together to pool ideas. We have to go beyond putting more temporary buildings in playgrounds

Further media coverage of some of the solutions identified from the event can be found in the media section of our website.