Today (Friday 8th October), Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, will address members at the association's Annual Policy Conference in London.

In his speech he will say that the government’s rhetoric on education must be backed up by action, and that the government’s goals for education recovery must be more ambitious:

“Whilst I am encouraged by the language of levelling up, the language that no child should be left behind, and the language of just how important education is, I am continually left disappointed that the rhetoric is not backed up by action.

“There has been intense debate about ‘education recovery’ in recent months: what form it should take, what pupils have missed out on, and what it will cost. What worries me about this is how narrow that discussion sounds. ‘Recovery’ implies a return to what we had before, which is simply not good enough.

“The world has changed and will continue to change at a startling pace. The UK increasingly stands alone in the world. Our goal as a nation must be to equip young people with the skills to navigate what is in front of them. Those who want to govern us must be bold enough to propose something truly ambitious and world-beating.”

He will welcome the new Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi (who will be speaking at conference on Saturday), and will say that the profession stands ready to work with him, but they must be listened to:

“The profession stands ready to work with new Secretary of State for Education. It would not be right for us to hold him personally responsible for the mistakes of the past. We are all keen to hear his vision for the future.

“But please don’t exhaust what is left of our goodwill by making that engagement nothing more than window dressing. The mistakes and U-turns that characterised the last year and a half almost always came down to a lack of proper consultation with the profession. Only by genuinely working together can we achieve much needed change.

“NAHT and school leaders throughout the UK stand ready to take responsibility for the work that needs to be done to help pupils move past the pandemic. All we ask is for the government to match our ambition with investment.”

Mr Whiteman will also praise school leaders for the vital role they have played during the pandemic:

“I won't quickly forget, nor will I fail to remind those in power, of the false and damaging narrative some of them used. Some sought to paint a picture of lazy teachers and lazy school leaders in the middle of the pandemic. When actually you, and your colleagues, were working as hard as anybody else in the frontline.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the intense work of schools during the last eighteen months has shielded many young people from the worst effects of the pandemic. The people who used those words should be ashamed. Let us hope that under new management the DfE will be able to persuade the rest of government that the future success of these nations rests on the shoulders of education.”