Speaking at the Westminster Policy Forum for Northern Ireland this morning, on next steps for the education system in NI and priorities for the Independent Review of Education, Dr Graham Gault, Director of NAHT(NI), said:

“How we, as a system, support our schools and the workers who deliver learning, teaching and safeguarding is essential to the delivery of our ambitions for the future of education.

“Our schools are much more than assessment institutions, than factories of facts and information, than feeders of industry and economy; our schools are, and must be embraced as, places of love and care for our young.”

To that end, Dr Gault outlined four priorities: basic funding streams for schools; effective systems of governance that provide appropriate challenge, accountability and support; credible leadership pathways, training and development; and an operational system that provides quick, accurate, credible and consistent support.