Education matters – what you do matters. It changes lives.

"I am delighted to be here with you today, to celebrate this special day, as we launch the National Leaders of Education conference now delivered by our National Institute of Teaching.

In the National Institute of Teaching, we want to ensure that from now, across this country, we have a truly school-led system that will impact on the life chances of millions of children.

I am delighted that two years ago when we started as four CEOs working in partnership together between the founding MATs of Harris, Star, Outward Grange and Oasis Community Learning, we dreamed about and planned a new organisation that would be truly school-led.

Now two years on, supported by the DfE, we are flanked by numerous MATs across the country with world class specialist partners and together all focused on the high-quality golden thread of learning and development, creating great teacher development and research. The pinnacle of this learning and development being the NLE programme where each you will be playing such a significant impact.

So for me, personally as a founding CEO and now a trustee of the National Institute of Teaching, it is particularly exciting to be here today with all of you.

But it is also truly humbling to stand here and speak to you today about system leadership. Some of you will be sitting in the audience as brand new, newly-appointed system leaders who have yet to experience the role of an NLE and eager for your first assignment, others in the audience will be established NLEs with vast experience of what it really means to enable and support schools to progress at pace regardless of their starting points or obstacles.

Those two words of enabling and support are words I want to return to later in this address.

But first let’s explore why each and every one are here today and why you have become an NLE?

We all have a story of why we are here. For me as an educator and system leader, it is personal.

We all have a past, and a history, and I want to share with you mine and why I am passionate about what we do as system leaders.

One of my first memories was being in the reception class in a Catholic primary school, and before going for lunch one day, I was called up in front of class. The teacher pointed to the board and she said "John Murphy what is that?"

I froze on the spot, and I hadn’t got a clue. She said ‘well you better know by the time you come back from lunch’. When I returned from lunch, she never asked me. What she was pointed to was a capital H.

The children whispered the wrong answers to get me into trouble

As a child, I struggled to read. By the age of seven, the gap was widening and widening. So, I was sent on a bus each afternoon to a special reading centre. The other children in my class made fun of me for going on the bus, and called it unkind names. The centre didn’t really help me and I continued to struggle in class. The children whispered me the wrong answers to get me into trouble. Sometime I just tried to hide in class from the teacher’s attention.

At the age of 10, when I was in Year 6, in fact on Silver Jubilee Day for those of you who are old enough to remember it, my eldest sister Catherine was tragically killed in car accident and my family were frozen in grief for a very long time.

I went on to fail the 11-plus (when all my five brothers and sisters had all passed) and I felt trapped in my failing secondary comprehensive school, struggling in the bottom sets. Not a single teacher ever asked me or talked to me about my sister’s death.

Nobody seemed to see me struggling.

I went on to fail all my O-Levels and was sent down a year and it was finally my one of my sisters who made a difference for me – teaching me to read, tutoring me and supporting me as I re-sat the whole of year 11.

I have always felt behind, stupid and not good enough

So, I have always felt behind, stupid and not good enough. What has driven me to be successful is an unhealthy desire to prove myself. I have been driven, but never felt that sense of satisfaction that anything is good enough.

So, four years ago I did some work on myself and understood my past and how it is has affected me. Now I feel a greater sense of peace accepting the past and now understanding who I am and what it means for me to be happy.

So, the story of my life hopefully demonstrates to you why I am so committed now as CEO to the life chances of our children, because I don’t want any child to feel like I felt.

I have had seven headships in primary, secondary, all through and special schools with boys with emotional behaviour needs. These schools have been in the most challenging circumstances. I have been committed to turning around the life chances of our children and so no child is left behind.

This is why I feel in this country we need to build a school-led system with an intentional vision where we build the character, skills and cultural capital of all of our children, so they can stand tall in society. I have been one of those children. So, I want every one of our children to be able to read, to feel at ease in class, to be well supported and know their own self-worth.

I wonder how this resonates with your own personal story. Our life stories inform us all why are here doing what we are doing...

Education matters – what you do matters. It changes lives.

So, for every school that you enable, and support just remember the difference that you as system leaders make for every child and for their life stories.

For us I believe it calls into question what is the purpose of education? What is a great education?

Why are we doing the job we are doing?

Some believe that education is about passing on the best that has been thought and said. A knowledge-rich curriculum.

Others believe that education is about creating young people who are ready for the world of work. Do our young people have the skills?

Some believe that education is about social action and justice and creating freedom for people.

And there is a final camp of people who believe that education is really the development of human potential. I wonder what you think?

For me I am in that final camp – where I believe it is about holistically developing our human potential and I believe that education is about bringing about a better society.

So, as you take on your role as a system leader let me return to those two words enabling and support as I believe they are central to the success of your role.

I think everyone in this room would agree that the focus of school improvement​ should be on:

• The life chances of every student
• Establishing a vision of how education transforms people AND communities
• Levelling up to ensure that all pupils have access to the best teaching, not just some

So why are you here today as systems leaders?

You have vast experience of school leadership: you are best placed to make that difference.

Why are you as school leaders best placed to support others?​

• You know what it’s like​
• You know what works in certain contexts and can describe ingredients and decisions​
• You understand the pitfalls​
• You understand the importance of context and marrying that with the best insights from research​

We know schools, we are schools

At the heart of what we are trying to achieve in the NIoT is school-led.

Our programmes, including this one, will demonstrate this to ensure we harness the best insights from leaders and their schools which is married with the best research. From this we will form and develop the programmes so that the aspects they cover are directly implementable in schools in concrete ways.

We know schools, we are schools and therefore we are building programmes that recognize the wisdom in our schools and the challenges that they face.​

So, to my final thoughts:

Fundamental is that your role enables and supports schools and occupies that space that Jim Collins codified as level five servant leader. A servant leader is always a system leader.

Thank you for all you are going to do. Be brave, be passionate, make change and bring your expertise to bear but also not solely implanting what worked in one context but in the difference, you will bring to every school and most importantly to every precious child.