Beyond Rhetoric: Why the North East Needs More Than the RISE Vision
When the Education Secretary spoke at the South West RISE attainment conference this week, she offered an ambitious message: a schools system that “works for each and every child”, one that breaks the link between background and success and places belonging at the heart of national renewal.
It is a message that will resonate with every teacher and leader in the North East. But it is also one that risks missing the deeper truth: in regions like ours, the challenges are not just in schools, they are in the systems that surround them.
A welcome vision — but not yet a solution
The Secretary’s call for inclusion and belonging, especially for children with SEND and from white working-class backgrounds, is deeply welcome. But warm words alone cannot bridge the structural divide between the North East and areas like London.
For decades, our schools have delivered excellence against the odds; yet they operate within local systems hollowed out by poverty, service gaps, and underinvestment. Attendance, attainment, and aspiration are not isolated school problems; they are the visible symptoms of missing infrastructure, stretched services, and fragile communities.
Without the right foundations — health, transport, early years, family support, and skilled employment — education policy will continue to run uphill. That is why Schools North East has consistently argued for system-anchored localism: reform that recognises that whole cohorts, not just individual schools, need coordinated investment and support.
The structural gap: from rhetoric to reality
In London, concentrated resources, dense networks of professionals, and sustained regeneration have driven long-term improvement. In the North East, too many areas still face fragmented services and economic precarity. The Education Secretary’s speech rightly champions schools as drivers of renewal, but without systemic action from government, the load remains too heavy for schools to bear alone.
To close the attainment gap, we need targeted national investment, devolved regional policy, and the rebuilding of the local ecosystems around schools, from early years through to post-16 and beyond.
RISE, reform, and the road ahead: the Summit conversation
These are the very questions that will take centre stage at this year’s Schools North East Summit 2025, taking place on Thursday 16 October at St James’ Park, Newcastle.
Across the day, national and regional leaders will unpack the realities behind the Education Secretary’s RISE vision:
- Lee Owston (Ofsted) will explore how inclusion and inspection reform can drive improvement for all.
- Sam Freedman, author of Failed State, will ask whether Westminster’s machinery can truly deliver the transformation the Secretary described.
- Jean Gross CBE and Andy Cook (Centre for Social Justice) will delve into the deep-rooted challenges facing white working-class pupils, and how we rebuild belonging and aspiration.
- Dan Fitzpatrick, Professor Toby Greany, and Baroness Estelle Morris will look ahead to leadership, innovation, and the next chapter of education reform.
Join the movement: Rebooting Education for the North East
The Education Secretary is right that “the road to national renewal runs through our schools.” But for the North East, that road must first be rebuilt, with investment, collaboration, and trust.
This year’s Summit will bring together hundreds of Head Teachers, CEOs, policymakers, and researchers to shape that future; to move beyond rhetoric and toward the systemic change our region needs.
Real reform starts here.
Join us at the Schools North East Summit 2025: Rebooting Education – The Future of Our Region is in School.
10 spaces remain – book now.