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What an incredible day yesterday was… we’re still reeling from all the knowledge, insight, laughter, and, to be honest, all the love! The Annual Summit really does so well to prove why we have the best (yes the best) school community in the country.

Prove us wrong. Spoiler alert: You can’t.

To have 500 Head Teachers, Deputy Heads, CEOs and more all under one roof, connecting and sharing, and interacting, really was quite spectacular. Another huge ‘thank you’ to everybody who took the time out of their busy, busy schedules to be there and help us mark this incredible occasion.

Such a special event of this magnitude is quite hard to summarise in only a few hundred words, but we’ll do our best! Here are a few of our highlights.

A fireside chat with the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan MP

It was an honour to have the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan MP, join us at this year’s Schools North East Summit for an informal chat where we were able to ask her key questions around education in the North East.

Questions from the audience were sent via Slido and were flying in at a rapid speed from the moment she took her seat! It’s just a shame we only got 30 minutes of her time and not 30 days, but hey, we’re grateful nonetheless.

Colin Lofthouse, Chair of Schools North East, led the discussion and asked crucial questions such as:

• How in touch is the education department around what the situation is in the North East?
• How are other services helping school leaders to solve all the problems we’re facing?
• Are you satisfied with the level of funding within schools?

Gillian had some insight to share with the audience, and was incredibly complimentary about the teachers we have in our region. Gillian said: “I want a culture that supports teachers; I think our teachers are doing a fantastic job. You do not have a school without teachers.”

We all know how serious the disadvantage gap is in the North East, and that a solution could solve so many of the critical issues we face on a daily basis. When Colin bought this up, Gillian stated that closing the gap is “the number one goal.”

As many of us will agree, often the (infuriating) answer to all the challenges and problems our schools face is: “The school leaders will sort it out.” But how are other services helping us with that, particularly healthcare?

Colin put this question to Gillian, who responded by saying she’s aware of the situation and is talking to healthcare professionals about it. She said she believes early diagnosis of issues within children is key, and that they’re looking at better ways to help this happen faster.

Additionally, to help support pupils and school leaders, Gillian says the department is training up around 600 additional education psychologists and 7,000 more SENCOs.

Overall, the fireside chat between Colin and Gillian Keegan MP was pleasant, cosy, informative, and certainly touched on several pressing matters.

The Children’s Commissioner‘s Address – Dame Rachel de Souza

How fortunate we were to have Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, travel all the way up to the glorious North East to be with us yesterday.

At 12:00 in the main room, Rachel spoke openly and passionately about the power of schools and how big of an impact they have on children. That’s why, she said, we must start to “obsess over attendance.”

Half a million children and teenagers responded to her latest survey, The Big Ask, and the importance of school on a personal level was confirmed by all. Schools give them the chance to fulfil their ambitions, relationships, and learning.

Some key takeaways were that these children are bright and inspirational (we already knew that); they want to be outside and to be playing, they want to get away from the post-pandemic digital life and they want fulfilling careers.

Rachel highlighted that being in school will help them achieve all of those fundamental things, so why is it that today’s statistics show that hundreds of thousands of children continue to be regularly absent from school?

“Instead of ‘eat out to help out’, we should have had‘play out to get back’ [to pre-pandemic life],” Rachel said in her speech.

There was a lot to unpack in this address, and certainly many of us have been left with a reaffirmed understanding that yes, schools need to be striving to achieve 100 percent attendance (tell us something we don’t know!) but that they need support to achieve that.

Rachel assured the audience that she recognises the challenges and that she recognises reasons for absences are complex – such as the pandemic, special educational needs, and lack of mental health provision.

Following that, she said this is why she’s devising local solutions, such as by inviting senior colleagues (from the education and healthcare sectors, for example) to a roundtable to interrogate the reasons and work together to find a remedy.

A very insightful talk – thanks again for taking the time to address the #SNESummit23, Rachel de Souza!

Keynote speakers

In addition to Gillian Keegan MP and Rachel de Souza, we also had the pleasure of welcoming Professor Stephen Gorard (Education & Public Policy & Director of the Evidence Centre for Education, Durham University) and Professor Steve Peters (Consultant Psychiatrist, Bestselling Author & CEO Chimp Management).

Stephen Gorard

Stephen Gorard kicked off the proceedings and was our first keynote speaker of the day at 09:05.

He began by referencing articles that highlighted GCSE results and the north-south divide – something we often and passionately talk about at Schools North East. Following that, together we looked at NPD explanatory variables for modelling KS4 outcomes: attainment, pupil characteristics, school, and home.

Stephen Gorard’s explanations were incredibly perceptive, and the choice to marry his statements with clear graphs gave the audience visual perspective, which enabled better understanding.

He highlighted several ways we could improve schools within the North East, including recalibrating pupil premium funding so more money goes to long-term disadvantaged schools.

Steve Peters

At 14:15, Steve Peters joined us on stage to explore the topic of: “You are Great North School Leaders: What is Resilience and How do we Achieve it?”

It was an hour very well spent!  Steve Peters had so much incredible knowledge to share with us all in the most interactive way, with sprinkles of humour to keep the audience fully engaged.

Using his Chimp Management Mind Model, he explained how the mind is structured and how it functions, and his speech challenged us to consider our own approach to managing our psychological health.

There were countless takeaways from this session, but a particular highlight included:

Children aren’t naughty… it’s their machine. Don’t tell them they’re naughty as it’s pointless; they have no way of dealing with this part of themselves. Instead, we must use emotional language to help them understand what we’re saying when they’re in “chimp mode”.

This session was definitely a highlight of the Schools North East Annual Summit, and we thank Steve Peters for his invaluable time yesterday. I mean, traffic lights?! If you know you know, and if you don’t, then you should have been there…

Panel debate

Following Stephen Gorard in the morning, the audience were treated to a panel debate that explored: What Needs to Change in the Education System to Support our Great Schools?

John Roberts from Tes chaired this session with panellists Nick Hurn OBE, Professor Stephen Gorard, Professor Arlene Holmes-Henderson, and Jo Heaton OBE.

The four experts started by discussing what they think the three main priorities are within North East schools, before John Roberts began taking questions from the audience via Slido.

When asked “How do we sustain and look after our school leaders?” Jo Heaton said we must listen, act upon, and connect. She stated we must develop people so that they feel heard and supported. We absolutely agree with that statement!

Another question included “How do we tackle retention?” and Arelene referenced the implementation of incentives, such as wiping out a teacher’s student loan once they’ve hit a certain year in the profession, or giving teachers the option to take sabbatical leave.

These are incentives that have already proven to work in other countries, so this really isn’t a bad shout at all.

Additional sessions

If the keynote speakers weren’t enough to keep our 500 attendees happy, we also had five additional sessions to look forward to throughout the day.

In the Barracks Suite, Sam Strickland (Principal, The Duston School & CEO, The Duston Educational Trust) held a 40 minute session on “Behaviour: The Key Ingredient To Making Great Schools”.  The discussion highlighted behaviour within the post-pandemic world and the strategies teachers need to implement to make the classroom a better place.

Over in the Heroes Club, Professor Arlene Holmes-Henderson MBE (Durham University) explored Great North Curriculum: Changing the Game to Close the Gap. We could listen to Arlene talk all day! In the session, she explored new research evidence which indicates that classics not only enriches the curriculum, but actually helps disadvantaged students close the attainment gap.

She also shared some feedback she received from children who had studied latin. Our personal favourite was: “Gladiators are awesome.” Yes, they are indeed!

For 40 minutes in the Moncur Suite, Graeme Duncan (CEO of Right to Succeed), Steff O’Keeffe (Interim Programme Director of Right to Succeed) and Felicity Salisbury (Deputy Head Teacher of Our Lady & St Edward’s Catholic Primary) investigated the topic of Community-led Change in Education and how their organisation approaches creating these systems and culture change. A very hot topic right now.

After a well earned lunch break (the fish finger sandwiches were a personal highlight) we were treated to another panel discussion with Chair Nick Hurn OBE and Panellists Nick Blackburn, Debi Bailey, and Christina Jones. Nick Hurn began by delivering a short presentation on his experience of parental support and standards, before opening the topic up to other school leaders.

At the same time, over in the Moncur Suite, Professor Greta Defeyter (Director of the Healthy Living Lab, Northumbria University) delved into Free School Meals: Impact, Policy and Future Directions. The talk briefly summarised the current policies for free school meals in English state schools, as well as the benefits of auto-enrolment for free school meals, the timing of breakfast, school dinners, and the teaching of key subject lessons.

The overall atmosphere

Naturally, the main point of the Summit is to share indispensable knowledge with our community – knowledge that will help attendees to grow as professionals, improve their performance at work, and remind themselves of why they picked this wonderful career path in the first place.

But… of course we’d have a few additional treats along the way!

Let’s start with the 70 exhibitors we had lining the walls of the Barracks Suite. It was a sea of bright colours, interactive displays, and smiling faces. Thank you so much to everyone who exhibited – we hope you had a wonderful day sharing your expertise and services with our brilliant community.

To make things even more interesting, delegates were handed exhibition bingo cards to give them the chance to win some exciting prizes along the way. Congratulations to the winners:

• Elaine Boardman – Kenton Bar Primary School
• Caroline Reed – Rossmere Academy
• Christine Brentnall – Cleves Cross Primary

We’re already looking forward to next year…

Overall, it really was a spectacular day and we’re so proud of our team for putting the event together and working tirelessly from start to finish to ensure everything ran as smoothly as possible.

The day wasn’t without its challenges! For example, Storm Bebet made travelling conditions a nightmare for many people, including the Secretary of State, who was stuck on a train just outside of Newcastle for thirty minutes and therefore late for her session.

However, the team regrouped and adapted to put an alternative plan in place and make the best of a less-than-ideal situation. None of that hard work has gone unnoticed!

We’d also like to give another huge thank you to our main event sponsor, The Edwin Group and our Media Partner, Tes.

To say that the Summit 2023 was a success is an understatement. Here’s to the next one!