Schools' reviewer addresses WEA meeting

A STRONG philosophy and core values are the key to successful schools, the man who headed two reviews into primary and secondary education following the GCSE failure has said.

Denis Mulkerrin, pictured, was speaking at the Workers' Education Association's annual general meeting last night.

The former teacher, who gained a national reputation for turning around failing schools in the UK, said the first thing a school needed to be successful was to have a strong philosophy about what it wanted to achieve – and that came from the head.

'For me, my philosophy is essentially high standards, high expectations and traditional values,' he said.

'I believe schools first and foremost have to be places where children are happy, where children want to be, places children are made to feel safe and essentially schools have to be happy caring places.'