This is the opening speech I delivered at Leading Learners Conference on 17th January:

Good morning everyone. I have to say it’s quite a relief just for a change that a conference for learners isn’t being organised by NUS, even though it has been organised by an ex- President of NUS.

What I don’t want to do today is bang on about the latest NUS Campaign or NUS’ policy on things. I want to talk about the role I have had and the role I think you can have in education.

I’m really pleased and proud to be here today. It feels like years ago but it was actually only 18 months ago that I was doing my A-levels. If I’m being honest I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about starting there, I felt a bit like I’d been coaxed into it by my parents and eventually pushed into it by my school. I spent my first few months going from one class to the next and occasionally sitting in the overcrowded common room with my mates. The college was by no means perfect, and whilst I felt like my tutors occasionally wanted to know what I thought about my subjects, it frustrated me that no one really seemed to want to know about how they could be delivered better or what would improve my learning… despite all the boasting in the college prospectus about ‘learners being what the college was there for’.

And there was one moment that tipped me over the edge.

I’ve always been useless with numbers and I had to re-do GCSE maths when I got to college. It was during one of these painful lessons when my lecturer announced that from that point onwards he would no longer be teaching us and we would be working out of a text book with a supply teacher in the run up to our exam. It wasn’t just the thought of failing and doing another year of pie charts and Pythagoras, it was the complete lack of consultation and consideration that made me snap.

People always say that students are apathetic because we all sit around and complain about things we don’t know how to change. But it’s not true- we all sit about discussing our tutors, the facilities , the surroundings. That’s not apathy, that’s anger, and I was lucky enough to see an opportunity in my students’ union, to do something about my situation.

I ended up getting elected as Student President and Student Governor. And as soon as that happened lecturers started coming up to me and asking me about not just my experience, but the experience of other people around me and it felt like I was beginning to be listened to. I was being treated and valued differently and in the way that I knew every other learner in my college wanted to be treated. I knew from that point onwards that my role was going to be about helping my tutors to understand that being centred around learners isn’t just about an end of year questionnaire when you’ve already finished your course, but really seeking and understanding experiences and opinions even though they might sometimes be difficult or uncomfortable. I also realised it was about understanding their positions and their pressures and that in fact people aren’t just out to get learners, we just need to help them to understand our perspective. We need to understand the material they need to teach us and they need to understand what we need to learn it. They work when you work.

There was one bit of my new role that I didn’t understand from the start, being a student governor. So I got a bit of a shock when I turned up to my first corporation meeting in cut offs and flip flops and walked in to a room of white, middle class men in suits, with a huge stack of papers and an agenda that was supposed to be about strategy but was actually just about numbers, which as I’ve mentioned I’m not a fan of. But there was one part of that first meeting when through all the jargon I could vaguely understand what they were talking about, so I had to swallow hard and say my bit. And the more I started talking the more they started listening, because they realised that a strategy will only be successful if it works at an operational level. If any of you are a student governor, you are the only people that can test their strategy on the ground. The key thing you can do is give governors the opportunity to stop number crunching and naval gazing and talk about education and learning. You need to understand the strategic level they need to work at and they need you to judge if it will happen at an operational level. They work when you work.

As President the more I spoke to people from NUS and worked with other student leaders, the more I wanted my students’ union to be about representation and creating change rather than just parties and red nose day. So I worked successfully with my Principal to get some money to run campaigns and a proper course reps system. Most Principals aren’t out to get us; they just need to understand why it’s important and valuable and ultimately what the benefits are. You need to understand their pressures and requirements and they need to know how what they do feels to us on the ground. They work when you work.

I should say at this point that whilst I’ve said a couple of times now that not everyone in our institutions are out to make our lives difficult, I want to say something about the power you have when they do something that does.

As my time in office was drawing to a close, my college was going through a controversial merger with another college about half an hour down the road. As a result of this they were proposing to scrap a popular fine arts course which the students on the course were up in arms about. I organised a meeting with my Principal, to explain why we thought it was wrong, what the affect would be and exactly what we could do to kick up a fuss about it and to cut a long story short, the course was allowed to continue. That’s the point at which I knew that as a student leader I could initiate and resist change. That’s the point at which we ceased to be the Head and a learner, but Principal and President. It’s the point at which you and all the learners you represent should have the confidence and the opportunity to reach.

I was really inspired to try and seize every opportunity I could to make a difference for learners, so I stood to be Vice President Further Education of NUS. After a difficult, frenzied and sleepless few day at NUS conference I was literally thrust in to challenging meetings with agencies, Ministers and civil servants. From what I’ve heard what my predecessors at NUS did was shout from the sidelines about not very much and little if anything was heard. So I decided I needed to do again what I’d had to do at my college. I decided to listen to what the issues were for people like you on the ground, look at and learn past and present policies on further education, get my head around the jargon and understand the roles of different agencies and organisations and out of that pick my battles, build positive relationships, make my case strongly, concisely and calmly, and sometimes take a few risks. I needed to understand the purpose and remit of the agencies delivering for colleges and college leaders and they needed to know how or if their programmes and actions made any difference to the experience of learners.

And you know, even though they talk jargon and policy, some of them are actually interested in the way in which their strategic policy actually translates for us on the ground. Yes even the minister in the Government was prepared to listen calmly to our views and that’s why there’s now a bill going through parliament with a whole chapter on learner voice. Even at national level, it’s not easy but it is simple. To make that happen, we need to get our head around what it all means and they need to listen to our perspective. They work when we work.

If there’s one thing that you won’t hear from me today, it’s that you as learners are customers. And there are two reasons for that. The first is that being a customer means that if you don’t like your service you can go somewhere else. If you don’t like your burger in McDonalds you can go to Burger King. If you aren’t happy with your mobile phone from Vodaphone you can switch to Orange. But it’s not like that in education. Your not customers in education because the stakes are too high. If it goes wrong for us that’s a year out of our lives, and for too many people it’s much more than that, which is why education has to mean more that a company to client or business to customer set up.

But the most important reason that students aren’t customers is this. Today will only work if you listen to the policy and knowledge your going to be given and make sure that you use every and any opportunity to question, stick your hand up, butt in, debate and challenge what you hear on behalf of every learner that you represent, because as learners we are not customers, we are co-producers.

You don’t just demand 3000 plumbers and they appear out of thin air.

Providers can’t treat learners as blank sheets of paper waiting to be written on. You and your provider produce your outcomes together. They only work when you work. Your colleges, your providers, your employers, the Department for Education and Skills and Bill Rammell only work because we work.

Education only works because we work. That’s why it’s vital that we influence, understand and shape what is produced, from the classroom to the cabinet room, from the photocopied handout you’ll get in your lesson tomorrow to the Further Education and Training Bill that’s going through Parliament.

Education only works because we work.

I hope you have a fantastic day.

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