According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, since 2012-13, the proportion of children in large families who are in poverty has increased substantially from 33 per cent to 47 per cent.

So I was relieved that the theme of child and family poverty was front and centre of a discussion I was part of this week at the House of Commons. The focus was on closing the attainment gap to level up the country, and the panel - convened by the Education Policy Institute and Teach First - looked at which economic levers we need the government to pull to support children and families in the context of inflation at 9 per cent. 

Education was obviously part of the conversation. But unfortunately, what got the headlines was not how the sector is tackling the well-known fact that children growing up in poor families emerge from our schools with substantially lower levels of educational attainment.

Instead, unfortunate and erroneous remarks of one of the panellists, Lord Jim O’Neill, chair of the Northern Powerhouse, were widely communicated. 

Northern England and MATs

Lord O’Neill said: “Some of the best MATs would not dream of going anywhere in the North, because it’s too hot.”

Let me be clear - as a panellist, I immediately intervened and corrected this remark by pointing out that some of our strongest trusts are based in the North of England.

Just as an example, the work that Dixons Academies Trust does in Bradford, and now in Manchester and Liverpool, is exceptional.

The mission of Dixons Academies Trust is in fact to  “work to improve the future for thousands of children in the parts of the North of England where young lives are adversely affected by social and educational disadvantage.”

In fact, there are so many brilliant trusts in the North of England that there are too many to namecheck.

Some of the great, larger sponsor trusts - Northern Education Trust, Delta Academies Trust, Outwood Grange Academies Trust, Cumbria Education Trust, Star Academies and WISE Academies to name but a few (and I would significantly exceed the word count if I listed them all) - have turned around schools that have never been good in the history of state education, or have run or have set up schools in communities which for years have been short of high-quality provision.

The North Shore Academy, part of Northern Education Trust, is a case in point. Another example of a great trust, the Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust, exists “because we believe that every child has only one chance at a good education”.

And the North East Learning Trust Teaching School Hub is one of 87 centres of excellence across England that provide high-quality training and development to other schools and trusts.

Education in the North

These trusts, and so many others I have not mentioned, including smaller trusts, put great schools at the heart of their communities.

It is particularly curious that Lord O’Neill does not know about the work of the brilliant trusts in the North of England given his role in chairing the Northern Powerhouse and the fact that the chief executive of Dixons Academies Trust, Sir Nick Weller, undertook an independent review and wrote a report entitled A Northern Powerhouse schools strategy in 2016.

Of course, Lord O’Neill may have been referring to well-known trusts in the South of England. But even that is inaccurate - United Learning and the Academies Enterprise Trust, for example, both have schools in the North of England. Or there is Ormiston Academies Trust, which leads schools across the country, from Sussex and the Isle of Wight up to Runcorn and Grimsby.

Again, these are just examples - there are many more.

I think it a great shame that someone who holds such an important position in public life could make a statement that is so ill-informed and not in any way supported by the evidence.

I would like to extend a public invitation to Lord O’Neill and indeed to the Northern Powerhouse to visit some of the great Northern trusts, and work with them to build a powerful education strategy in the North of England.

I’d like to conclude with the words of the absolutely brilliant Farihah Alam, deputy headteacher of Buile Hill Academy in Salford (part of Consilium Academies), who was also a panellist.

She quoted a letter from one of her Year 10 pupils, Ethan: “Kids from the North are far more disadvantaged than kids from the South in my opinion. In the South, people are given a lot more support for the problems they face.”

Running schools is a difficult and hugely important job, wherever in the country they are. Our education leaders and teachers do an outstanding job and consistently rise to the challenge whether they work in the South or North, East or West, or in multiple regions.

The issue that now faces the government, organisations like the Northern Powerhouse and indeed us all, is to address and resolve disadvantage and poverty - and the stark regional differences in these. It is incumbent on us all to work together to achieve this and to credit, and learn from, those individuals and organisations already doing so.

Leora Cruddas CBE is CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts