NEW Education Secretary Damian Hinds offered an olive branch to teachers at the weekend in his first major speech since being appointed.

Speaking at the Association of School and College Leaders’ annual conference in Birmingham, he pledged to cut teachers’ hours and workloads by stripping away pointless tasks in a bid to tackling a looming crisis in teacher retention and recruitment.

Adding that until 2022 there would be no further changes to the curriculum, tests or exams beyond those already announced, he said: “We need to get back to the essence of successful teaching and give teachers the time and the space to focus on what actually matters.”

These words will be music to the ears of hard-pressed teachers, but unless he comes up with a more specific explanation of the “non-teaching tasks” he expects them to drop to ease the load, little will change.

Schools are slaves to tests, scores, progress markers, and Ofsted.

Teachers are under crushing pressure to get their pupils up to pre-set levels of attainment, and face the threat of Ofsted or academisation if they fail.

Staff spend as much time ticking boxes and analysing spreadsheets as educating the children.

If this is the kind of bureaucracy Mr Hinds intends to put an end to, then he will have a chance of stopping the exodus of teachers from the profession.

Allowing teachers to actually teach – what a revolutionary idea.