At the Fed150 event celebrating 150 years of state education the discussion starts with former education secretaries Kenneth Baker, Ed Balls and Estelle Morris.

Mr Baker says the biggest failure of state education has been the failure to establish technical schools. #lookingbackmovingforward

Estelle Morris says the biggest challenge for education secretaries is finding the right levers. #lookingbackmovingforward

Estelle Morris says the system has clung too much to accountability measures and education secretaries have been nervous about changing this . #lookingbackmovingforward

Lord Baker says the system needs to train the hand as well as the head and describes Progress 8 as a "Balfour curriculum" and warns young people are not learning to work in teams, problem solve, or fix things. #lookingbackmovingforward

Baroness Morris says she saw a system that went beyond healthy competition between schools to a situation where they were hiding good practice from each other. #lookingbackmovingforward

Mr Balls says the only way to affect major change is to have plans which have a consensus of support across parties. He says he couldn't achieve this with his successor Michael Gove. Mr Balls says if things change every five years it is a disaster. #lookingbackmovingforward

The @FED_150 event is now hearing from former education secretaries Justine Greening, David Blunkett, Gillian Shephard and Charles Clarke will be focusing on why social mobility seems so hard to achieve. #lookingbackmovingforward

Justine Greening talks about the impact of the Opportunity Areas she launched and highlights how in Scarborough teacher recruitment improved and in Bradford there has been an impact on literacy. #lookingbackmovingforward

David Blunkett says the Surestart programme concentrating on a holistic approach supporting the family as well as the child. He says if he could have his time again as education secretary he would focus more on families. #lookingbackmovingforward

Gillian Shephard says in government the education secretary job is not seen as important as home secretary or health. She says it is difficult to persuade a cabinet of the simple truth that education is key. #lookingbackmovingforward

Gillian Shephard says education secretaries cannot be in 25,000 classrooms and should recognise the importance of teachers in the challenge of social mobility #lookingbackmovingforward