Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:58 pm on 2 November 2016.
Thank you, Nick. As I said to Adam Price, if the Member—. Or, indeed, the offer has been made to the teaching profession: if they have ideas of how we can make the school categorisation system more robust, for instance in the field of value added, and how can we put that into the system, then I am happy to look at it and, as I’ve said, I will not be afraid to change it. I think it is an important tool of accountability that we do look and we do name the level of support that an individual school needs. I will make no excuse; even where schools have a small number of children on free school meals, that school needs to deliver for all of its pupils. I will be relentless in my focus on ensuring that our poorest children have the best educational opportunities, even if that means there are just one or two of them in a particular school. Their life chances are as important as anybody else’s.