Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 2:21 pm on 2 November 2016.
Can I thank you, David? You’re absolutely right. Leadership, in all its forms, from the head of an individual institution to the middle-tier management to the individual subject leaders within the school—leadership at all levels in our schools is absolutely crucial, and that’s why we will set up the leadership academy—details of which I will announce later on this month.
We have to have high expectations of our children. I’m afraid, in the past, we’ve written too many children off. We have let their postcode or the size of their parents’ bank account be a determinant of what we expect of those children. That’s why this Government prioritises spending on children from our poorer backgrounds, via the pupil deprivation grant, and our Seren programme is designed to ensure that our highest performers, regardless of their background, have the help and support that they need to make applications and be successful in obtaining places at Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group universities, and the Seren programme is delivering great success for us.