Thank you, Presiding Officer. We have had a full week since the PISA results were published, but that doesn’t make them any easier to digest. I’ll underline what I said last Tuesday. The results are bitterly disappointing; they are simply not good enough. We are not yet where any of us—parents, policymakers, teachers and pupils—would want to be. As I said, again, last Tuesday, nothing that anybody can say in the Chamber today can make me feel personally any more disappointed with those results.

It’s perfectly natural to demand immediate changes following disappointing results such as the ones that we have had. I get that. I understand that. But I also know that it is the very last thing that pupils, parents and teachers need right now. I know that because, Mr McEvoy, I do indeed spend a great deal of my time talking to front-line teachers, headteachers, support staff, parents and governors. What they do need is someone to make the tough, but right, decisions. They need a Government that is strong enough to continue with and prioritise the reforms that will turn things around.

The OECD’s PISA tests are respected around the world, and rightly so, regardless of what some may say in some other Chambers. Therefore, what must also be respected is the OECD’s analysis. Their 2014 report shone a spotlight on Wales’s system. It revealed our strengths, but it also didn’t pull any punches when it came to our weaknesses. Since that time, that report has guided Government reforms and has supported my identification of priorities, such as leadership. When taking the role as Cabinet Secretary, I invited them back to cast their independent analysis on my and our priorities and progress. That, Darren, is exactly the type of ‘pause and reflect’ that I think that you have talked about this afternoon. Their message to me was clear: we are on the right track and we must stick to our ambitious plans. I will heed that advice.

I appreciate the comments that people have made about the fact that that report is not, at the moment, available. I expect to receive the full findings of the OECD’s report in February, and I will, of course, make that public—