We’ll move on to item 4 on our agenda, which is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development education review and recommendations. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Kirsty Williams.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. On becoming education Secretary, I was clear that we needed to raise standards, reduce the attainment gap and deliver an education system that is a source of national pride and confidence. I remain committed to these goals and we are making progress. That is reinforced by the time I have taken in recent months to better appreciate what is happening across the country by listening to the profession, meeting our school leaders and speaking to pupils and parents.

Our reforms are also guided by international evidence and best practice. To be the best, we must learn from the best, and that is why I invited the OECD, an organisation respected around the world, to provide an independent assessment of where we are on our reform journey. The report, published today, is an extremely useful contribution to our discussions here in Wales. It sets out where Wales has acted on the OECD’s 2014 recommendations and where we have seen successes, and identifies areas of challenge that remain.

As a report card for education, I think I can sum up the feedback as, ‘Good progress made, on the right path, but there is still plenty more improvement to make.’ The OECD’s key finding is that our approach to school improvement has moved

‘from a piecemeal and short-term policy orientation towards one that is guided by a long-term vision and characterised by a process of co-construction with key stakeholders.’

This is welcome and shows the progress that we are making. Where we can point to success, it should be a matter of recognising collective effort and energy, both here with previous Ministers, with the valuable work of former education committees at the Assembly and the scrutiny of Assembly Members, but most importantly of all within and across our schools.

However, as the OECD says, our performance has been mixed and we have seen other small, innovative nations move way ahead of us, but that gives me the conviction that there is no reason why we can’t move forward in our reform journey, using our size as an advantage in ensuring coherence, confidence and a truly national commitment to reform. I am, therefore, pleased that the report highlights the excellent work that is being done, noting the pivotal role that pioneer schools are taking and also the good progress being made with the development of the digital competence framework.

The OECD has signified that it feels that the profession has moved from reform fatigue to a shared long-term vision and a strong feeling of readiness. I share that optimism, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I have seen it at first hand in the schools that I visit, including one in your own constituency. That said, I cannot, we cannot, the system cannot and we will not rest on our laurels. The disappointing PISA scores show us that there is still a long way to go. Everybody in our system must understand that PISA allows us to judge ourselves against the world. And that has never been more important than it is now and for the uncertain years ahead.

We must continue to develop a high-quality teaching profession and that is the strong message coming from the OECD. They have endorsed our approach to reforming initial teacher education and our emphasis on professional learning across all career stages. But they have urged us to speed up the development of our leadership standards and I agree. Historically, we have not placed enough value on this crucial aspect of raising standards in our schools. Since taking office, it has been clear to me that leadership is an area that demands significant and urgent development. Since the OECD visited in November, work is gathering pace on leadership with the establishment of the national academy of educational leadership and I can assure this Chamber, the profession and parents, that leadership development will be a prime driver of our education strategy. Now, more than ever, Wales needs strong leaders that are up for the challenge.

The OECD also encourages us to continue the process of co-constructing policies with key stakeholders and I am persuaded that this approach is the right one. Shared goals and shared ambitions will ultimately take us a long way on our reform journey. A strong message is that we need to clearly communicate our reforms. Urging coherence across our initiatives and policies is a common theme throughout the report. And I agree that we can be smarter and clearer in how we demonstrate how different policies relate to one another and contribute to developing our learners in the way that we want.

Reforming our education system, indeed, reforming any system, can be complex but we must also gain from the simplicities of effective action: improved professional learning, reformed teacher training, new assessments, high leadership expectations and increased school-to-school working. Our job now is to continue our national mission of education reform, driving up standards and helping every learner in Wales, whatever their background, to fulfil their potential. I will continue at greater pace where needed, and I will, of course, consider the OECD’s advice and recommendations in greater detail over the coming months. Llywydd, just this morning, I and Andreas Schleicher spoke to a conference of nearly every secondary headteacher in Wales, and I know that in that conference, and in classrooms across our nation, we have the courage and confidence to deliver for all of our learners and to strengthen our future as an economy and a society. Thank you.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement this afternoon and, indeed, the advance copy of the OECD’s report yesterday, which I believe was shared with all of the political parties? I think what’s very clear, having read the report, is that not everything was as rosy as the picture that was painted back in December, when the Cabinet Secretary wrote to the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee suggesting that the OECD was somehow vindicating her policy position, because it’s very clear that there is a sense of déjà vu effectively in the report because there are some things being said that are consistent with the things that were being said by a chorus of voices, including the OECD back in 2014, about a lack of clear leadership, about the need to raise the status of the profession, about the need to invest more in the quality of and access to continuing professional development, for example. I think that it is very concerning really that we are hearing these messages again so many years after they had been repeated in other reports.

That said, I think there are some very positive things as well that can be gleaned from the report and you’ve touched on a few of them in your statement. Some of the ones that you didn’t touch on, of course, related to a national funding formula, which was something that the OECD have said might be something that could be potentially taken forward. Both the Cabinet Secretary and I know that there’s significant variability from one local authority to the next in terms of the amount per head that’s spent on schooling and pupils. That is something that cannot be justified in terms of the investment that we need to make in our children and young people, and I would specifically ask the Cabinet Secretary what her initial assessment of that particular recommendation is about the need for a national funding formula.

I think also that I want to put on record a very warm welcome for the suggestion that we need to link evidence to policy. The Cabinet Secretary will know that I’ve expressed some concern about the lack of evidence that there is for the Cabinet Secretary’s aim to get early years class sizes down to 25, given the tens of millions of pounds that could be invested elsewhere in the education system to get a better bang for our buck. And I wonder, Cabinet Secretary, whether you will revisit your position on class sizes as a result of the comment in the OECD’s report that we need to have a clear link between evidence and education policy. Can you also tell us how that particular recommendation might help to shape the Reid review of higher education research that is ongoing? Because there’s no doubt that our higher education institutions can have a part to play in developing policy recommendations linked to the research that they do to put forward to both the National Assembly and the Welsh Government.

I also want to put on record our welcome for the OECD’s proposal to reduce the administrative burden on school leaders, in order to free them up to concentrate on raising standards in the teaching profession and supporting their colleagues. We know that it can be a significant distraction—the administrative duties that many headteachers face—and I think it is a very positive recommendation and suggestion that there needs to be investment in more business managers across the board in the Welsh education system. But I do wonder, Cabinet Secretary, what consideration you have given to how achievable that might be, given the fact that we’ve got a lot of small schools in Wales, and whether you think that the regional education consortia or, indeed, collaborative arrangements between smaller schools, might be a way forward in terms of giving the opportunity to invest in business management, in order that headteachers can focus on their educational leadership.

One of the things that is concerning in the report is that the OECD found that there was a lack of clear communication with the sector and with key stakeholders about how the education journey is going to proceed. The Cabinet Secretary will know from some of the evidence that the Children, Young People and Education Committee has received from people in the profession, and from other stakeholders, that there does appear to have been a bit of wooliness over how the new curriculum is going to be shaped, and whether the cart is being put before the horse in terms of not really understanding what the assessment framework is going to look like in the future. And I wonder what your response might be to the assertion from the OECD that we don’t have a clear narrative about the journey, and how you envisage being able to bring some shared ambitions and goals to the fore.

Are you coming to an end?

I’ve just got a few more—

No, no, not a few more; one more, please, because you’ve had nearly as much time as the Minister has had in bringing the statement to the floor.

I appreciate that, Deputy Presiding—

And it is a statement, and it should be just a few opening comments.

I wish you’d have been here in the previous statement, Deputy Presiding Officer, so we could have had some—

I wasn’t; that’s how I operate.

I appreciate that, and at least you’re consistent with these things, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Well, yes, so hurry up—get on with it.

If I may then, with one further question, and I’ll try and make it as broad a question as I possibly can. Can you tell us in addition then, Cabinet Secretary, how you intend to address the concern that the OECD have highlighted about the lack of focus on more able and talented pupils? One thing that I note that the Welsh Government is taking some considerable action on is needing to support those children with additional leaning needs. That’s something that, of course, this party is very supportive of. But the OECD have highlighted, and it’s alluded to in this report as well, that more able and talented pupils aren’t perhaps being stretched as much as they could to reach their potential, and I wonder if you could give us some information on how you hope that you can benefit those learners in the future. Thank you.

Can I thank Darren for his comments and questions? I’m glad that he used the early opportunity that he had to read the report yesterday to good effect. If I could go through them, when I got up in response to the PISA results in December, I never pretended for one moment that everything in the garden was rosy. I reflected—[Interruption.] And I reflected on the quotes that were given that day in the initial feedback that the OECD provided to us in terms of this report. If I thought that everything was fine then I wouldn’t have asked the OECD to come back. I wanted an honest, independent of Government, assessment of where we are. What the report says is that we are making some progress. And let’s be absolutely clear that it does that, because I think we need to be fair to the profession and acknowledge the efforts that the profession has made. In terms of professional learning and teaching, they say that

‘Wales deserves recognition for making so much progress in developing and implementing’ change in that area. It talks about the fact that we are stand-out, internationally, with regard to the work that we have done on digital technology and the digital competence framework. But the report is also absolutely clear that there is a huge amount of work still to be done, and I don’t shy away from that at all.

With regard to business management, you’re right, the report talks about the bureaucratic burden that we place on our headteachers, and I recognise that. It’s something that I hear consistently from them. The primary focus of a headteacher in schools should be on the teaching and learning that goes on in that establishment. Things that detract from that impact negatively on their ability to do it. Whether that’s the headteacher I met recently who spends a great deal of time struggling just simply to open the school in the morning because the school is in such a bad state of repair, or that headteacher who struggles to engage in other services—whether that be social services or CAMHS—to get the services they need for their children, that’s detracting from teaching and learning, as well as the bureaucracy around running a school. Business managers, I do believe, have a significant role to play and you are right that the benefit that that has can be particularly impactful in small and rural schools, where many of our headteachers would have a large teaching responsibility, in the primary sector, especially. You will be aware that in April of this year local authorities will have access to a small and rural schools grant, and the guidance that will go with those resources will specifically give business managers as an example of what we would expect local authorities to be spending this money on. A business manager supporting a network, a group of small, rural primary schools, can take that burden off that headteacher so that they can concentrate on teaching and learning. But, of course, that shouldn’t be restricted to rural schools. There is a case to be made, and indeed it has been for a number of years, on the value of business managers, or, in old-fashioned terms, the bursar-type role within schools.

With regard to research, one of the things that has been identified in a number of previous reports is the need to engage in high-quality research. That’s why, in reforming their initial teacher education provision, we would expect university programmes to have a high level of engagement with research, and we will be running, later on in March, a workshop led by the OECD that will bring together the profession and world-renowned experts to develop some of the pedagogical approaches that we will need to implement the new curriculum. So, that’s just one example of how we’re trying to bring that international research and knowledge into the system in Wales.

The Member talks about resources, financial resources. Let me be absolutely clear: I believe that there is a role for local democracy and locally elected individuals making decisions about the resources that are needed to deliver local services, but I also want as much money as I can get into the front line of services. For instance, that’s why PDG is passported straight to schools. I will give consideration to all aspects of the recommendations here, but, at this stage, I have not seen more evidence that a national funding formula is the right approach. What’s really important is, when the OECD talk about resources, they do so, yes, in monetary terms—because, obviously, that’s very necessary—but they also talk about deploying our human resources in a smarter and a better way.

Are we confident that not only are we spending our £91 million next year on PDG, but we are getting our very best teachers into the toughest schools? Are we getting our very best school leaders into our schools in the communities that need the most help? This isn’t just about financial resources; it’s about the smarter use of deployed resources. And I have to say, Darren, decisions to cut school budgets across the border that you will be aware of are impactful on the ability of us here to spend money, because we get a Barnett share of money that’s spent on education, and if the Government across the border cuts money to schools, which it will do next year to the tune of £3 billion, then that has an impact on our ability to respond. But that should never be an excuse for not taking forward action, and that was my clear message today. It does mean that we need to be smarter in how we deploy our money, and we need to make the right choices.

I would refer you, with regard to the class sizes, to the OECD’s report in 2016, just last year, that said that those students in smaller classes reported consistently that their teachers were able to differentiate their teaching to allow them to respond to those individual needs at a much higher level than those classes that had more students. This morning, in the conference, Andreas Schleicher talked about and highlighted, as a country that we should emulate, that we should want to be like, Ontario—a region, not a country; it’s not a country on its own. A bilingual education system, teaching children in French and in English, some significant challenges with regard to the nature of the children who are in that system—Ontario was held up as an example to me this morning, and Ontario has had a long-standing class reduction policy in that nation, which that Government has implemented.

More able and talented: you’re absolutely right. If PISA tells us anything, it is that our children at the more able and talented end are not performing as well as they could. Our lesser performing children are now up to the OECD average; we have worked very hard and we’ve brought those children up, but we have not stretched the most able and talented. You’ll be aware of our Seren programme, and that is having some effect. I’m interested in learning the lessons to bring that further down the school age group, because, post 16, it’s too late; we need to be able to move that down. I’ll be giving further consideration and making further announcements of how we can focus on the more able and talented, and part of that is around our accountability regime.

In a way, our focus on level 2 plus, which—I understand why that decision was taken and it was probably the right decision to take at the time where we found ourselves, but the unintended consequence of that has been to focus on students getting Ds to Cs, and we’ve seen an improvement in that, but we have not seen a subsequent improvement in students who are getting Cs getting Bs, students who are getting Bs getting As, and A students getting A*s. And that’s a result of the accountability measures that previous administrations put in place. It’s a product of that system; it is now time to reflect on that and have an accountability regime that does not lead to those kinds of unintended consequences. I think that covers just about everything.

Thank you very much. Simon Thomas.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m very pleased to return to education and the OECD in the unavoidable absence of my colleague, Llyr Gruffydd, and I’d like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement. Can I say, first of all, that Plaid Cymru, at least since the initial OECD report and ‘Qualified for Life’, has taken a broadly supportive view of this path that has been set out for Welsh education, particularly focusing on leadership and strengthening leadership amongst our educational leaders, and a focus, as well, on evidence and on what works and away from constant new initiatives? In that regard, the report from the OECD confirms that that part of the journey has been undertaken by this Government so far.

I have to say, however, I would be interested to have heard the Cabinet Secretary when she was still on the other side of the Chamber responding to this statement, which was rather thin on the ground in terms of actions that would arise from this report and outcomes, particularly firmer outcomes. I think I have five areas that I’d like to ask her particular questions on as regard to how we might see those outcomes.

To begin with, the resources that the Cabinet Secretary is likely to put behind this process: back in November, she told the education committee in the budget scrutiny that the OECD findings would influence her final decisions about how the £20 million to be allocated for raising standards in 2017-18 would be allocated. Yet, today, the statement does not actually set out how she intends to allocate that £20 million. I think the time since last November—. I would have hoped that, by now, we’d understand better where that £20 million is going to be used and in what way.

She’s already returned and talked about class sizes, so I won’t say too much about that, other than to say that I take from her statement that she still intends to spend £6 million on something that has limited evidence behind it. The 2016 OECD report that she just called in evidence did not refer to nursery classes and the beginners’ classes that her actual policy addresses. But if she’s determined to go ahead with that then I certainly want to understand where the £20 million that she’s already talked about will be spent.

The second area I think we’d like to look at is around the leadership in general, and this is the one where the Welsh education sector has been weakest over many years and has not had the focus from Welsh Government, either, that it now has, and quite rightly so. There are a couple of aspects around this, around how we might strengthen leadership, that I’d like to understand. It’s still not clear to me—and this is not an OECD matter, this is more a Welsh Government matter—where the Government sees leadership really being driven forward. Of course, from the top, by the Cabinet Secretary—but then also is it the consortia or the schools or the pioneer schools that will be doing much of this work? There is still an unanswered question, both in the OECD report and in the statement from the Cabinet Secretary today, about what exactly are consortia doing now in driving leadership forward, and whether they are still relevant to the journey that she has supported in her statement today. So, consistency of leadership, but also in what way the consortia themselves—as the OECD report suggests that they should be also investing and raising their own capacity for leadership, I’d like to understand what specific things the Secretary will be looking for from consortia to ensure that happens.

That relates to, in my view, the national academy for educational leadership, which the Cabinet Secretary mentioned in her statement. What she didn’t say in the statement, and what I’d like to know, is when she expects now the first of the leaders to come out of this academy. She says that she’s going to accelerate the development of it. Can we expect, therefore, in September this year that we will see people actually, if you like, graduating from that—[Interruption.] Yes, it’s not started yet, I know, but we want to see something, and I’d like to see a date from the Secretary, which wasn’t in the statement, about how we might see this bedding on the ground and people coming out of the academy and working hard in that way to be the leaders and be seen to be the leaders as well, which I think is quite important in that regard.

It was a key Plaid Cymru pledge in our manifesto for the Assembly elections that we would introduce specialist business managers, as, indeed, has been confirmed in the OECD report, particularly for rural schools in a cluster format or federated format. Though she did reply to Darren Millar’s point on this, I’d appreciate a little more detail about how she might actually encourage that process. Again, maybe it’s the consortia that could be doing some of this, rather than schools themselves voluntarily coming together. But it’s a key thing that takes that burden away and allows headteachers to really teach and lead in the teaching standards.

The final point I wanted to make was, though I very much welcome the OECD’s initial work on Welsh education in 2014 and welcome this stock-take report, if you like, now—and I put on record that I regard Andreas Schleicher as a friend of Welsh education and somebody who’s helped us all understand a lot more of what we need to do in the field of education in Wales—I do wonder whether it’s possibly the next time, in a year or two, that you look at the progress, that you would commission a completely independent evaluator to look at this. Because we’ve had the OECD suggest the journey we need to take, then the OECD say whether the Welsh Government has been on the journey that the OECD wanted us to take. Though I have a great deal of respect, and I think the OECD is to be valued for its high-quality work and its thorough independence in itself, I think it would be good for everyone, including the teaching profession themselves, if we saw that, the next time the Cabinet Secretary commissioned a stock take of her approach and her success and her Government’s success on this matter, that’s done by a completely independent evaluator.

Can I thank Simon Thomas for his comments and questions, and for stepping into the breach for his colleague, who I’m sure would have wanted to be here in any other—you know, unavoidably not here today? Could I start with the issue of leadership? On coming into office, it was clear to me that one of the stand-out recommendations of the 2014 report that had not been actioned was the issue around leadership. I have tried to address that in moves that we have made with regard to the academy. The shadow board is chaired by Ann Keane, someone I think has universal respect, outside of politics and in the service itself. The board is working very hard and has had a number of meetings already, and my expectation would be that we would be able to see people enrolling on training programmes and support programmes co-ordinated by the academy in September of this year. That’s my expectation, and that’s what the shadow board is working towards.

In the first instance, leadership will focus on, indeed, current school leaders, because I think that is where our priority needs to be at present. But it is my ambition that the academy will look at leadership in all its forms in the education system. So, not just existing heads, but taking a very proactive role in how we can identify talent within the education sector and proactively support the careers of those individuals to bring on a new generation of school leaders. But we also need to improve leadership capacity within our LEAs, which has been problematical, and we do need, indeed, to look at leadership within the consortia and, indeed, within Welsh Government in terms of the department that shapes policy here. So, ultimately, I would like the academy to be working on leadership programmes for all aspects of education, but we will start with the most important at this stage, which is heads, in September 2017.

The Member asks about the role of consortia. What is interesting to read is how actually the consortia have stepped up to the plate in the absence of a national strategy around leadership, and I would commend them for doing that. They have recognised the need to do something, and they have sought themselves—. It says in the report—you can read it within the report—that because of a lack of a national strategy, the consortia themselves have tried to address this. What’s important now is that we do that on a strategic level across the country, so it doesn’t matter where you happen to be, which consortia you happen to be in—that there is a national strategic and planned approach to leadership.

With regard to how we can develop the consortia, you’ll also be aware that the report talks about the possibilities of extending the responsibilities of consortia, especially in the field of ALN, and you will know that this coincides with the recommendations and consultation that is out from my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for local government in this regard. It is something that we ourselves had anticipated without seeing the report, so it’s pleasing to know that there is some synergy of ideas in moving forward. But we do need the consortia to perform better, especially with regard to concerns arising out of the Estyn reports into consortia, especially in the north of Wales—in the GwE consortium, they’re currently out to advert for a new chief executive. I’ve had some very robust meetings with all of the consortia, in our challenge and review meetings, about the need for them themselves to improve their own capacity and learn from one another. There is no reason why they need to reinvent the wheel. They need to look at the strengths of the models that exist, and look to incorporate that work into their own work.

On the £20 million, I haven’t got the list of programmes that will be supported by the £20 million in the forthcoming year, but I have discussed it with Llyr on a number of occasions, and I’m happy to share it with the Member or, indeed, put something in the library if that would be useful to all Members. But our resources are centred around the issues of supporting our reform of initial teacher training, so that we will have a new set of professionals coming forward that will have the skills that they need to succeed, looking at the continuing professional development of existing staff, as well as looking at raising standards in schools.

I do intend to continue to look at the issue of class sizes. It’s one that has particular resonance for parents and for professionals. We recognise the need for high levels of teacher and adult ratios to children. We do that in our foundation phase, and I want to see if we can continue to ensure that teachers have the time that they need to teach and to give the individual attention to children. And there was a time that the Member himself advocated such a policy. It formed part of the coalition document between Plaid and Labour when the Member was a special adviser during that administration. We didn’t see much progress, but I’m willing to give it another go.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. I’m pleased that the Cabinet Secretary has picked up the OECD’s point about leadership, and I agree with her that leadership is an area that demands significant and urgent development. However, the Cabinet Secretary hasn’t mentioned in her statement the other recommendations made by the OECD, which calls for further policy attention in areas including: moving towards a needs-based school funding formula; development of a new assessment and evaluation framework for teachers; and a national approach to identifying and celebrating good practices in schools. I acknowledge that reforms to teacher training, CPD and the curriculum are currently under way, but I would be grateful if the Cabinet Secretary would clarify which of the OECD’s other recommendations will be implemented. I do sincerely hope that the Cabinet Secretary’s proposals and reforms have their desired effect, although, obviously, the proof of that will be in the attainment levels of students educated under the reformed system. Thank you.

Can I thank Michelle for her questions? As I said in my opening statement, I received this report on Friday, it’s been made available to opposition spokespersons yesterday, and to Assembly Members this morning. I will need time to reflect on the recommendations before announcing detailed responses. But, as I’ve said in answers to previous questions, I agree with much of the analysis on leadership—we need to do more, and we need to quicken the pace.

Michelle has raised a point that nobody else has touched on, and it’s something that the OECD has talked to me a lot about, and that is about good practice, and celebrating good practice. The OECD—again, Andreas Schleicher said it this morning: Wales is particularly bad at celebrating when things go right. Maybe it’s a national characteristic of ours. We are particularly good about saying when things go wrong, but we are very, very bad about holding up success and celebrating that success. I suppose many of us grew up, like I did, with my dad saying, ‘Self-praise is no recommendation, Kirsty’. So I think maybe it’s a national characteristic, but we’re hoping to change that.

This year, we will hold, for the first time ever, Wales-specific teaching excellence awards, to celebrate those who have done extraordinarily well. Estyn, for the first time this year, will hold an event for all of those schools that are judged to be excellent in the last annual review of inspection regimes. And we are developing new ways in which we can spread that good practice. One of the things that I have instigated in my meetings with Estyn is that I want to see a report each time on what are the elements that have led to those ‘excellent’ inspections, and how are we spreading that good practice—something that hasn’t been done before.

There is much to be celebrated, but there is much more work to do. But we should recognise when things go well—we should recognise that.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.