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.