Item 4 on our agenda is the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education on educational leadership, and I call on Kirsty Williams to introduce the statement.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. When reflecting on the many excellent schools that I have had the privilege to visit over the last year, it is clear to me that each benefits from high-quality leadership. Our challenge, as noted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, is to ensure a whole-system approach to leadership, and to make it a prime driver of our education reforms. To succeed, every school needs inspirational leaders, and I believe the establishment of our national academy for educational leadership is an important step forward. Set alongside new professional standards, reforming initial teacher education and curriculum reform, it is part of a coherent and collaborative approach to leadership development.

Since announcing the establishment of the shadow academy board last November, I have been greatly encouraged by the progress that has been made in a short space of time. The shadow board, led by Ann Keane, have proven themselves to be professional, enthusiastic and committed to this task. To be the best, Deputy Presiding Officer, we must learn from the best, and, therefore, I am pleased that they have considered international examples of leadership development, from some of the best-performing education systems in the world, such as Canada, Singapore and New Zealand. And they are clear: we must build on international evidence to form a made-in-Wales approach. The board have made a number of recommendations around defining the vision, the values and the function of the academy, along with governance and its organisational structure.

In focusing on the leadership of learning, supporting the four purposes of our new curriculum, the academy has set out a vision to be: inclusive and collaborative, enabling equitable access to opportunities, owned by the sector, and central to developing a culture-led collaborative leadership; inspiring and motivational, promoting great leadership development now and for the future, linking coherently to the national reform agenda; capacity building, enabling leadership to thrive, and empowering leaders, and ensuring our future supply of leaders; and having quality and impact, making clear the role of leadership, and the difference this makes for our system, and underpinning that with research and a strong evidence base.

The board has reached a unanimous consensus that the academy should be a company limited by guarantee. This would enable a flexible governance structure, which can better accommodate sector representation, would have a legal form favoured by the Charity Commission, and could employ staff in its own name. I have therefore instructed officials to start scoping the timescale and resources needed to establish the academy, in spring 2018, as a company limited by guarantee. I expect this to be a small and agile organisation, with a small strategic board, and led by a chief executive. We will continue to consult on the full role and remit of the academy, and test the timescales for next steps. There will be a series of regional roadshows next month, and I would encourage stakeholders to attend and learn more, and to give their feedback.

It is my intention, based on the advice of the shadow board, that the academy will broker and quality assure a range of programmes, have a role in ensuring provision across regions, support leadership at all levels, and work with others to identify and support current and future leaders. I have said many times in this Chamber, and outside, that the quality of our education system cannot exceed the quality of our teachers. Over the next five years, we are committed to developing a national approach to career-long professional learning that builds capacity from initial teacher education and is embedded in evidence-based research within a self-improving school system.

My vision for professional learning is one where actively engaging in professional learning is a primary responsibility of every individual, and its purpose is to develop individual and collective expertise to raise standards for all of our learners. That impact will be seen in the embedding of the four curriculum purposes into the learning and experience of all our learners. We will do this through approaches that are collaborative, coherent and innovative, as well as research led.

The proposed new professional teaching standards will bring together standards for teaching and leadership to reflect better career pathways from entry into the profession and onwards and in a way that provides clarity of expectations. This includes both those who choose to focus solely on their classroom practice and those who choose to move into more formal leadership roles, up to and including headship. These proposed standards are based on five areas of practice: pedagogy, collaboration, innovation, professional learning and leadership. The proposed new standards will have leadership as one of the five areas of practice for all teachers. The importance of effective leadership at all levels is essential if we want to improve the quality of teaching and improve learner outcomes.

Progress has also been made in respect of current provision. In relation to headship, we have worked with consortia and we have enhanced the national professional qualification for headship. A current cohort of practitioners is going through this programme and I will seek their views on what further improvements we will need to make. While I recognise that in some areas recruiting headteachers is not without issue, I am not prepared to compromise on the quality of entrants to headship in Wales. I believe we need to set the bar high for those we entrust with the leadership of our schools. So, whilst I recognise that the NPQH needs to develop, I am clear that we should maintain the requirement and keep it as a threshold for entry into headship.

We have also been improving a range of leadership programmes for heads and middle leaders to ensure that we have an enhanced and coherent offer across Wales. From September 2017, we will have a range of common programmes, and, again, I will update the Chamber at a later date.

The establishment of a national academy of educational leadership, alongside new professional leadership standards aligned to professional teaching standards, will ensure that leaders at all levels are well supported to develop and inspire colleagues and to work collaboratively to embed the new curriculum. Taken together, these reforms will drive forward our national mission to raise standards, reduce the attainment gap and ensure an education system that is a source of national pride and national confidence.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for giving us sight of this statement before she made it in the Chamber this afternoon? The Cabinet Secretary will be aware that the national academy for leadership was something that we very much supported when she announced it in November last year. If there is any criticism, it’s about the pace, really, of delivering against that announcement, because, of course, you’ve alluded today to the fact that this thing won’t actually be in place until the spring of 2018. That doesn’t sound like the sort of pace that we need in order to address some of the real challenges that we’ve got in delivering high-quality leadership in the Welsh education system.

Just yesterday, we heard some of your senior officials telling an Assembly committee that some leaders in Welsh schools were guilty of gaming the examinations system—not allowing young people, potentially, to reach those higher grades and trying to bank lower grades. I think that epitomises a system, really, that isn’t allowing everybody to fulfil their potential. I know you’ve got some concerns about that, and I’d be grateful if you could, perhaps, comment on that in response to everything I’ve got to say.

Of course, we’ve got some excellent leadership. You’ve referred to the fact that you’ve visited many schools already and seen that leadership—I’ve got some excellent leadership in my own constituency. Then, of course, there are examples of poor leadership across Wales as well. One thing you didn’t refer to in your statement was trying to port some of the good leadership that we’ve got in our university and further education sectors into our schools, and whether there might be some role for the national leadership academy in helping to facilitate that. I know, again, we’ve had some exchanges on this in the past, but our further education colleges in particular, I think, show how you can run pretty significant large organisations that have already got a certain amount of collaboration with our secondary schools, and there’s no reason—I can’t see any reason—why some of that leadership ought not to be rubbing off, particularly onto our secondary schools. Of course, as well, we’ve got some very good collaboration now in terms of federal models—federations of schools—around Wales. But I wonder whether clustering schools together with strong leadership is another potential way forward and whether, again, the national leadership academy will be able to have some input into that.

I note that you said that the shadow board and the academy will be brokering and quality assuring a range of programmes in the future. I just wonder how that sits in terms of the existing arrangements. Obviously, we’ve got the Education Workforce Council, we’ve got Estyn and others, all with an interest in this field. It would seem to me that there needs to be some sort of collaborative approach.

You’ve mentioned the fact that we’re going to have a board, and you want it to be a small board, but there are obviously lots of stakeholders who will have an interest in making sure that that board works correctly. We’ve seen Welsh Government establishing boards in the past for things and it’s gone horribly wrong. RIFW springs to mind, for example. So, we obviously need to make sure that this board is of the right shape and size, but also that it can be held accountable for its actions, both to the Welsh Government and, indeed, to the National Assembly and the sector as a whole. So, how do you see those sorts of arrangements working to make sure that the governance of this new board is actually going to be right?

Can I also ask you, Cabinet Secretary, about how you’re going to measure success? Obviously, we see snapshots on an annual basis with the Estyn annual report of their take on performance across Wales. We see a snapshot every time there’s an inspection that is completed. We’ve seen snapshots with the OECD’s reports as well into the Welsh education system. But how are you actually practically going to measure the success of this academy? Is it going to be improved outcomes for pupils, for learners, or is it going to be the fact that people have attended courses? Because I can’t see anywhere in the statement today precisely how you’re going to be able to measure that.

You’ve mentioned some of the recruitment challenges that we’ve got, and I recognise those too, certainly in some parts of Wales. Welsh-medium schools, in particular, faced some challenges in recruiting new heads in the past, as have some of our specialist schools and our faith schools as well. So, I wonder whether you’re going to have a particular focus on some of that specialist provision where we’ve got these weaknesses in terms of being able to identify new heads, and how you expect this national academy to be able to plug some of those gaps. Thanks.

Can I thank Darren Millar for his in principle support for the academy and a strong focus on leadership? Members will be aware that lack of support for leadership was a key component of the OECD report into the state of Welsh education in 2014, and it’s an area where not a lot of progress has been made. So, like you, Darren, I’m very anxious that progress is made as quickly as possible and, as always, we’re trying to get the balance right between pace and ensuring that what we’re doing is of value and will succeed.

So, we’re certainly not sitting back and waiting for the spring of next year when we would expect the company to be up and running. That’s why I highlighted changes we’re already making, for instance, to the NPQH, which needed to be strengthened, in my view, and how we’ve been able to persuade the consortia to better work together to streamline their offer. One of the challenges in the past has been that the offer available for professional learning at all levels has been very dependent on which consortia you happen to be working in. From September of this year, we will have a more unified offer that provides equity for teachers right the way across our nation and will be of a similar standard regardless of where you are. So, we’re not sitting back waiting for the spring; we’re getting on and we’ll have new offers available from September of this year.

Darren raises the issue of early entry, which was the subject of much debate at yesterday’s Public Accounts Committee. You will be aware that I too have raised concerns both inside and outside this Chamber around the practice of early entry. Let me be clear—I welcome the opportunity to be clear once again: each decision about early entry into a formal examination should be done on the basis of what is right for that individual student, and I am concerned that that is not what is being done in some of our schools. There is evidence to suggest, anecdotally, that some students are entered early, bank their C grades, which works towards the school’s accountability measures, when really, given the opportunity to sit that exam again, or indeed sit that exam a year later, that child could have gone on to get a B or an A or an A*.

We are doing two things about this, Darren. One, we are having some qualitative research done with regard to the patterns of early entry, which is being done by Qualifications Wales; consortia have written to all schools to express my concern and to reinforce my approach to early entry; and I am committed to reviewing high-stakes accountability, which is often the driver for decisions that are being made regarding early entry. We have to have a smarter way of looking at whether a school is successful or not, and not one that has unintended consequences that potentially we are seeing here with regard to the use of early entry.

Darren, it’s a good point about FE and HE. There are already leadership programmes in place for both of those sectors. We have been remiss in the school sector about not having this provision earlier, and FE and HE have been part of the discussions. We look to work with them closely to see what lessons can be learnt. My ultimate vision for the academy is that the academy will provide leadership opportunities for everybody who is engaged in education in Wales—from our nursery sector, from our school sector, FE sector, HE sector, regional consortia, local education authorities and, dare I say it, even the education department of Welsh Government as well. If our education system is to be a success, we need leaders at all levels, and nobody is immune from being able to engage in professional learning that will make them better at that job, and that goes for my department also.

Federation does provide an opportunity to address some of the challenges of leadership and recruitment and retention, and that is being increasingly used across the sector. It is a particular issue potentially in rural schools, where being able to recruit headteachers to small, isolated rural schools can potentially be problematical, and therefore create a question mark over the future viability of the schools. Therefore, you’ll be aware of the introduction of the rural schools fund, which has particular guidance attached to it to look at supporting federation, both hard and soft.

With regard to the make-up of the board, I expect it to be small, and I expect it to be led by a chief executive and a chair that has all the auspices of public appointments. But to reassure you, both the Education Workforce Council and Estyn have been involved in the shadow board. EWC is a formal member of the shadow board and Estyn is an observer at the shadow board. So, we’re taking into consideration those people’s views as we develop the programme. What will success look like? Well, we haven’t got to that stage yet of actually having targets or success measures, but success will be improved outcomes for our learners and Wales being the place to pursue an educational career, whether that be as a schoolteacher or a school leader, because you will want to come here because you will be developed into your role, you will be supported in your role and you will be working in a successful education system.

May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement and echo her thanks to the shadow board for their work too?

You make reference in your statement that over the next five years you’re committed to developing a national approach for career-long professional development. I know you’ve made reference to this in the past, and this will be good news for those who have been providing evidence recently to the Children, Young People and Education Committee on CPD, who feel, perhaps, that the coherence and the co-ordinated package aren’t currently in place. But you do say, and I will pick up on the issue of timing, that that will happen over a period of five years, and whilst I accept that the creation of a new body, or the company limited by guarantee that you refer to, is going to take some time, are we ambitious enough in trying to reach the point that we are trying to reach in a period of five years? Perhaps you could respond to that point.

I would agree most strongly that we do need to improve career paths, as you say and that you acknowledge in your statement, but there is a dilemma, of course, because much of the evidence that we hear talks of teachers, and the best teachers, being promoted out of the classroom. Therefore, the challenge, I suppose, is striking that balance between ensuring that the best do have opportunities to move beyond the classroom in their careers, but also that we don’t lose the best teachers who become headteachers who don’t teach, or go to the consortia, or the local authority, or Estyn and so on and so forth. So, we need to ensure that that pipeline of talent is maintained. There is a risk, perhaps, that looking at this in isolation may be happening. I’m sure that isn’t the case, but I would like some assurances from the Cabinet Secretary that she is eager to strike that balance, but also I’d like to know how you are striking that balance between ensuring opportunities without necessarily losing the best talents from our classrooms.

You refer to the NPQH in your statement. I’ve raised some concerns about this provision in the past and the situation that did exist where there was a failure in actually accessing courses, where there were fewer places than there were vacant headship positions, and that wasn’t sustainable. I understand, as you say in your statement, that the situation has improved, but I would like to know, for example, whether the Welsh Government has looked at how many people have completed that qualification and have then gone on to take a headship. I would like some assurances that you have evaluated these courses as they currently exist, because the feedback I get from a number of teachers, and those who have completed this qualification, is that they haven’t necessarily learnt any new skills, but they are simply recording what they are currently doing. Now, I understand that there is some value in reflective learning, but I do feel that there is a perception among the profession that the NPQH doesn’t provide the best possible value for them in their career development. And if you want to retain the NPQH, as you say in your statement—and I have no problem with that, necessarily—then what I want to be sure of is that the NPQH is as meaningful and as valuable as possible, and has the best possible impact for the time investment of the sector and the individuals in terms of completing that particular qualification.

To conclude, and perhaps to play devil’s advocate—and I have broken the golden rule by using Google Translate to find the proper translation for ‘devil’s advocate’—but I could ask what the point is of creating better leaders if the burden on those leaders is actually stifling when it comes to carrying out that role. Because a major part of the challenge facing us in creating leaders is giving them the time to lead in an effective manner, but also giving them the time to learn how to lead properly in order to secure continuous improvement within the profession.

Now, I’m looking at the academy’s vision as you’ve outlined it, and the four bullet points: inclusive and collaborative; inspiring and motivating; building capacity; quality. Now, there’s nothing new there, if I can be honest about this, and I’m sure that you would acknowledge that. I accept that I’m taking it out of context—it would be good if we could see the whole of the work presented to you by the shadow board in terms of the recommendations and any work underpinning those. But if you’re if the profession, you’re a manager, you’re a teacher and you are also a learner in terms of CPD. You can be a SENCo; you can be part of a pioneer school and looking at the development of a new curriculum. Those are the main challenges or the main barriers to effective leadership: you simply don’t have the time to get to grips with that role. Almost 90 per cent fail to manage their workload within their working hours according to a recent survey by the EWC. So, there are some questions, I think, in terms of providing the time to deliver this agenda effectively, particularly, as you mentioned earlier, in smaller schools where you don’t have a team where you can delegate responsibilities to them. The agenda—you touched upon this in an earlier response—in terms of smaller schools, most often rural, and leadership go hand in hand. I would like to hear more as to how they overlap, too.

Thank you to Llyr for his questions. With regard to the professional learning offer, I simply don’t think that, in the past, we have been able to offer our teaching profession the professional learning opportunities that are truly useful to them. There’s a balance to be struck between a national approach, making sure that every teacher, regardless of where they are in Wales, has access to a suite of professional learning opportunities that reflect national priorities, whether that be around introducing the digital competence framework, for instance, or behaviour management, or new curriculum changes, but also recognising that, for each teacher, their own professional learning needs and expectations are going to be very different.

We have to move away from the old-fashioned professional learning that we’ve done in the past, where we require teachers to come, usually to Cardiff, and listen to a sage on a stage for the day and go back and simply do that in that school. That simply is not inspiring for professionals themselves, nor does it have an impact in the classroom. So, we have to ensure that there are national overarching professional learning opportunities, but also to be responsive to the individual needs of individual teachers. Professional learning can happen in lots and lots of ways, and our job is to ensure, as a national Government, that that is available to everybody, it’s properly funded, and what is available is of good quality.

Llyr, you’re absolutely right. One of the challenges that we’ve got is that, if you’ve got a bright, sparky young teacher, that person is whipped up through the ranks and often taken out of the classroom. It’s not true in all cases, but sometimes the professional qualities and talents you have that make you a fantastic classroom teacher aren’t necessarily the leadership qualities that are needed to run a school. So, we have to recognise and we have to provide career progression for those people who want to remain in the classroom. Their career opportunities and their earning potential shouldn’t be stifled because that’s where they excel. That’s where we need them to be, and, of course, the devolution of pay and conditions gives us a perfect opportunity to look at these things in the round.

The national professional qualification for headship, it does need to be—we do need to improve it and we’re in that process. We certainly take feedback from those people who have gone through. But there are two things that we do need to address: (1) why is it that, if somebody goes through the NPQH process, they then don’t go on to apply for a headship position? I know a very talented teacher in my own constituency and we had this very conversation. She said to me, ‘Are you kidding? I’ve seen what my headteacher has to do and I quite like my life, thank you very much’, which brings us on to the very real question that you talked about: workload. We often talk about workload for teachers, but workload for heads can often be extreme.

So, what we’re doing on workload for heads, we have got a piece of research going on at the moment where we’re actually looking at what headteachers spend their time doing and what we can do to alleviate some of that. I want my headteachers—our headteachers, sorry; that was very proprietorial of me, ‘my headteachers’—I want our headteachers to be concentrating on teaching and learning and curriculum development. I do not want to be worried like I was for one headteacher who spends most of her time worrying about how she’s going to get the doors open in the morning, because the school building that she’s working in is falling down around her ears. She should not be worrying about that; she should be worrying about teaching and learning. I don’t want the headteacher who I met recently spending time looking at how she can save an extra 10p on the paper order or the toilet roll order; she needs to be thinking about teaching and learning. We can delegate those tasks to other people. So, just like we could be looking at federation, we also need to be looking at business managers actually taking some of those tasks off headteachers and giving them to people who’ve got the skills to do that and the time to do that, so that headteachers can concentrate on what we want them to concentrate on, which is raising standards and providing great educational experiences for their young people.

The other issue is about having a benchmark for headship, and having some assurance about the qualifications and the readiness for headship, but let me be clear: what the academy will also be about is simply not getting somebody through an NPQH that they have quality assured; it’s also about creating the mentorship and the support that is ongoing. And one of the things we do do to new heads especially is, ‘Congratulations, here’s your new headship, off you go’, and we leave them alone. That is a terrifying prospect—a terrifying prospect—for those professionals. So, what the leadership academy is about is nurturing people’s careers throughout the entire journey and not simply saying, when you get to be the headteacher, 'That’s it, now you’re on your own, good luck with that’, but providing new mentoring and partnership arrangements, so supporting headteachers to do that.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. From my own experience in secondary schools, I know the importance of leadership in ensuring that our schools thrive, that the staff feel engaged and supported, and that pupils achieve the success that we want from them.

I have three short questions on your statement today. We all know about the pressures on school budgets. It’s not just about offering staff opportunities to train and develop, but also about ensuring there are sufficient resources in the system so staff may be released and training prioritised. How will you work with partners to ensure resources are sufficient so that staff can actually be released?

Secondly, I’d also like to know more about how the Cabinet Secretary will ensure the portability of this training and development, so that Welsh school leaders who have benefited can find their development recognised outside of Wales. I would hope school leaders in Wales would be recognised amongst the very best—how would the Welsh Government envisage wider recognition of this progressing?

Finally, the Cabinet Secretary mentions the excellent leadership she’d witnessed in Welsh schools, and I know we’re visiting Craig yr Hesg in Glyncoch together just next week to see one such example. How will the Welsh Government ensure that the brilliant practice taking place every day in Welsh schools is at the core of the new leadership offer?

Thank you, Vikki. One of the things that the OECD told us was (1) yes, we have to do more about leadership, but, secondly, we have to get better at recognising success and celebrating success. I think, sometimes, there’s something intrinsic in the Welsh psyche—if we were Americans, we’d be shouting from the rooftops, but there’s something intrinsic about us as Welsh people not to want to be boastful or to be too brash. That’s why we are looking at a number of ways in which we can, indeed, celebrate success and recognition. Most recently, we’ve launched the first ever Wales teaching awards, and a very uplifting experience it was too. We’re actively looking at Welsh Government scholarships for headteachers and educational professionals to gain the opportunity to study further, and have them held up as Welsh scholars. We’re looking at ways in which we can go on to enhance the reputation of training in Wales, but, ultimately, a lot of this will come down to the quality of our initial teacher education, and the provision by the academy. I want people to aspire to come to a Welsh institution to train to be a teacher, because they are the best institutions that deliver that training.

Time is a real issue, and constrictions in budgets do make time for professional learning a real challenge. That’s why we’ve got to be much more creative about how we provide professional learning opportunities not in the very old-fashioned way. There is so much to be gained simply by department-to-department working. One of the real challenges we’ve got in schools is not that that school is better than that school over there in another county; it’s actually in-school variation. We can have high-performing departments in one area and a low-performing department in another area. Actually getting the school itself to work together to raise standards internally is a potential professional learning opportunity that I would like to see happen more.

But this has to be taken as a whole package. The academy of leadership on its own will not succeed without our reforms to initial teacher education, without our professional standards. So, it’s very important that we look at all of this in the picture, and this is about, as I said, creating an education system that is a source of national pride, confidence, and holds the profession up to be the high-status profession we would all want it to be.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. If the academy’s responsible for brokering and quality-assuring leadership programmes, it’s obviously going to need to employ staff, I don’t dispute that, but the question I want to ask, though, is what size the academy is likely to be—how many people are likely to be on the board and how many employees will it need? How will the board of the academy be held to account for the performance of the academy? Will we wind up with a similar situation as with health boards, where, despite repeated failings, no-one on the health board appears to be held properly to account?

You also state that you are continuing to consult on the full role and remit of the academy. Can you give any indication as to when the academy’s full role and remit will be finalised and the details announced? My hope is that the academy will ensure that the provision of training is offered evenly across Wales, and I would ask you to confirm whether that will be the case. The Cabinet Secretary states that the Welsh Government has also been improving a range of leadership programmes for heads and middle leaders, but can the Cabinet Secretary please clarify whether the programmes brokered by the academy will replace or sit side by side with those already in existence? If it’s the latter, will the Cabinet Secretary please explain how the new programmes will be co-ordinated with existing ones? I support the Cabinet Secretary’s objective to improve leadership in schools and to give school leaders the support they need, but there is a lack of detail in this statement, and I look forward to hearing that detail in due course. I genuinely hope this academy will succeed, but we’ll see what happens. Thank you.

Can I thank Michelle for her optimistic outlook on the future of school leadership in Wales? What I should have done in answer to, perhaps, some of the questions from Darren and Llyr Gruffydd, and, indeed, to Michelle—I’m sure Ann Keane, who is chairing the shadow board, would be very happy to meet with spokespeople, or indeed other Assembly Members who have an interest in this area, for people to gain a deeper understanding of the thought processes. I’m fortunate that I get to meet Ann on a regular basis, but I’m sure she won’t mind if I extend that opportunity to Assembly Members, if they would like to engage with her on that. It is my anticipation that the existing programmes will come into the academy, but, some of these questions that Michelle raised, we simply haven’t got to the answers yet. That is the focus of ongoing work.

As I said in my statement, we have roadshows organised for next month, and the establishment of an internal Welsh Government project board to take the project forward. By July, I expect work to begin to set up the academy, including the articles of association, the terms of reference, board members, and transition from the shadow board to the new board. Once the company limited by guarantee is established, priority will be given then to the public appointment for a CEO and chair, and I want that to be under the terms of Nolan and public appointments, and then, from the spring, the shadow board will morph into the new organisation. Some of the details that Michelle has asked for, Deputy Presiding Officer, have not yet been agreed, and, like I have done today, I am more than willing to come back to the Chamber to update the Chamber as those decisions are taken by me.

Thank you very much. We have three more speakers, and can I just remind everybody that we have had one spokesperson from every party now, so can I just ask for a short preamble and short questions and shorter answers? Thank you. So, Lee Waters.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Cabinet Secretary, I’d like to warmly support the passion you have for nurturing leadership as a way of achieving excellence in standards. Can I just ask a couple of questions about how you see this sitting within the existing landscape of initiatives, bearing in mind that we are meant to be doing fewer things and keeping things simple? So, how, in particular, do you see this fitting in with the consortia and with local education authorities, because I think there’s a danger we have a cluttered landscape? Secondly, we have an emphasis on school-to-school support for raising school standards, and there is, as you know, excellence already in leadership all across Wales. So, how do we see existing leaders supporting emerging leaders? And, finally, you mentioned in your statement that you said:

‘The quality of the education system cannot exceed the quality of our teachers.’

As you know, half of the school workforce are learning support assistants, and I do feel that they are a neglected part of the workforce. So, how do you see that workforce being captured within the spirit of the academy?

Deputy Presiding Officer, you want me to give short answers, but those are big questions—big, big questions. On higher-level teaching assistants, you’re quite right. They are a crucial part of our workforce, and we have seen the development of higher-level teaching assistants over the last Assembly term and we want to accelerate the number of teaching assistants that can access those training opportunities to raise their qualifications, and, as I said in an answer earlier, ultimately, whilst the academy initially will look at school leaders and potential leaders, we want the academy to look at leadership at all levels, including teaching assistants. With regard to school-to-school working, it’s absolutely crucial, as part of the self-improving system, that we provide those opportunities for people to see what good looks like.

Sometimes, when you go to a school, it’s not because people want to get up and do a bad job in the morning, but actually they simply do not know what good looks like. Actually, giving them the opportunity to see what excellent leadership and what great teaching looks like is absolutely crucial. As part of our work on school-to-school working, that’s what we are focusing on: to give people the opportunity to mentor, to work together, to spend time in other schools, in people’s classrooms, to use the excellent practice that we already have, and to be much more sophisticated in how we do some of our professional learning. I said earlier about improving it; if you go to the Fern partnership, their professional learning is developed by live coaching. So, the classrooms are set up so that the teacher can be observed from a different room. With an earpiece in, they’re actively getting advice on professional learning as they’re delivering that lesson—you know, ‘Try this’, ‘Have you thought about this?’ So, we’re investing in that kind of support and professional learning—much better than what we used to have in the past.

On LEAs and consortia, that’s why we don’t want the academy to provide this themselves, because that will just be another player. Their job will be to broker and to ensure that the consortia, who will take a lead on this, are applying this. But we don’t want them to provide it themselves, because that would just add to the confusion of what is already, in my opinion, quite a crowded field.

Thank you for the statement, Cabinet Secretary. I’m pleased that something very similar to the Welsh Conservatives’ policy has found its way into your own policy. Could I ask you whether you agree that education leaders have a crucial role in improving the place of the Welsh language in the culture of our schools and colleges? I’m not talking here about the curriculum, but the culture. And how will this be reflected in the vision, values and functions of the academy?

Well, I don’t know about a Tory policy finding its way into my agenda. I can assure the Member that this was a commitment in the Welsh Liberal Democrat manifesto a year ago, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m determined to take it forward.

I think this issue about values is absolutely fundamental. One of the things that makes me proud to be the education Secretary in Wales is because of the values that underpin our education system—values of equity, of opportunity; ones that are consistent with wanting everybody to have a fair crack and the ability to get on in life, not to be excluded because you don’t live in the right place or because your parents can’t afford the tuition, when you’re 11 years old, for you to pass an exam to get into a grammar school. The values that we see, espoused by the academy, are values of the Welsh education system, and they’re values that I’m proud of.

Finally, Rhianon Passmore.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, I am rising today to welcome this statement on education leadership. Wales has a proud heritage of high-quality teachers and school leadership. However, the announcement of the establishment of the current shadow academy board last November was widely welcomed. It is indeed heartening to hear that the shadow board has made a proficient start, and I welcome very much the fact that we’re looking at best practice from around the globe, including Canada, Singapore and New Zealand. Too often, time and energy is dissipated in attempting to reinvent the wheel when other education systems have already found creative solutions to shared problems. As the plan for the leadership academy evolves, can I ask whether the series of regional roadshows will include Islwyn? Additionally, how will these roadshows be advertised to stakeholders, and how will busy professionals, as has already been mentioned, be encouraged to attend and participate?

I would like, today, to acknowledge the work of your predecessor, Huw Lewis, who stated, when he announced the Welsh Government’s new leadership strategy, that

‘We know that school and college leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on pupil learning—and this will be paramount over the coming years.’

Cabinet Secretary, from your statement, I note that you signpost, from September 2017, that we will have a range of common programmes available for professionals. Do you have an estimate of how many of our school leaders will be able to access these programmes, and what guarantees, at this early stage, can we receive of consistent access across Wales?

The roadshows will commence on 12 June. I don’t know whether the roadshow will include your own constituency, but I’m happy to provide details. Details of the roadshow will be given out via all the platforms that the Welsh Government has at its disposal, including ‘Dysg’ and including the new ‘Education Wales’ Facebook page. I would encourage Members—if they want to keep up to date with all things ‘Education Wales’—that they can like the new Facebook page. But I will write to the Member about more details for that.

The whole point of having the academy is to ensure there is equity of provision across the nation that is of the same quality for all our professionals, regardless of where they are. And the Member is absolutely right; if we want to have a first-class education system, we have to have first-class leaders. We have many in Wales, but not enough, if we’re honest, and we need to do more, and the prime purpose of this academy is to provide us with the leadership that we will need to ensure, as I say, that our national mission is fulfilled: that we have an education system that is a source of national pride and, more importantly for parents, national confidence.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.