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.