The next item is the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education on ‘Education in Wales: Our national mission—Action Plan 2017-21’. I call on the Cabinet Secretary to make her statement. Kirsty Williams.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I am pleased today to publish the Government’s action plan for education in Wales: our national mission. The global experts on education performance, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, recognised earlier this year that Government and the sector are working closely together with a commitment to improvement

‘visible at all levels of the education system’.

This action plan sets out the next stage in our reform journey, including development and delivery of a transformational new curriculum. At its heart is a focus on raising standards for all, reducing the attainment gap, and an education system that is a source of national pride and public confidence. This Government is committed to a Wales where every child can make the most of their potential and is equipped to deal with the changing world. Last week, the First Minister set out the priorities for this Government in our national strategy ‘Prosperity for All’ and the focus on building a Wales that is both ambitious and learning. We are at a crucial point in delivering on those ambitions. The OECD’s advice to us was unambiguous: hold our nerve, stay the course, but do more to communicate, clarify and ensure coherence in our programme, bring a focus to leadership and deliver a much-needed new curriculum in a timely manner. This action plan responds to those recommendations. It also builds on conversations and meetings I and officials have had right across our nation.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

We are building on strong foundations set out in previous plans and programmes. But we can be even better, setting high expectations of our young people and teachers. We are clear about the way forward. Since the OECD’s report, I have reflected on its recommendations. I have spoken to hundreds within the education workforce and listened to the challenge and advice from the scrutiny committees here at the Assembly. The OECD said,

‘To support the realisation of its education objectives and ultimately its vision of the Welsh learner, Wales should continue its curriculum reform…to ensure that its reform journey is comprehensive and effective.’

The timeline for delivery of our new curriculum, which is at the core of a transformed education system, is set out clearly within the action plan. Instead of a big-bang introduction overnight one September, it will be rolled out starting with primary schools and year 7s. International evidence is clear on this. We will also provide the right preparation time for schools and teachers—not time to stand still, but time to provide feedback, further engage with the new curriculum and be fully prepared for the new approach.

Work on content and the areas of learning and experience continues at pace. The new curriculum and assessment arrangements will be available for schools to feed back, test and refine in Easter 2019. Following that period, all schools will have access to the final curriculum from 2020, allowing them to get fully ready and prepared for statutory roll-out in September 2022. It will then be introduced from nursery to year 7 in 2022, rolling into year 8 for 2023, year 9 in 2024, and so on as the cohort moves through. Together, we will deliver on our new curriculum, taking the time to get it absolutely right, but building in that extra time through roll-out and an extra year does not mean slowing down. It means we will deliver on those connected priorities within the action plan that are essential to maintaining high standards and setting even higher ambitions.

First: ensuring a high-quality education profession—supporting teachers to be lifelong professional learners through new standards, a national approach to professional development and reformed initial teacher education.

Second: identifying and inspiring leaders to raise standards—tackling a historic lack of emphasis on leadership through establishing a national leadership academy, enhanced leadership development, reducing bureaucracy through business managers, improved communication from all levels, and new standards and a revised headship qualification.

Third: inclusive schools dedicated to excellence, equity and well-being—a culture of respect and challenge, ensuring that all are ready to learn through expanding the PDG, enhanced summer learning programmes, dedicated ‘more able’ provision, and innovative ways to identify and measure well-being alongside attainment.

And fourth: improved robust assessment, evaluation and accountability within a self-improving system—being consistent and clear about the things we wish to value and measure through a new annual national education report and report card, through formative assessment and a new assessment and evaluation framework that focuses on improvement at all levels. Our national mission sets out clear timelines, policies and actions across each one of these areas.

In conclusion, Deputy Presiding Officer, schools are having to prepare our young people for jobs that have not yet been created and challenges that we are yet to encounter. This will require a renewed commitment to improving both the skills and knowledge of our young people as we raise standards in a transformational curriculum. Our national mission is ambitious, innovative and confident as we work to deliver a reformed and successful education system. Taken together, our reforms will meet these challenges and deliver on the high expectations that I’m sure we all share in this Chamber for our children and young people.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for the statement that you’ve presented this afternoon. I think I said on your appointment as Cabinet Secretary I wished you well. You have a very important job. Children go through our education system, or students go through our education system once. They get one chance at it and it is vital they have the best environment possible to learn and thrive in that environment. But the statement today does cause some concern, and if I can start with the statement that the First Minister gave last week, ‘Prosperity for All: the national strategy’, where, in the education section of that strategy, which I presume underpins this, he acknowledges that there is still

‘too much variation in the attainment of school leavers, which means without the right skills some risk being left behind and wasting their potential.’

I’d be very grateful to understand exactly what you’ve identified as being the fault, as to why there is so much variation within the education system within Wales and why, sadly, so many people do end up being left behind, and how your strategy will change the direction of education so that it’s not just another education strategy that a Welsh Government is putting forward and that, in three, four, five years’ time, we are having the same conversation, because I think it is important to understand the key direction of where the education system here in Wales is going.

You start also by identifying the OECD and the PISA targets and it is on the record, obviously, as being not your target: the 500 for reading, writing and the sciences—and arithmetic obviously as well. This now forms part of the policy paper that you’ve launched, saying that it is a Welsh Government target to be hitting the 500 mark when the next OECD figures come through in 2021. So, I’d be grateful as to why you don’t see those figures as being your target, yet the document identifies them quite clearly as being a central pillar of driving standards up here in Wales. I’d also like to understand from the Cabinet Secretary, in particular around the reforms that were brought forward under Qualified for Life, which was the Government’s policy document 2014 to 2020, how, again, this document differs from that document, because if I’m correct, we’re still in 2017, and that document was setting the tone to take us through to 2020? Obviously, one of the key pillars of that document was the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which was set to drive standards up in many of our schools, and from the assessments that have been made— certainly in its initial two years—they were having very promising results and successes with this scheme, and, obviously, it was terminated last year by your good self. Again, as I said, I, and I’m sure the teaching profession and parents would like to know exactly how much legs your policy document, if you like, has—which you brought forward today. Will they see the full term of the agenda that you’re setting out, or will it be another revision in two or three years’ time?

The curriculum that you’ve identified and the changes to the curriculum are welcome, and something from this side of the house that we’ve been calling for, given the increasing body of evidence that clearly shows that there did need to be a pause and almost a reflection on its implementation, and I commend you for doing that. But I would ask you: what assessment have you made of the capacity of schools to deal with, potentially, two curriculums being delivered within the school setting? We constantly have debates, we have discussions, as to the capacity of teachers and schools to develop a coherent learning environment and strategy, and, at the end of this process, they will, at a certain point, be delivering two curriculums within the school environment.

Teacher recruitment is a vital area, and we understand the problems there, but in your statement you touched on the historical lack of focus on leadership. Again, I would be really keen to understand what backs up that analysis of the historical lack of focus on leadership, given, obviously, that we’ve had a party within this Chamber who have run education for 17 to 18 years now, and I presume that’s an observation you are making about various policies that have come forward before to address the leadership crisis—which I think is a fair comment to make—when we do know that many deputy headteachers do not step up and take on a headship because they do not feel that they’re supported to do that, and there are very many good deputy heads who would make excellent headteachers, but, without that progression within the education system and without that support, we’re going to continue having that leadership crisis.

And one final point, if I may, Deputy Presiding Officer with your permission, on HE in particular: it is vital that from our schools students progress into the HE environment. Some of the numbers that have come out around HE recently clearly show that, sadly, the numbers are not going in the right direction and are actually falling backwards for participation in HE from some of our most deprived communities. The Seren network was established and regional hubs were created in order to assist Wales’s brightest pupils to access higher education. I would be grateful to understand how, with the reforms that you’ve launched today in our education system, we will reinvigorate the ambition to go forward into HE, and ultimately experience the wider world of education, whether that be here in Wales or anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

Thank you very much, Andrew, for the comprehensive list of questions. The strategy that was announced by the First Minister is the overarching plan for the Government. This document that is launched today adds the meat on the bones that you were asking for just last week, about how the ambitions that are in ‘Prosperity for All’ will actually be delivered. And I make no bones about it: there is too much variation within our education system. There is too much variation in schools. We see that as something that needs to be tackled. We see within a single school a department that is performing really well and a department that is performing less well. We also see variations between individual schools in the same local education authority; sometimes only a matter of miles apart, the results can be very different, and we have to iron that out.

Now, there are a number of ways in which this strategy seeks to raise standards across our entire system. Of course, the most important factor is the quality of teaching. That is the biggest thing that we can do to improve the educational attainment of our children, that is to ensure that the quality of teaching across all of our schools is consistently high. That’s why there is so much emphasis in this document about how we can raise the quality of teaching, whether that be reforming our initial teacher education system, whether that’s a new national approach to continuous professional learning, new teaching standards that are currently being adopted for both classroom teachers and headteachers. Our system cannot be better than the teachers who deliver it, and that’s why this is at the core of our programme.

You talked about the issue around schools challenge. You’ll know that that was a time-limited programme, limited to only 40 schools. There are lots of schools across Wales that need help and support to develop them. Some of those schools did very well under Schools Challenge Cymru, but I’m afraid to say, in some cases, despite the additional resource, that did not translate into better results for students and, indeed, one schools challenge school just before the summer holidays was put under special measures by Estyn. So, we need an approach to school improvement, delivered by our regional consortia, for all schools in Wales—right the way across our country, rather than just limited to 40 handpicked institutions.

You raise the issue of PISA. There is nothing inconsistent in this document and the statements that I and the First Minister gave in answers to questions on 20 and 21 June earlier this year. What’s absolutely clear is that, for the 2021 PISA assessment that will be administered by a different administration in a new Government, whose results will be published by a different administration, that remains the long-term goal. What I am focused on is making improvement in the tests that will be taken next year, because I haven’t changed my mind: our performance in PISA is not what we would want it to be and we need to see improvement, not in 2021—we need to see improvement before that.

Now, Andrew, you do raise a very legitimate point about the issue of roll-out within the secondary sector, and whether having to teach two curricula in the school will be challenging. It’s normal practice for teachers to translate curriculum requirements into schemes of work for each year group in their school; no teacher teaches the same lesson to each and every year group. So, this phased roll-out in secondary schools allows the teaching profession the time to develop their new schemes of work year on year. Now, our teachers and those who represent them understand this, and they are very supportive of this approach. And international best practice would tell you that a phased roll-out gives us the best chance for success. The last time we had a major change to the curriculum, of course, was back in 1988, which was done very much top down and done overnight. And I’m afraid if you speak to people who were involved in the delivery of that reform, they’ll say that it caused significant chaos. But I’m very glad that I will have the opportunity later this week to talk to Lord Baker, and I will reflect on his experience of how he felt that that top-down, overnight big bang actually worked out.

Leadership, I think, has been an area where we have not had sufficient focus. The reasons for that, you know, I’m not clear on and I’m not sighted on, but what I am clear on is that, if we are to see the improvements that we need, we have to have a focus on leadership, and that’s why we are introducing our new leadership academy. We’ll be reforming the qualification for our headteachers, with new leadership standards and more support for existing headteachers and those who aspire to headship, and as we see the leadership academy develop and bed in, I’d hope to see that focus on leadership go down the whole school system to focus on leaders of individual subjects or individual year groups—leadership in our regional consortia, leadership in local education authorities. This is a national mission. We’ve all got to challenge ourselves and ask: ‘What are we going to bring to the table to see this national mission realised?’ And there’s a place for all of us in that, including Members here in the Chamber whose scrutiny and challenge in the committee has been a very important part of my deliberations when looking to set up the timetable for the curriculum.

With regard to HE, can I just say that HE isn’t the be-all and end-all? It’s the right thing for some people, but this idea that everybody has to do HE and that, if you don’t, then somehow you are a failure—I think we need to move away from that. We have to look at education in the right setting, for the right people at the right time in their lives, and that might mean going on to training when you’re in the world of work 10 years after you’ve left school. It may be a higher level apprenticeship. It may be a degree-related apprenticeship. There are many ways in which you can fulfil your potential. HE is an important part of that, yes, for a certain cohort of our population.

May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement and welcome, for the most part, the content of the statement and indeed the action plan? I don’t think anyone would disagree with the long-term ambition of the Government here—quite simply, ensuring that all children achieve their potential. I’m sure that’s something everyone would want to see. But what we have in this action plan is a great deal of high-level stuff, and the detail on exactly how some of these aspects will be implemented will become clearer, and that, perhaps, is where the nitty-gritty lies.

Now, one of the most significant factors in this statement, I think, is the change of timetable in terms of introducing the curriculum. Many have noted that and, as the Cabinet Secretary knows, I have been raising this consistently with her—back in November of last year, back in March and May in committee and also in the Chamber. And, every time, you’ve told me that you’re confident that the original timetable is appropriate, or was at that time, so I welcome the fact that there has been a change, and I would like to ask: why now, a year after I and many in the sector asked for this, do you feel that now is the right time to do that, and why didn’t you do it sooner during this process?

I’d also like to know what you will use as a yardstick for success in terms of some of the reforms that will be introduced, because reference has been made to using PISA targets as one yardstick. When the previous Government actually turned its back on its PISA targets, you described that as a total lack of ambition. But it’s the lower targets that were adopted that appear in this action plan.

Ac wrth gwrs, pan roddais bwysau arnoch yn y pwyllgor ynglŷn â thargedau PISA, fe’i gwnaethoch yn gwbl glir nad targed PISA yw eich targed chi. Wel, mae yn y cynllun gweithredu, felly a ydym felly’n dod i'r casgliad nad eich cynllun gweithredu chi ydyw? Rwy'n meddwl bod angen eglurder arnom a yw'r Prif Weinidog wedi eich goruwchreoli ar PISA ynteu a ydych chi wedi newid eich meddwl ac nawr yn fodlon derbyn y targedau a ddisgrifiwyd gennych o’r blaen fel rhai sy'n dangos diffyg uchelgais llwyr.

Nawr, mae croeso i’r cyfeiriad at gynllun datblygu gweithlu cyffredinol o hydref 2018 ymlaen, wrth gwrs. Gwnaethoch sôn, yn y cyd-destun hwnnw, am waith i wella ansawdd y gweithlu llanw. Efallai y gallech ymhelaethu ychydig ar yr hyn sydd gennych mewn golwg yn y fan honno, ac a yw hynny'n cynnwys newid y model cyflenwi llanw yng Nghymru; gwn fod llawer wedi codi pryderon â chi bod llawer o ddiffygion yn y ffordd y mae hynny'n gweithredu ar hyn o bryd. Rydych yn dweud y byddwch yn cytuno ar fodel asesu ac arfarnu hirdymor i ysgolion—beth allai hynny, o bosibl, ei olygu ar gyfer categoreiddio ysgolion? A fyddwch yn symud oddi wrth yr hyn y mae rhai pobl yn eu hystyried yn systemau goleuadau traffig dadleuol? Rwy'n meddwl y bu awgrym y gallai hynny ddigwydd a byddai'n dda cael eglurder ynghylch a yw'r rheini yma i aros, ynteu a ydych chi'n meddwl y gellid adolygu’r rheini yn y tymor canolig.

Nid oes llawer o gyfeiriad at adnoddau ar gyfer rhai o'r camau arfaethedig hyn yn y cynllun, felly rwy’n meddwl y byddai'n wir dweud y bydd ysgolion yn chwilio am sicrwydd gennych y bydd ganddynt yr offer a'r adnoddau sydd eu hangen i gyflawni a chyflwyno'r newidiadau arfaethedig i’r cwricwlwm ac, wrth gwrs, y newidiadau ehangach sy'n cael eu cynnig.

There is also reference in the action plan and in your statement to using the new powers that will come to this place, of course, in terms of teachers’ pay and conditions. Perhaps you could give a suggestion and perhaps expand upon the kinds of changes that you will consider. You’ve already suggested that you will be willing to look at conditions of service as something that may need review.

And in introducing the curriculum, of course, we need to ensure that appropriate teaching resources will be available in order to provide that new curriculum. We know the difficulties that there have been in terms of Welsh-medium materials in the past, and I would like to be given an assurance from you today that the new curriculum will not be introduced unless all of the necessary resources are in place in Welsh and in English, where necessary.

Finally, may I also welcome the references to youth work within the action plan? It’s important that we see youth work as part of the education offer that we have in Wales. A recognition that providing strong youth services is central in considering the future of the education sector is something that is very encouraging for me, and the recognition, of course, that informal education has a crucial role in supporting formal education too.

Thank you, Llyr, for that set of questions. Could I say that what we have got in the document, I believe, is a very clear set of actions associated with whom we expect to deliver them, whether that be central Government, whether that be tier 2 of our system, the regional consortia, the LEAs and other partners such as Estyn and the Education Workforce Council and schools themselves? And those are outlined in timelines, associated with each of the four enabling objectives that we have within the document.

On the issue around the roll-out of the curriculum, what I have said, each time I’ve been asked about this, is that, yes, I believe that we can meet the original suggested timetable in Graham Donaldson’s work, but I’ve also gone on to say that I will always keep that under review, and if I feel that it is necessary to amend the suggested timetable for roll-out to ensure that our curriculum transformation is successful, then I’d be willing to do that. There was simply a lack of clarity as to how roll-out would happen. The document—. And previously, there was no plan for roll-out. And this is one of the things that schools have asked for: ‘Can we have clarity about actually how this will be rolled out?’ And I’m providing that clarity that we have not had before and I’ve also listened very carefully to the work of the committee and to professionals the length and breadth of Wales about how much time we need to ensure that our profession will be ready to take on these changes. And, again, that is absolutely crucial and it’s right that we signal this change and provide that clarity now, as we launch our new national strategy, and, as I said, to give clarity to the profession who’ve been asking how it will actually happen.

You raised the very important issue of supply teaching. It’s important that not just the individual people who find themselves working in the supply sector—. It’s not to diminish their contribution, but, actually, overreliance on supply, we know, has an impact on standards. It’s inevitable. So, this is a source of concern to me. You’ll be aware that the previous Minister set up a task and finish group to report on how we could take this forward and didn’t really come up with any overall solution of how to address this agenda, but there were important things that it suggested and, for instance, that we’ve taken forward. So, supply teachers’ access to Hwb: the very professionals who probably need access to that resource more than any other professionals were denied from getting that because we were not giving them a log-on and a password to be able to get onto that system. That has now been addressed.

But looking to the longer term and different ways in which we could organise the supply sector, I, like you, am very aware that there’s been much interest shown in the Northern Ireland model. Now, there are pros and cons to the Northern Ireland model, but I have officials in Northern Ireland this very week—this very week—looking to see whether the Northern Ireland model is one that could be easily transferred to Wales, but we have to recognise that some of this can’t be done until the powers of teachers’ pay and conditions are devolved to us. So, there is some constraint around that, but we are actively looking at different models to be able to address some of the longer term structural problems around how supply teaching is organised at present.

The Member may be interested in some of the local authorities that are looking to work together to have a supply teacher hub model, where a supply teacher will be made available to a cluster of schools and will be working for that particular cluster of schools. There have been a number of local authorities that have come forward and have shown active interest in being part of that pilot. So, there’s lots going on in the issue of supply teaching.

With regard to terms and conditions, it’s really important to reassure people, because some unions have been more enthusiastic than others about the devolution of pay and conditions, to reiterate the promise that no teacher will be worse off as a result of this system, and we do want it to align ourselves with our ambitions within this document, which is all about raising standards and closing that attainment gap.

Resourcing for all of this, of course, sits alongside the usual budgetary processes that we have in Government, at a time when UK austerity continues to be really challenging, and we will do our very best to ensure that our schools have the resources that they need, recognising, of course, that school funding comes in two tranches—yes, via the education department for things like the pupil development grant, but also via local government, via the revenue support grant—and we have to be mindful of that approach to how money actually gets into our schools.

As you know, I have a particular passion for ensuring that we have equity in our system. It’s in this document: an equity for all our students, and that includes those students that pursue their education through the medium of Welsh. It is not fair that students do not have timely access to Welsh-medium resources. The Member will be aware that I held a summit on this earlier in the year—I’m sorry that you were not able to attend that summit—and I continue to have discussions with the Welsh Books Council, with the university press, publishers and the WJEC about how we can improve on this situation. It will be crucial in developing the new curriculum, because if big publishing houses are not interested in working with us now, they’re certainly not going to suddenly wake up and decide they want to resource a brand-new curriculum. So, we have to look to ourselves, not to others, to find creative solutions to that problem. But we have to have an equitable system for all of our children.

Youth work: absolutely crucial. This document tries to make those linkages between what happens in schools, what happens in communities, what happens in the home and how that relates to attainment, and having the opportunity for engagement in non-formal education activities, whether that’s your local youth club, whether that’s your local young farmers’ club—whatever it may be that is in your locality. Access to that for young people is vitally, vitally important if we are to address not only attainment, but also to address issues around well-being, because that’s the service, in many ways, that we can use to address issues around well-being.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement and welcome the plan that she’s published today? We know, of course, that there are challenges, but I think that it is a very welcome plan and that it is very useful to have everything in one document, in one place, with the timescales attached. I also welcome the announcement that you’ve made about the curriculum and the phased approach. I think the most important thing when doing something as ambitious as this is that we get it right for learners, and I’m grateful that you have listened and have responded in that way. As you know, it is an area that the committee has looked at and is continuing to look at. One of the issues that was raised is that the schools that aren’t pioneer schools did not feel sufficiently in the loop and sufficiently involved in the process. So, I would like to ask what your plans are, going forward, to make sure that that changes and that we are all on the same journey in Wales.

I was also really pleased to see the very strong focus in this document on the need to improve teacher education and professional development. As you’re aware, that’s also an issue that the committee is looking at. One of the concerns that I’ve had is that embarking on something as ambitious as curriculum reform can act as a distraction for some from the absolutely fundamental need to ensure that we have the best quality teaching possible. As you’re aware, this is an issue that Estyn has raised regularly as one of the weakest areas of our system. So, I’d like to ask how you intend to ensure, going forward, that we are all fully focused on that in particular in the profession.

But I do want to give a very warm welcome today to the focus in the plan on well-being. As you’re aware, this is something that I feel very strongly about. The committee is embarking on a new inquiry into the emotional and mental health of children and young people, and we see the role of the schools as absolutely fundamental in that. As you’re aware, there is an enormous amount of good practice out there in individual schools. You announced the pilot yesterday with the health Secretary. But I would like to ask, in terms of early intervention and that universal support for children and young people, how you intend to ensure that that good practice is rolled out as far as possible across Wales, but more importantly how you intend to ensure that schools are accountable for delivering on the well-being agenda.

Just to close by saying that, like Llyr, I really welcome the emphasis on youth work. It’s great to see it mainstreamed in a document like that and to see the role that it plays fully recognised. Thank you.

Thank you, Lynne. The whole purpose of the document is to respond to the OECD’s criticism about a previous lack of communication from the centre, and we have to listen to that and hold ourselves accountable for clarity around that communication and a coherence about all the strands of reform that are going on at the moment. There’s lots of reform, and sometimes people ask the question, ‘Well, why and for what purpose?’ If we want the profession to engage in this, we have to be very clear ourselves, and that’s what the plan is dedicated to doing.

Quality teaching is absolutely at the heart of the plan, and we are embarking, as you will know, on a range of programmes, but just to highlight the national approach to professional learning and what does that actually mean. So, we’re working with the regional education consortia on this, and there are broadly three main areas that we are focusing on. The first is helping all teachers to understand fully and prepare for the new curriculum and new teaching approaches. That’s regardless of whether you’re in a pioneer school or not, because we need all our teachers to understand the basics of this new approach to the curriculum. That’s already under way, and our new professional teaching standards are a key to achieving this, because they create that entitlement for teachers to say, ‘I have a right to this continual professional learning throughout my career.’

There are more specific skills that all teachers, again, will need and those relate to assessment, curriculum design and the cross-curricular responsibilities that they will have for delivering this new curriculum. Some of that work is under way at present, but we need to develop that further as we go forward. That’s one of the reasons why we need to adjust the timetable for the curriculum: to ensure that that kind of professional learning offer is available consistently, right the way across Wales. Of course, then, there will be specific support needs arising out of the individual areas of learning and experience that are subject specific or AoLE specific. So, there are three strands to the professional learning offer that we will have available.

Like you, Lynne, I have a personal commitment to the issue of well-being. What we know is that we can’t expect children to make the most of their educational opportunities if they’re dealing with other things in their life. I can’t take away bereavement. I can’t take away that some children’s parents will split up. I can’t take away that there will be other traumas in that child’s life. But what we can do is help those children have the resilience that they need, so that when life throws the inevitably tough times at them, and there will be tough times for them, they will have within them the resources that they can call on to manage those situations appropriately and respond to and not be worn down by them. That’s for all our children. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of saying there’s only a specific type of child who suffers from that, because these are universal truths. That’s why we are working across Government. The new project that was announced yesterday will take place in your constituency of Torfaen, and Blaenau Gwent and south Powys. Wrexham and Denbighshire and Ceredigion will all take part in that project, and we’re looking to see that learning—. We’re trying to learn from that so that we can ensure that there’s a consistent roll-out across the country. Crucially, of course, the new curriculum includes the AoLE of health and well-being, so this will be an integral part of what we do in our schools and it will have equal status to the other AoLEs within the curriculum. That’s one of the exciting prospects, I think, about why we’re taking this forward.

Estyn. Well, of course, we’ve announced—. I’m very supportive of the review that they themselves have announced, because unless we get Estyn and inspection aligned to our new curriculum, again, schools will just revert to type and do what they think Estyn needs of them. So, we need to ensure our Estyn inspection regime is aligned to our new curriculum, so that there is not an inconsistency and a confusion for schools, and the review will report next year.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. I do welcome your announcement that the new curriculum will be phased in, but I do so with a little bit of caution. On the one hand, a phased roll-out makes sense, for instance, it enables teething troubles to be resolved and it gives more time for teachers, as you’ve said, to adapt; however, it’s surely going to involve at least some teaching staff having to teach to two different curricula, and the potential for additional stress and confusion for teachers, pupils and parents concerns me. Have you consulted teachers about this potential challenge and how it will be addressed? What support, help and advice are you going to offer teachers and school leaders to ease the transition?

No matter how good the new curriculum may be, the standard of teaching is key. That’s something you’ve already mentioned today: the standard of teaching. So, I would like you to explain how the new teacher standards regime will ensure that the new curriculum will be taught as effectively and as well as can be achieved. How will the new standards support and promote the new curriculum and ensure that any teaching staff who are not performing to the correct standard are helped to achieve it, and if they can’t, are helped to an alternative path?

Comment has been made by teaching unions that teachers won’t be ready to teach the new curriculum, and I think your planned roll-out is at least partly in response to that. But how are you going to make sure that, even with the additional time, those teachers will be ready and confident to deliver the new curriculum in accordance with your timetable?

Lastly, you refer to the education report and report card. I would like you to give a little bit more detail about this. Would you explain how it will work and what the objectives will be? You’ve also said that you want to have improved robust assessment and accountability. I just ask: assessment and accountability of whom, and how do you envisage this working in practice? Thank you.

Can I thank Michelle for her questions? Key to the first set of questions is the issue around professional learning and, as I’ve outlined to previous speakers, there is a comprehensive timeline associated with what we expect to deliver for a national professional learning model, as well as improved initial teacher education. The new teaching and leadership standards are an important part of this, because they quite clearly set out the expectation that we expect teachers to be lifelong learners themselves. They should be the best student in the classroom. I’ve got no time for somebody who claims that they are the finished article. There is always an opportunity to continue to learn more and to reflect that back in your practice within the classroom.

But let’s not be—. Let’s not mix up teaching standards with issues around professional competency. They are two very, very different things, and there are two very distinct processes for dealing with that. Let’s not get hung up that these professional standards are about dealing with issues around professional competency. There is more that we need to do. There is more that we need to do to support staff who are struggling and to ensure they have the opportunity to address difficulties in their performance, and there is more that we need to do to support schools as employers and LEAs if they find themselves in a situation where, despite all best efforts, somebody should not really remain in the classroom, but that is different from the professional teaching standards and the expectations that are set out.

I’m glad that Michelle has brought up the issue of the report card and the national annual report, because nobody else has picked up on that, and it is an important new innovation. We’ve looked at international best practice, and it’s all very well holding individual schools to account via a school categorisation model; this is about holding the Welsh Government to account. This is about sitting down on an annual basis to judge where we are as a nation in terms of our education system—yes, in terms of attainment, but also looking at the wider determinants that we’re talking about in this document. And it’s about that self-reflection as a Government on where we are. If Michelle would like to look at international examples of best practice, I would alert her to the system in Ontario for instance, which we’ve been learning a lot about. So, this is about holding us to account, not just holding teachers to account, or schools to account, or the consortia to account, but holding this Government to account for its performance on a national basis, and I’m really pleased that you picked up on that.

Thank you. I have five more speakers. We’ve had one from each of the four parties, so, if the five speakers can just ask a question, I am prepared to extend the session. If I find that you don’t, then I will cut the session down. Jenny Rathbone.

Thank you for your statement and your deliberative approach to rolling this forward and making a success of it. My question is on objective 3. Some things can’t wait, so will you look at the research published in the British Medical Journal by Professor Allyson Pollock on the importance of children not getting collision in contact sports, and banning rugby tackles in schools? She was right on PFI, so we need to ensure that we are taking notice of this research, as this being a major contributor to concussion in young people.

Thank you, Jenny, for that. I am aware that my predecessor, Huw Lewis, met with campaigners on this particular issue and statements were issued at that time. I am also aware that my colleague Rebecca Evans is actively pursuing this case and we’ll be working across Government to look at evidence and to look at ways forward.

The Children, Young People and Education Committee took evidence from Mick Waters last week, and I welcome what you said about separating competence and the new standards. But I do have a little bit of concern about the language used in some of the standards. It’s quite complex and takes some time to interpret. Mick Waters said that they held long conversations when the working group were developing their descriptors and that they need to be—could they be so precise that they can’t be misinterpreted, in which case they’re at risk of becoming trite, or whether they become complex and sometimes difficult to make sense of initially. And the feedback from teachers was that they appreciated the complex descriptors. Now, I’m concerned by that because some of the descriptors I had trouble interpreting myself, given some of the complexity and the language. What role will the Education Workforce Council play in, where there may be those difficulties, helping refine them?

I’ve also noted that the professional learning passport is mentioned several times in the descriptors, in the standards. For example, it states that the professional learning passport is used to support reflective practice and record an active commitment to continued professional learning. We know that the professional learning passport hasn’t had a wide uptake, despite the £300,000-worth of funding from the Welsh Government. So, how will the professional learning passport be further embedded to enable the descriptors and the new standards to be used effectively? I feel that the EWC has an important role to play here and would like to see an enhanced reflective role for the EWC in the development of the professional standards.

Thank you very much, Hefin. Can I assure you that the teaching standards were developed by the professionals for the professionals, and, indeed, they also trialled in schools before they were formally adopted? It is a source of concern to me that the professional learning passport has not been as well used as I would like it to. I think it has real potential, and we need to reflect on how we can make it as easy for professionals to use as possible and as relevant for them to use as possible—not having to go home and spend hours and hours and hours doing extra work, but, actually, how they can use that interactively as they go about their daily work, sharing that with other professionals in their schools, and, of course, information technology is a great way in which we can address some of that. The EWC initially had a role to play in the initial work on teaching standards carried out by the previous administration. The EWC is a new organisation. They’ve done a tremendously good job in registering all the different professions that we now ask them to register. They’ve got an important new role in validating initial teacher education courses and we will constantly reflect as to other roles that the EWC could perform on our behalf.

I’ll declare an interest as a former teacher. I know what you said about professional standards, and there’s a lot of talk about generic standards and raising standards, and lots of slogans, lots of buzz words. But I’m concerned about the detail, really. So, I wonder if you’ll allow me to give you a little test, Cabinet Secretary. Can you outline the contents of the new teaching qualification for teaching assistants—what it involves and how many hours that it actually takes, because the teaching assistants who I speak to are just not very impressed?

Well, I’m sorry to hear that. In Wales, we’ve traditionally used teaching assistants to a great deal of effect. It’s really interesting, when I visit other countries, like Finland, and, most recently, southern Irish schools, that teaching assistants do not play a part in the education system at all, or to a very, very, very, very small degree. Usually, the only adult in the room is the qualified teacher. Now, I think teaching assistants have an important part to play, especially in our foundation phase, and, if there are questions about the quality of the professional learning opportunities that our teaching assistants have, I do meet regularly with Unison to talk about these and I’m happy to take them up.

But what is it?

It was a question. Rhianon Passmore.

Thank you. First of all, I would like to welcome the action plan as a positive and transformational step forward for Wales, and my question really is based around the fact that we do have the best ever GCSE results for Wales. Are we complacent in that journey in moving forward? Do you feel that attainment gap that we are now closing is closing fast enough? And are you very confident that the way forward for us is to continue with the OECD’s commentary around the fact that this transformational curriculum is the right way forward for Wales? Thank you.

Could I say I’m absolutely not complacent at all? Is the attainment gap closing fast enough? No, it’s not. I’m particularly concerned about the fact that our children on free school meals continue not to reach the same attainment levels as their richer counterparts. But I’m also equally concerned about how few children in some local authorities who are on school action plus reach the level 2+ threshold. In some local authorities it’s a real, real cause for concern. I’m also concerned, for instance, about children who do not receive their education in a traditional school, whether that be in a pupil referral unit or in education otherwise than at school. So, there are many, many levels to this issue around the attainment gap. It’s not just about free school meals. It is about additional learning needs and it is about EOTAS, and this action plan sets out what we intend to do with all aspects of that.

Thank you. And, finally, Huw Irranca-Davies.

I welcome today’s statement, but may I ask the Cabinet Secretary to explain how today’s announcement will assist Welsh-medium education in particular? I am pleased to have two excellent Welsh-medium schools in my constituency. Ysgol Llangynwyd serves the west, and Llanhari serves the east, but both will find difficulty in finding sufficient numbers of chemistry, maths, and physics teachers and so on. With increasing demand for high-quality Welsh-medium education in all subjects, how are we ensuring that we improve educational standards for all children and young people, particularly in the mother tongue of Wales?

I’m really sorry, Deputy Presiding Officer, I’m not sure whether I got all of that. But what I will say is: Huw, you’re absolutely right. If we’re to have an equitable education system we need to ensure that children have equal chances, whether they are in English-medium, Welsh-medium, or bilingual provision. And, that’s, again, one of the reasons to make a decision about slowing the curriculum introduction down slightly, so that we can address the needs specifically in the Welsh-medium sector. There are a number of programmes in which we can do that. So, that’s alternative routes into teaching for more mature students. It’s developing maybe people who are working in a learning support capacity at the moment. It’s about increasing our secondment schemes, so people who have language capabilities can have a break from school to go and develop them further.

It’s even about innovative technological advances. So, officials have been up recently to look at the delivery of Gaelic education in the Outer Hebrides. My goodness me, if we think we’ve got challenges in rural Wales, go to the Outer Hebrides and look to see how you provide a bilingual education system in the Outer Hebrides. One of the ways in which they’ve supported Gaelic—[Interruption.] One of the ways in which they’ve supported Gaelic—[Interruption.] As I was just saying, my officials were there just over the summer. One of the ways they’ve supported that is by the e-school, and that has been absolutely fantastic in terms of attainment for those children. So, they’ve got university professors teaching science via Gaelic over an internet link. They’ve got a philosophy professor at a university teaching philosophy via Gaelic over a link. Actually, what this is doing is enabling more children and parents to make that positive choice about learning through Gaelic, and then that, in itself, drives then more demand to be able to demonstrate to people, ‘You have a real professional opportunity and a lifelong career should you move into this sector’. So, we’re actively looking at whether those technological solutions that are being used innovatively in other parts of the world—whether we can adopt some of that best practice here in Wales to address those situations.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.