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.