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.