Thank you very much, Llyr, for that set of questions. With regard to entry into initial teacher training, and whether I’m intending to remove the requirement of a B grade at English and maths, I have no intention to do that at this point. You will be aware that the literacy and numeracy framework runs throughout our entire curriculum for the length of children’s school career, and therefore we’d need all our practitioners to have a strong foundation in both English and in mathematics. For those people who perhaps are looking—. And that’s why it’s so important that we don’t have teachers banking grades when they do their early entry, because the consequences for those young people going forward—. Only this weekend, I met a mum who had no idea that in accepting a C grade, that would preclude her son from going on to pursue a career in teaching. So, we need to be clear that we have these standards.

For those people perhaps going back to teaching, maybe career changes or people looking to go into the profession where perhaps they do have a C grade, then there are options available to do an equivalency test via the universities at the time of application. So, that’s not to say that people don’t have an opportunity to secure or to demonstrate their skills and knowledge via a different way, because graduate recruitment, career changes and alternative routes into the profession are something that we’re actively looking at at the moment.

Last year we had 20 people who schools took on and took through a training process. I’d like to see that extended, and, as I said, we’re actively looking at ways in which we can have alternative routes into the teaching profession, especially for those who perhaps have had a career in science and industry, and who now want to move into teaching to share their enthusiasm and their knowledge for that subject with young people. That’s part of a whole variety of ways in which we’re looking to expose people to the possibilities of teaching. Why would you know or think about becoming a teacher? That’s why such schemes as the modern foreign languages mentoring scheme are so important in our universities, exposing our modern foreign language students to periods of working with young people in school and exposing them to the prospect, perhaps, of going on to be a teacher. One of the strongest physics undergraduate degrees in the University of London make all their physics undergraduates do a unit in teaching physics. We’ve been talking to our university sector about including that in our science undergraduate courses, so that all undergraduates have that opportunity to be exposed to the possibility of teaching as a career, so that we can get a wide range of people interested in the profession.

You asked about the ongoing issue around supply teaching and you quoted the figure of just over 4,000 teachers being registered with the EWC as supply—that is, 4,200 teachers who are currently registered as supply teachers. It’s important to state, Llyr, that half of those are employed via schools and local authorities and are on the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. So, they are paid in that way. So, it’s important to recognise that, when we talk about the supply system, 50 per cent of those are working and are being paid on school teachers’ pay and conditions document terms. That leaves us with about 2,100 teachers who are registered with commercial agencies—that’s about 6 per cent of our total teaching population who are registered that are employed on that basis. I want to make it very clear, I do not condone the practice of schools and agencies negotiating low pay rates for supply teachers. I’ve said today in my statement, I expect temporary teachers to be rewarded and supported appropriately for the work that they undertake.

So, the approach that I’ve outlined today with regard to NQTs could offer us a viable alternative model to using supply agencies as we go forward. And, I am currently scoping the feasibility of introducing a centralised matching system to coincide with the devolution of teachers’ pay and conditions, which will be transferred in the autumn of 2018 for the first year. So, our first pay year will be 2019 that it’ll be operating. That has to be a system that is fit for purpose for Wales. It can’t just be a system that we have transported from somewhere else.

Let me make it absolutely clear again: this issue is devolved to headteachers. It is up to headteachers in their schools to make arrangements for the employment of supply teachers. There is nothing forcing them to use an agency; it is in their hands. We can have a debate about whether we want local management of schools or whether we want to strip headteachers of that power and impose a national system on them. We can have a debate about that, but it just shows that this is quite a complex issue and because of those complexities, let’s remember, that’s why the task and finish group could not recommend a single system for Wales that could be implemented quickly. But, we continue to look at this, and this pilot, as I said, gives us the potential of an alternative model.