Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 17 October 2018.
Well, first of all, can I thank David for his own personal commitment to the national mission by serving as a governor? As I said to Mark Reckless, there are some really innovative suggestions in the report authored by Professor Mick Waters and others. What we do know is that good leadership is key to a successful institution, and he has interesting things to say about how we can deploy our very best leaders in the system to raise standards. Of course, in other countries, high-performing education countries, the human resource management of the teaching workforce is dictated from the centre and, indeed, not just headteachers but individual teachers are assigned schools to work in by the Government. Now, of course, I wouldn't want to set all the hares running this afternoon by suggesting that that's where we're heading, but there are some interesting proposals in Mick Waters's work. Of course, we will be looking to respond to those formally, and any response that we make as a Government will be in collaboration with the sector itself, including both the National Association of Head Teachers, which I will be meeting on Friday, as well as the Association of School and College Leaders and other people with an interest in this area.