Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. A young person’s ability to benefit from education should never be determined by their background or personal circumstances. Narrowing the attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers is at the heart of our national mission to raise standards and deliver an education system that is a source of national pride and enjoys public confidence. Secured as part of a budget deal between the Welsh Liberal Democrats and the then Welsh Government, the pupil development grant has led to over £475 million additional investment, which has directly supported over half a million young people eligible for free school meals in reaching their potential.

Year on year the PDG has been expanded, both in terms of the groups of learners it now supports and the scale of the investment. It focuses funding where it has the greatest impact, which we know is in the early years, so we have increased this element of the funding over recent years. And it supports groups that need additional support, including our care-experienced young people, which is why we have strengthened the PDG looked-after children arrangements from this month.

Schools continue to tell us how invaluable PDG funding is. However, I recognise that targeted funding cannot be the only solution. To be blunt, Deputy Presiding Officer, our current system has not always rewarded the right behaviours, and how we measure the attainment gap isn’t as simple as some claim. Science entries are a really good example. In previous years, Wales saw a significant increase in FSM pupils being wrongly entered for BTEC science, rather than GCSEs. Not only did this limit aspirations, but it meant that their performance was masked in our national attainment gap figures. We have taken action to address this, which has led to an increase of 30 per cent, since 2016, in the number of free-school-meals pupils who have achieved at least one GCSE in science. 

Earlier this year, we published the detail of our draft evaluation and improvement arrangements. A previous focus on the C/D boundary supported many, but it excluded others. Instead, schools will now be evaluated according to the difference they make to the progress of every single child. This will require a system-wide culture change and will be essential in raising attainment for all.