Presiding Officer, can I thank the Member for that series of questions? I will do my best to make sure that I've logged them all and answered them all.

There is no sigh of relief from me today, Presiding Officer—just a determination to carry on with the reform programme and to do even better. The Member says that we have dropped the target of 500 and then she just says at the end of her statement—am I going to meet the target of 500? The target of 500 is clearly outlined in our national mission action plan for the next set of PISA results. I set a target for this set of PISA results, which was to demonstrate improvement across three areas, which we have done today, and to see an increase in the top performers in our PISA tests, which we have done today. Rather than a missed target, that is a target delivered.

Can I say, Presiding Officer, it is simply not true to say that we are at the bottom of the pile in the United Kingdom? Those that administer the PISA tests, the National Foundation for Educational Research, are quite clear that, statistically, our performance with maths and science is on a par with Northern Ireland and Scotland. Now, I appreciate the Tories have a reckless disregard for the future of the union, but the last time I looked, they were still in the United Kingdom. I will be the first person to acknowledge that we have more to do to improve our reading scores. They were also the words of the NFER to say that we have reached, and are statistically similar to the OECD average across all three domains, whereas last time round we were significantly below the OECD target.

Now, with regard to the curriculum, the Member asks us about the Scottish curriculum. What's important to remember is that we are developing our own curriculum in Wales. It's not the Scottish curriculum that we are replicating in Wales—we are designing our own. For the first time ever, we will have a curriculum designed by the people of Wales for the children of Wales, and we continue to learn lessons from across the globe as to what represents good practice and what we need to avoid. That includes learning the lessons of successful curriculum implementation from around the globe, including Scotland. For instance, one very clear example of what we've learned is not to rush the process, which is why I made the difficult decision to delay the implementation of the curriculum, making sure that we got our profession ready.

With regard to the other lessons that can be learned, the Member will see that there's been great focus in the British media today—and I made mention of it—on the system in Estonia. The system in Estonia focuses very, very heavily on early years care and education, ensuring that all children, when they go into formal education, have the maturity and the sense of well-being and confidence to make the most of their learning. That's why in this Government we continue to prioritise Flying Start, we're making more high-quality childcare available to families, and why I will always, when resources allow, front-load investment into education for those early years, because that's where we know that we can ensure that our children will develop those early skills—the oracy that is so important to developing good reading and understanding later in life—and it's by investing in early years we will see a return on that investment.

The Member asked about Seren fach. Well, I've been very fortunate to come this morning from the Seren conference in Newtown, where universities in Wales, in the UK and from America were represented. And it so positive to hear people from Oxbridge talk about the high numbers this year of interviews that they have offered to Welsh students, far outstripping the national picture. They know the quality of a Welsh A-level Seren student and they want that quality in their institutions. But we've also listened to parents and teachers about how we can bring the benefits of Seren sooner into a child's education career, and I'm very pleased to say we have Seren fach pilots in every single Seren hub running this year. And, again, I'd like to thank the hub co-ordinators and the participating schools that have worked really hard to begin to pilot that approach for younger students.

With regard to the issue of what has made the difference, it's impossible to point to one single factor, but I do believe that the significant improvement in top performers has had an effect. And when I say 'significant improvement', those are not my words, those are the words of the OECD that have characterised what we've done in top performers in that way. But let me be absolutely clear, as I said in my statement, even though we have seen that significant improvement, we are not at the OECD average yet for the percentage of students performing at that level, and that's why we must persist with our support for the more able and talented, because that is one of the ways in which we will hit the target of 500 in the next round.

Issues around resources—I was nodding to Mark Reckless, because he is perfectly correct in what he was saying: teachers in Wales did report a higher proportion of feeling that they did not have the resources—in this case textbooks and ICT—that they required. What's interesting is that teachers in Welsh schools did not report not having the right amounts of staff. Actually, that was at the OECD average. So, Welsh teachers did not feel that they didn't have the teaching personnel that they needed. And I'm nodding because we've recognised that issue within Welsh Government. So, this year, for instance, we have supplied, on a national basis to every single school in Wales, Microsoft Office, so that schools don't have to buy that. It's universal, everybody's on the same playing field, and we've been able to do it at a cost saving, actually, to overall spend. And this year alone, we will invest £50 million in educational technology. I'm pleased to say we're doing that in partnership with each of the 22 local authorities. Each local authority will have a share of that investment, and each local authority has been asked to send in an assessment of where their schools are at the moment. All those assessments have now been received by Welsh Government, and we are now in the process of ensuring that that £50 million is spent by the end of the financial year. And that will, I believe, go some way to addressing some of the concerns that teachers have raised. That's a practical response, even before we had this report.

Can I say, with regard to targets missed, the Member only needs to refer to the national mission document where we said the target for this time was to see an increase in the performance of top performers? We have delivered that. The national mission also states quite clearly that we want to reach that 500 target by the next set of PISA results. Interestingly, if you look at girls' reading, actually, that score is not that far away. But, clearly, there is more work to be done to reach that target, and I, and, more importantly than me, everybody involved in the education system, is determined to push on to make sure that that happens.