Diolch yn fawr, Siân. And can I say thank you for recognising the efforts of teachers in achieving these results today? As you went on to say, we are in the midst of the largest reform of education anywhere in the United Kingdom, so we're already asking an awful lot of the profession to engage in those reforms, especially in the curriculum, and therefore to be able to achieve these results is a real testament to their ability not only to engage in those reforms, but to carry on with the day-to-day job of teaching our children. And we are asking a lot of them. 

Can I also agree with you that we need to use the data wisely? Sometimes, it feels that, having participated in the PISA tests, we just wait for today, we see the raw scores, and that's the end of that. Actually, there is a wealth of information here that we need to analyse carefully, not just in relation to our own schools, but to look at international trends and to really engage in that narrative, so that we can get the full meaning out of participating in the PISA tests.

You're absolutely right: today, we have seen the best ever scores for maths and for reading since we participated in 2006. Our science scores haven't got back there yet, and I was very clear outside of Government, as I was clear last time, when we had the results for 2015, that nobody could describe those intervening years as good years and scores that any of us wanted to see. And that's why we've engaged in this process of education reform. But what these results demonstrate is that decline is not inevitable—we can do better, and we must do better. 

How will we achieve that? Well, we will achieve it by focusing on the four core enabling objectives within our national mission. And we're focusing on those not because we need to hit a PISA target of 500, but because we know that, by focusing on those objectives, we will develop and deliver raised standards, we'll close the attainment gap, and we will deliver that education system that is a source of national pride. So, what will we do? We will continue to invest in our teaching profession, by ensuring that we will give them the resources necessary to engage in professional learning. We will focus on the well-being of our children. We know that children with higher levels of well-being, on average, do better academically. So, we will need to continue our focus on ensuring that our children can make the most of their opportunities in school by addressing issues of well-being. 

We do need an accountability and assessment regime that drives the right sort of behaviours in our schools. When we look at an accountability regime that gave equal weighting to certain science qualifications, as opposed to GCSE science qualifications, understandably—quite understandably—we saw a huge drive towards those particular types of qualifications. And then we look at our decline in science scores and we wonder what happened. We've changed that accountability marker, and what we have seen is a significant, over 50 per cent, increase in the number of students studying triple science GCSEs, and those students doing well in them. So, getting the accountability regime that drives the right sort of behaviours in schools, not just academically, but also measuring well-being and how schools are addressing well-being, is absolutely clear. 

And what we've also been very clear about is that we have neglected the important point of leadership within the education system, and, too often, we have not been there to stand alongside our school leaders to provide them with the professional opportunity and the support that they need to be the best they can be. So, a focus—professional learning, well-being, accountability and assessment and leadership is where we need to focus, which is what will drive our education journey onwards. 

Properly resourced schools are important. The OECD says that, but it also goes on to say that simply spending more and more and more money is not necessarily directly linked to better and better results. It's how you spend the resources available that does make a difference. And that is, of course, why we have engaged Luke Sibieta to carry out our independent evaluation of education spend in Wales—yes, to look at the global sum that we as a Welsh Government make available to education, but also to really interrogate how that money is then used within our system, and is it being used to best effect. So, I'm not running away from the situation that are we absolutely confident that every single penny is being used to the best it can be, and that's why we have somebody outside of Government that is looking at that issue.

Well-being: the results of the well-being section of PISA I'm sure are of concern to all of us. Any of us who have our own children, or grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or just have a general interest in the well-being of the children of our nation, will want to understand what lies behind some of that question. Notwithstanding what the First Minister said in answers in FMQs, we do need to have a look at those results, and we need to see what more we can do. Of course, we are already beginning to address this, I believe, in the work of our whole-school approach, which we have begun since the publication of the Children, Young People and Education Committee's report, and that work is progressing really well. My feet, and those of Vaughan Gething, are held to the fire at every meeting by Lynne Neagle—and, believe me, she doesn't wait for meetings to happen either to hold my feet to the fire on those issues. So, we are continuing to see the whole-school approach work that the Government is undertaking to address that.

Of course, health and well-being will be one of the six areas of learning and experience within our new curriculum. But we also, Siân—and I hope you would agree with me—need to look outside our education system at what might be some of the factors that are driving that—so how can we work with our youth service, especially at these critical adolescent teenage years, how can we make sure our youth service—. We have seen a significant increase in investment this financial year in our youth services; I have had significant and long discussions with the finance Minister about our ability to keep that investment in youth services going. But we also have to look at issues, which were raised, again, in First Minister's questions, around poverty. If you're a child who is living in poverty, I daresay that you'll answer those surveys by saying that you feel miserable. If you're watching your mum and dad struggle, if you don't know whether there will be heating when you get home, if you are going with your parent down to the food bank, because that's the only way that you know your family will be fed this week, I daresay that affects your well-being. And, therefore, there is a responsibility across Welsh Government to take action to address these issues. So, yes, schools have a role to play—of course they do. But wider Government, and, indeed, wider society, has a role to play as well to ensure that our children have a better sense of well-being; it cannot be just the job of schools alone.