I'd certainly agree that good, healthy well-being is a great defence against very poor mental health outcomes, which ultimately, in too many cases unfortunately, can lead to significant self-harm and even suicide. So, I take that point. 

But, the Children's Society does balance their briefing note, reminding us that, in Wales, the new curriculum will allow for one of the seven areas of learning and experience to focus on health and well-being. I do welcome this, because I think schooling is all about, as well as enabling our young people to get the best possible education for productive outcomes, making them healthy citizens, and we should never forget that.

One good thing about PISA, despite some of the difficulties we've had since 2006, is it makes us take the whole school community seriously—you can't sort of pick and choose and then just focus on the elite groups who inevitably in any education system will achieve some level of distinction. It's about those pupils that sometimes are left behind and not focused on. So, these measures are appropriate, and I'm pleased that we take them very, very seriously. 

I also think the Children's Society is right to call for some of these subjective well-being factors perhaps to be written into the Estyn inspection framework. I think it's important that young people are making friends and they have friendships at school—and if they're not, then that's sending a very poor signal—that they have a positive feeling about the area they live in and they can influence it, and to examine how they feel about the future. That's a key sign of well-being. 

I have to say, in these scores, we find in Wales 48 per cent sometimes felt sad, 44 per cent sometimes felt worried—that's above the OECD average, not a huge amount above, but above—but then 46 per cent sometimes felt miserable, and that was very considerably above the OECD average, I'm afraid.

Can I turn to care-experienced children? I think it's very important that, when we look at PISA, we remember that some of our pupils continue to achieve well below their potential and that their life experiences are having a significant impact on their chances of succeeding in later life and having a happy, productive adulthood. I think we have a real problem between key stage 2 and then what they're achieving at key stage 4, and I do welcome the fact that the Government has looked at the whole issue of educational attainment for this group. The way that they're slipping behind their peer group by the time they get to key stage 4, I think, is a real worry. Now, of course, a lot of children come into care as adolescents, and it's at that key stage 4 that there's a very dramatic impact sometimes, whereas at key stage 2, things are sometimes less obdurate and difficult to change or control. But I still think that is a real worry for us. 

Finally, can I just say, on literacy, I'm concerned to note that Welsh pupils are less likely to read books than pupils across the OECD and that many of them have negative attitudes towards reading. I think this is a cultural thing, as well as what's happening in our schools. We all have our part to play here in promoting literacy and the joy of reading. And that's something that we used to have so extensively in Welsh society. When you think of the miners' institutes, I think, on average—someone has done the calculation—that they had 3,000 volumes in their libraries, and then the whole library movement, obviously, is another thing we've discussed here.

But I do conclude by saying it's appropriate that we choose very robust and challenging measures, and that we should remember in terms of PISA. I do hope the Government will continue in terms of its membership of PISA and take these results seriously, and that we mark where there are some improvements and concede that. But, obviously, we want to get above the OECD average. That should be our aim.