Thank you, Minister. Can I just associate myself with your opening remarks regarding teachers and staff, and can I include governors in that? It's been a really difficult time for everybody, including yourselves, but most importantly our constituents.

Thank you very much for your statement. I think we have to start off with the top line of my position, which is that schools must stay open unless they absolutely—absolutely—have to close. And while, of course, the situation with exams is difficult, and perhaps for another day, I think we do need to look a little bit at the history of the opening and closing of schools because, obviously, back in March, we all understood the urgency of limiting contact of every kind. We had a dangerous enemy that we didn't really understand, but we did also understand that there would be an inevitable hit to our children's education, and while school leaders did turn themselves inside out trying to provide the best that they could for our learners, I think we know by now that there was a great inconsistency of pupil contact, of the accessibility of online content, the ability of families to really engage with that online content, and the willingness of children to stick with it, the willingness to stick with that learning. We've all had a bit of COVID fatigue, I guess. 

And that's why we were very supportive, actually, of your plans to open schools over four weeks in the summer term to check in and catch up, as you said, so that teachers and learners could evaluate what they needed next. And I think that's perhaps where it started to unravel for Government. Letting the country think one thing, when, actually, you hadn't really nailed it down on the delivery of that fourth week, when you had powers that you could have used to stop councils saying 'no' to schools, is where I'm starting to take issue with what I thought was a good start, if I'm honest. Since then, there's been, certainly more latterly, more of a sense of 'whatever you want, schools' going on. Of course, there are operational decisions that only schools can make, and your guidance has been very helpful with that, but there are occasions when you need mandates; there are occasions when you need rules. Schools don't understand the science, whereas you, as you said today, have continued to be guided by the latest medical and scientific advice in making any decisions on the safe return of learners. You have that information; school leaders don't necessarily. And they are certainly are struggling to make ideas stick on the spot when they don't have that reassurance that behind them is a Minister who can say, 'Here's the law, that's what you can rely on.' 

When you say fully open is not back to normal, obviously that's true of the physical layout in our schools, but I think we do need some reassurance that the level and standard of acquisition of learning does need to be nearer back to normal. I'm not encouraged by your statement that we cannot expect schools to execute all of their duties in respect of the curriculum for all learners in all circumstances during this time. And we know they have had time. We agreed with you that a fortnight was a good time to let schools get the hang of what their learners needed, and I'm curious to know whether this extension for the first 30 days of September is something that you consulted on, because I don't believe it is, and whether we are back in a situation where we are suspending the need to stick to the curriculum. 

Have you been successful in persuading your colleagues of what I said in my opening statement, that schools must be the last to close down, particularly in the event of a lockdown? I see that you've expressed great confidence in the TTP strategy, so I'm hoping that that is the ammunition you've taken to Cabinet colleagues in making the argument that schools should stay open. But if you weren't successful in that, have you already decided what you will mandate in the event of a national lockdown, to make sure that learning wasn't impacted on in the way it was before? Are you thinking of mandating live-streaming of lessons, for example? Have you done an assessment of how much of the IT equipment that was distributed—something we supported—to make sure that students are making the best of them? Or in the more likely situation of localised lockdowns, which will hopefully mean students are out of face-to-face learning for a fortnight at a time at the most, are you going to be insisting that schools should require virtual attendance to lessons, which in the majority of cases should be provided virtually as timetabled?

I'd like a little bit of detail on the money that you found for new teachers and catch-up, how that's going to be used, and how it will be used in further education colleges. I'd be keen to learn how the belated monitoring and evaluation of what happened between March and July has affected decisions you're likely to make. And I'd be keen to hear what you can tell us now on how any further lockdowns would be likely to impact on that already pared down syllabus that you referred to earlier, particularly for those taking general qualifications later in—at the end of this academic year, sorry.

You didn't say very much about testing in schools. I wondered if you could tell us whether you or Public Health Wales have done anything on temperature testing in schools at all. If you have—that's an open question; genuinely curious to hear about that. And then I suppose I repeat my questions in the same context for further education, where the different age profiles make face-to-face teaching more difficult, because there are different regulations on social distancing relating to different age groups. I wonder if you could clarify for me how far you can mandate certain actions in a college as compared to a school, and do you have any particular powers through which you can satisfy yourself on that question of the quality of learning during a period of lockdown in FE institutions as well as schools? Thank you.