Thank you, Suzy, and thank you very much for taking the trouble to recognise the contribution of our chief inspector to the education system. I think it's absolutely fair to say that his relationship either with the Minister or with education spokespersons has been one of absolute transparency, and he has wanted to share his knowledge and views on Welsh education in a completely impartial way as his role dictates. So, thank you for your comments; it's much appreciated. 

With regard to standards in secondary schools, clearly, we need to make more progress. It's important for local authorities and regional consortia, I believe, to identify as soon as possible those schools that are at risk of under-performing or causing concern. In some ways, by the time Estyn makes a formal judgment in that case, things have gone on for too long. So, there's a real challenge there for both the regional consortia and the local authorities to be in close contact, and to identify and provide support earlier.

I'm aware that Estyn has continued to engage closely with schools in a statutory category during the pandemic, so it's not as if these issues have been swept under the carpet or ignored because we're in the middle of a pandemic. Estyn have adopted a sensitive, flexible approach with these schools, and have assigned a pastoral HMI to each of them to see how they are dealing with the pandemic, to check on well-being and to offer continued support, as have local authorities and regional consortia. But there's no getting away from it, and I recognise that too many of our secondary schools are not improving sufficiently or fast enough, and that is why we trialled a multi-agency approach for secondary schools in need of the highest level of support, both for schools that are already causing concerns or those schools that were at risk of doing so.

I note the chief inspector's comments about the trial and that new approach. We worked closely with stakeholders across the middle tier to develop it, and it has evolved from the work of the four regional consortia that have been most effective at improving our most challenging schools. So, it builds upon good practice of what worked in previous circumstances. We started testing the multi-agency approach with a small number of secondary schools across Wales—two from each region, actually—but, unfortunately, the trial of this new approach was paused in March as schools and local authorities needed to focus on the response to the pandemic. 

Both Estyn and the Welsh Government have carried out an informal survey of schools, local authorities and regions that had participated in that trial, and we have recognised some of the points of strength of that approach. Clearly, we will now plan to roll out that approach to all secondary schools that are in a category as soon as we are able to do so. But I think the way in which we identify schools earlier before they reach that categorisation, and then how we actually have a multi-agency approach, so it's not just the job of the school, and Estyn comes along a number of weeks or months later to make a judgement again, but actually it's part of the school improvement journey—that new approach, we believe, will pay dividends. 

With regard to the £29 million and what standards are we building back to, Suzy, you will be aware of what the inspector says about regression in literacy and numeracy. This is particularly challenging for our youngest children, and our most deprived children. What we need to do is to, in the first instance, address that learning loss and get children back up to a level that could be reasonably expected of them—so, where they would have expected their progression to have got to if the pandemic hadn't hit us. We need to get those children back to that point in the first instance, and then look to improve from that. But you'll be aware the inspector does say that early reports from September show that a number of children have gone backwards, so we need to get them back to what an expected standard would have been, or the expectations a teacher would have had for those children, whatever stage of education they're in, before the pandemic hit.

With regard to the curriculum, can I politely say that you have taken selections of what the inspector has said about the curriculum? You're right; he does report positively on improved digital competence, he does talk about well-being, but he actually does say that both primary and secondary schools are already—that despite the challenge they face in this most difficult of times, actually, the level of disruption has been so great they've used this opportunity to move away from how things used to be to begin to change their approaches in anticipation of the curriculum. So, that's good to see—that even in this most difficult of times, when sometimes just getting the door open in the morning has been a triumph, especially in parts of Wales where the public health situation has been most serious, both primaries and secondaries are beginning to do the thinking and the practice ready for the new curriculum.

Clearly, we have two processes here. We have the legislative process, which you and I are both very much actively engaged in, and then we have the implementation process, and we will continue to work, as we have done throughout this curriculum planning period, with the sector to address readiness issues and to keep under review whether the time is sufficient and whether the level of disruption has caused too much difficulty for schools. But as I said, I am encouraged. It would have been, perhaps, intuitive to believe that no schools were beginning to think about the curriculum at this moment, and the inspector says something very different. Thank you.