Thank you, Deputy Llywydd, and thank you, Minister, for your statement. In my role as Plaid Cymru spokesperson on children and young people, I look forward to working with you on this policy as part of the co-operation agreement between my party and your Government. 

A great deal of international evidence on reform of the school day and year already exists. There are some successful examples and some less successful. It's no surprise that the impact of extending the school day depends on how that time is used. Evidence from the EPI shows us that extending the school day is most effective when we use current staff who are well trained, integrated into existing classes and activities. This is based on strong, empiric evidence, and is more effective, according to evidence, for maths. As long as this approach is taken, then additional funding to allow an extended school day is likely to lead to wins that are strong and consistent. Given that the evidence shows that extending the school day is most effective when we use current staff who are well trained, can the Minister outline how the £2 million for this pilot, as well as the broader funding for education recovery, will be used to ensure that well-trained staff are in place to ensure effective educational recovery and to take full advantage of the possible benefits of reforming the school day?

You will also be aware that many stakeholders, including unions and teachers, have raised concerns that this isn't the right time for any changes such as extending the school day. There was a mixed response from the teaching unions, with Neil Butler noting and warning that there were implications for teacher workload and indeed health and safety as schools continue to have difficulty in coping with COVID. Indeed, some schools have the highest ever levels of COVID at this particular time. Although they as unions are open to changes to the school day and the school year, UCAC said that they as a union wanted to ensure that there won't be any damage to teachers' pay and conditions. Therefore, there are clear concerns in terms of workload, pay and conditions for teachers, and health and safety in terms of extending the school day and the school year. So, can the Minister respond to the unions' concerns whilst providing some assurances to teachers that they won't face a heavier workload and damaging impacts to their terms and conditions?

Another issue I'd like to raise is—. Whilst I welcome the fact that the pilot is proceeding, may I raise an issue that's a cause of concern to me? What I read in the press was that you wanted 20 schools to be part of the pilot initially, but only 14 have signed up to participate. I understand that of the 14, according to an interview that you gave to Radio Cymru before Christmas, not one of these is a Welsh-medium school, and all of the schools are either in Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Neath Port Talbot or Blaenau Gwent. One challenge we have in terms of rural schools and Welsh-medium schools, particularly, is that their catchments are larger, and, therefore, pupils have to rely on bus travel to school, missing an opportunity, very often, even now, to join in breakfast clubs and after-school clubs. So, if the pilot is going to be as useful and transparent as possible, as we look at changing something that's been in place for 150 years, wouldn't it be worthwhile for the Government to look at trying to get an additional six schools that are specifically in those areas not currently represented, and look at Welsh-medium primaries and secondaries, if we are truly to learn lessons from this pilot?

Related to this, the pandemic has had a very detrimental impact on the Welsh language, as we know, and has deprived many children from non-Welsh-speaking backgrounds of the opportunity to use the language regularly and naturally. Without doubt, this has had an impact on the development of learners on their way to becoming confident Welsh speakers, and it has certainly had an impact already on our efforts to reach a million Welsh speakers by 2050. Can the Minister therefore outline how he believes these plans to reform the school day and year will support the increasing use of the Welsh language? In addition to this, given the apparent shortage of Welsh-speaking teachers in Wales, can the Minister explain how you and the Welsh Government are aiming to ensure that the workforce is in place to provide the additional teaching time through the medium of Welsh?