We will work, Dirprwy Lywydd, with the Education Workforce Council and our initial teacher education institutions to ensure that the nature of educational disadvantage, its impact on educational achievement and how that can be overcome, is a prominent element of our initial teacher education programmes. We will also include this as a key feature of induction and of professional learning provision.

Our support staff play critical roles in our schools, with many already specifically employed to support teachers in dealing with the impact of poverty on pupil achievement. This is good practice. In order to strengthen further the capacity of teaching support staff to help address this priority, not only will we ensure they have access to high-qualify professional learning programmes, but we will also ensure that school leaders have access to clear guidance on the most appropriate way of deploying support staff to assist in overcoming educational inequalities.

We know how crucial the pupil development grant is to our schools. Evidence shows that since its introduction, its use by schools has improved over time. However, we know that there is still more that can be done to target this funding better. Whilst ultimately the use of this funding should be decided by schools, these decisions need to be more strategically influenced, better grounded in evidence and rigorously monitored for impact. We will therefore require schools to work closely with us, sharing their plans and how they intend to monitor impact, supported by further guidance on evidence-informed uses of the grant.

We know from research and inspection evidence that schools that couple effective learning and teaching with a focus on community engagement are most effective in overcoming the impact of poverty on educational attainment. We will therefore want to see schools operate as community-focused schools, reaching out to parents and carers and engaging with the whole community.

Over the coming months, we will invest £3.84 million in increasing the number of family engagement officers employed by schools, with part of their role to be focused on improving pupil attendance. We will also provide funding to trial the appointment of community-focused schools managers, and £20 million of capital investment to allow schools to develop further as community assets, making the school more accessible and open to its local community. We will also be working with local authorities and health boards to look to extend wraparound, multi-agency provision for learners in our most disadvantaged communities.

Dirprwy Lywydd, for some of our young people, their aspiration is to study the best courses at leading universities. The Seren network continues to go from strength to strength, supporting some of the brightest young people in Wales to succeed at university. In the next phase of Seren's life, we will focus on increasing the involvement in the network of learners from low-income households. University is not the pinnacle of aspiration for everyone, but your ability to reach that pinnacle, if you choose it, should not depend on where you embark from. And alongside this, I am also looking to provide greater access to independent careers advice for young people from low-income households in the latter years of primary education and at ages 13 and 16, so that they have the best possible information on the variety of paths that can lie ahead for them.

And leadership is crucial in all of this: the vision to ensure that that the very best learning and teaching is in place, the conviction that schools should operate as community assets and the tenacity to raise aspirations and to support learners and their families. Good leaders can make a huge difference. We will ask the leadership academy to bring more of a focus on supporting our more disadvantaged learners to flourish, and working with school improvement services, we will task them with supporting school leaders to deliver high standards and aspirations for all. We will also identify a cohort of headteachers and senior leaders who have had sustained success in overcoming the impact of poverty on educational attainment, and we'll ask them to work with us to support other schools and leaders collaboratively.

And finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, it will be essential that we regularly monitor progress at all levels of the system. We'll use a broad range of indicators to measure progress, while continuing to place a high importance on qualifications. Estyn will have a key role to play in both supporting and monitoring our plans, and this will include producing guidance that informs their inspection activity in this area, reporting annually on the progress being made by schools, colleges and other providers, providing further system-level feedback through thematic reviews, strengthening their focus on this area in the inspections of local authorities and the engagement work they do with school improvement services, and providing further support for schools.

Today, Dirprwy Lywydd, I've described just some of the actions we'll be taking in the coming weeks and months, and I look forward to sharing with the Senedd our progress on this journey. Every single child in a school in Wales deserves the best—the best of standards and the best of aspirations. And this is not a choice between equity and excellence in our schools. Dirprwy Lywydd, the hallmark of a good society is the ability to deliver both. We want schools that deliver high standards and aspirations for all, and the actions I've outlined today will set us on the path to that destination.