I thank Laura Anne Jones for her questions and I think she makes some very, very important points in her contribution, if I may say. I think it is right, as she says, that this is a set of challenges where moving from a pandemic to an endemic state in terms of the school system's response to COVID is absolutely not going to guarantee that we revert to the levels of attendance that happened before COVID. That is absolutely clear, and I absolutely endorse the point that she made that the Government must have a range of levers available to support the system, but that we will make most progress in continuing the approach that we've adopted throughout, which is to support families, support learners to come back into school, so I wholeheartedly agree with those points that she makes.

There is a challenge, obviously, in asking schools, effectively, to grapple with a new set of challenges here, and that is what this entails. So, I hope that the additional investment in relation to the family engagement officer workforce will, as I expect, be valuable and be welcomed. It's through the work of that workforce, that part of our professional workforce, which is around establishing positive relationships with parents, with carers, with learners themselves, providing clear guidance, a clear set of expectations, but also the kind of reassurance that goes with that, and also understanding that, as we have said many times in this Chamber, the experience of individual learners over the last two years is individual to them, isn't it, and I think insofar as we can, to reflect that and to have a kind of bespoke approach tailored to the needs of individual families as far as that's possible.

She asked about the trigger points—I think that was the term that she used—and we will be looking at some of those, including, as I mentioned in my statement, the definition of persistent absence. I worry that is possibly set at too high a level at this point, and so the sorts of interventions that we will need ought to be available— ought to be triggered, if you like—at a lower level of absence, I think, than perhaps they might be otherwise, so I've asked for work to be done to look at that. As you will have seen, that's a recommendation in the report itself.

I do think the link between absence and mental health and well-being is both cause and effect, if you like; I think it has a complex relationship with well-being. And so the work that we are already doing, but building on, in terms of the whole-system approach to emotional and mental well-being, needs to be very mindful of that link and of that connection.

She raised the point in particular around the experience of learners with additional learning needs. We are looking at—. We're going to revise or revisit our guidance on exclusions. We've already commissioned some research from universities to help us understand the connection between exclusion and various characteristics, including additional learning needs, and we'll be working during the course of this year on amending that guidance to provide a more useful tool, reflecting the last two years.

Just to close, I think one of the themes in a number of our interventions is to make the school boundaries more porous, if you like. So, whether it's making Hwb resources available to those who are learning at home, whether it's the expansion of our community-focused schools model, and that includes, also, support to trial the role of community schools managers, it's to enable that bridging of the school world and the world of home to be a little more seamless. And part of that is a review, which is already under way, of our blended learning strategy, which I think goes some way to reflecting at least one of the points that she made in her question, which is about ensuring that when not in school, there is support for those learners to experience blended learning and come back into the world of the school in due course.