Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that 'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions' on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding?
Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it—that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year.
Thank you. Llyr on this.