 The next item of business is a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on recovery and improvement in schools and early learning. As a further cabinet secretary, we will take questions at the end of our statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on the cabinet secretary for around 10 minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. As the First Minister said earlier, I want to stress again our focus on the wellbeing and learning of children and young people during this challenging period. We know that Omicron is a serious threat, and we need to do all that we can to ensure that schools and early-year settings can stay open with as little disruption as possible. I would like to start by thanking all those who are involved in Scottish education for their on-going work—school leaders, teachers, school support staff, children and young people, their carers and families—all of whom have made sure that learning continues despite Covid-19. Today's publication of the achievement of curriculum for excellence levels data, or ASL, shows many young people succeeding in gaining fundamental educational blocks despite the interruptions in their schooling forced upon them by the pandemic. However, it also shows an exceptionally disappointing but, unfortunately, not unexpected overall drop in attainment in literacy and numeracy amongst primary school learners in 2020-21. That is not an issue unique to Scotland. Worldwide, education has been impacted. Our equity audit, which was published earlier this year, highlighted the impact of the pandemic, particularly on those affected by poverty. Last week, ofstead, Steve Inspector's annual report noted that nearly all children and learners have been affected by the pandemic. A recent report from the World Bank documents evidence of pandemic-related learning loss over 28 countries at all income levels. I reaffirm today my Government's commitment to delivering excellence and equity in education. Before the pandemic, the year-on-year trend in the ASL data was positive. Our education system was making progress in response to the focus on improvement, and we are building on that with our publication today of the national improvement framework and national improvement plan. We are demonstrating our long-term commitment to this approach to the education system. New initiatives that were built on earlier are learning from what works and what teachers, schools and young people tell us that they need. As part of the learning process, we have amended the national improvement framework's vision, priorities and drivers this year to better articulate the centrality of children and young people, their voice and their rights. We have increased our emphasis on early learning and childcare to reflect the importance of the early years in children's learning and preparedness to learn. The national improvement framework and national improvement plan underpin our long-term plans, and it is right that we reaffirm our commitment to a mission that began before Covid and will continue when it leaves us. We recognise that Covid-19 has changed everything. That is why we have already committed to half a billion pounds worth to support education since the start of the pandemic. Local authorities were asked to target that funding towards wellbeing, literacy and numeracy, support for families and support for attendance or engagement with learning. Local authorities and schools worked together to ensure that support was available where it was needed. As children began their phase to turn to in-person schooling in the spring, we asked schools to focus on their wellbeing first. Children cannot learn well if they do not feel well. Schools have responded innovatively across Scotland. They used digital platforms, including Glow, the national e-learning offer and others, supplemented with on- and offline resources and targeted intervention for key areas of curriculum, including literacy, numeracy and wellbeing, to maximise support to children and to young people. Given our concern that Covid would impact negatively on education, this Government has already put in place policies to support the education system to support learners. The education recovery strategy drew those together aimed at closing the gap created by the pandemic. We are providing further support for learners who are sitting exams in 2022, ensuring access to in-school mental health and wellbeing support that young people need, expanding funding for early learning and childcare, recommitting to tackling the poverty-related attainment gap and recruiting additional teachers and support staff. On top of the 1,400 teachers recruited in 2020-21, we have committed to bringing a further 3,500 teachers and 500 support staff into the system by the end of this Parliament. The school census data published today shows that, in September, we already had over 2,000 more teachers in the system than before the pandemic. We provided £240 million of investment for those staff, and Thursday's budget set out how we are supporting their retention with a further £145.5 million per year from 2022-23. Those additional staff bring the ratio of pupils to teachers to 13.2—it is lowest since 2009—directly supporting children by increasing the amount of teacher attention available to each child. That is a powerful injection of resource, providing additional support to the system while Covid is still causing staff absences. It is supporting schools to help children and young people whose education has been most affected by the pandemic to regain their confidence and build their skills. Once the effects of the pandemic are less, that increase in staff will support improvements in attainment. It matters just as much that teachers in our classrooms are highly skilled and well supported in their on-going professional development. Our commitment to reducing class contact time for teachers by 90 minutes per week will help to facilitate teachers' access to extended professional learning and collaborative planning opportunities. We would hope to have that in place for August 2022, however the timing of that change will be determined by the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, and we will dependant on capacity in the system. I am grateful to them for working with us on those changes. I noted in my statements on the Scottish attainment challenge on 23 November that the pandemic is likely to have impacted the poverty-related attainment gap. We are determined to focus our resources on supporting the attainment and life chances of children and young people who are most impacted by poverty. We are investing £1 billion in targeted funding over the course of this Parliament, up from £750 million in the last Parliament, with up to £200 million distributed for 2022-23. We have already delivered on our first 100 days target to ensure that the first instalment of that funding this year, alongside the £20 million people equity premium, is there for local authorities. Further, we are determined to reduce variation in educational outcomes in different parts of the country. Variation reflecting responsiveness to the needs of children and young people in different communities, using assets available in different places, is a good thing. It can mean that local professionals are responding creatively and imaginatively to different circumstances and needs. Variation in which children from different areas are disadvantaged in their life chances is not acceptable. Education is essential to improving the opportunities of our young people and we must support schools to ensure that they do that for all pupils. I have already announced plans working with partners across education to develop a framework for recovery and accelerated progress that we will publish in the new year. Planning and reporting will be streamlined to enable us to understand what schools and local authorities expect to achieve and by when using local stretch aims. Schools and local authorities will set out their ambitions for improvement using local knowledge and professional expertise. In government, we will work with partners to develop the national picture in terms of pace of expected progress later in the year. Today's revised national improvement framework and the national improvement plan for 2022 responds to the recommendations set out in this year's reports from the OECD, Audit Scotland and the International Council of Education Advisers. Key improvement activity includes the on-going provision of professional learning and leadership opportunities, enhancement to teacher empowerment and the expansion of Education Scotland and local authority joint work on collaborative improvement. Despite the on-going challenges of Covid-19, it is right that we maintain our focus on future improvements. In 2022, a subgroup of the Curriculum and Assessment Board will consider how to better understand children and young people's achievements across all the four capacities of the curriculum for excellence as successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors. The group will consider whether a sample-based survey can add value to our understanding of progress. We will also carry out a consultation exercise early in 2022 to review the key measures in the national improvement framework. We remain committed to teacher judgment as the primary means of assessing progress in the broad general education. National standardized assessments being delivered this year in the highest number since introduction continue to play an important role in supporting teacher judgment. Local authorities have strategies in place to improve aspects of education. Local plans have been analysed by Education Scotland and informed the 2022 national improvement framework and improvement plan. Improving literacy and numeracy is already a common feature of that work, undertaken by a number of regional improvement collaboratives. I know that local government is also mindful of the recommendations in the Audit Scotland report focused on tackling variation and the need for locally driven improvement activity. It is, of course, the role of Education Scotland to support local improvement through national initiatives. It provides support at universal, targeted and intensive levels and continues to work with regional improvement collaboratives and local authorities to identify and implement interventions to improve outcomes for children and young people. We must pull together around those who have felt the pandemic hardest, focusing resource where evidence shows that impact has been the most extreme. I have therefore asked Education Scotland to engage directly with authorities who have experienced the biggest falls in attainment to support them in planning interventions with the greatest opportunity for success. Scotland already has the national response to improving mathematics partnership board, and we will set up a national response to improving literacy group. Both groups will examine the existing landscape in Scotland and internationally, seeking opportunities to enhance professional learning for teachers and the classroom experiences for young people. In the light of today's attainment data, I will be asking both groups to develop evidence-based recommendations in spring 2022 with a view to implementing changes as soon as possible. That has been a turbulent 20 months and the pandemic continues to bring new challenges. Every person working in schools and services for children and young people is dealing with the impact of the pandemic on themselves and their families, while also supporting the children in their care and continuing to support their learning. As we go into another difficult winter, I do not underestimate the level of personal commitments, integrity and energy that that takes, and I want to thank teachers, early learning and childcare practitioners and other education staff for all they continue to do. Despite new and ongoing challenges of Covid, we remain determined to make sure that schools and through them our children and young people have the support that they need now, taking opportunities and building the foundations for further improvement as we move forward. Thank you. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions, after which we will need to move to the next item of business. As ever, it will be helpful if members who want to ask a question could press their request-to-speak buttons as soon as possible or place an R in the chat function. I call on Oliver Mundell. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Those shocking results reveal the brutal impact on young people of Covid, which has been heightened by years of SNP failure. Scotland's schools came into the pandemic unprepared after 14 years of the SNP letting standards slip. The double whammy of Covid and the SNP's botched reforms have sent the attainment gap between the richest and poorest pupils spiralling to its worst ever level. Those grim statistics show that, despite the best efforts of teachers and parents, pupils across Scotland are not reaching the expected levels of attainment in reading, writing, numeracy, literacy and listening and talking. Dreadful results on this scale should shame Nicola Sturgeon. She promised to close the attainment gap, but instead it is wider than ever. Education has never been her top priority and it shows. The SNP Government has let down our children and young people. Cabinet secretary, are you ready to admit that it was a mistake to deny the need for catch-up plans for our young people? Will you say sorry for failing then abandoning this generation of pupils? I fully and readily accept that those are exceptionally disappointing figures, but they are not unexpected, unfortunately, given the fact that we are in a global pandemic. I had raised in my statement some of the examples of how that is also impacting on England and, indeed, further afield. That context is exceptionally important. The one part that I absolutely agree with Oliver Mundell on is that the work that has happened in our schools to support children and young people from teachers and support staff has been truly exceptional, under the most difficult of circumstances. The Government has supported it to the best of our abilities during the pandemic, as I said, with £0.5 billion of support as we went through the pandemic for a number of areas, not just, but very specifically teacher numbers as an example. We will continue to ensure that we are taking action on this, including on teacher numbers. What we will also do is ensure that we continue to empower teachers to make the decisions at a local level about what is right for them. That is why the attainment fund is so important, and that is why the equity fund is so important. We are committed not to a top-down approach from here, but to provide the resource to be able to provide schools with the ability to take what decisions are right for them. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. I would like to associate Labour and the Labour Party's sentiments with what the cabinet secretary says about a thanks to give to teachers and education staff across Scotland to parents and pupils. The cabinet secretary's right in saying that the statistics are not surprising, but they are shocking and they are hugely problematic for this country. We may disagree on the actions that this Government has taken in the pandemic, whether it has been sufficient and the record of the past 14 years, but surely we can agree that the figures today tell us that more of the same cannot be tolerated. It is insufficient just to ameliorate the undue cuts of this Government, given the unprecedented level of the scale of the challenge that we now face. Unless we see the necessary reaction in a resolve that the young people of Scotland will not now bear the scars of this pandemic, then those numbers will represent the diminished life chances of a generation. It is that stark. We must give them opportunity and the resource that they need and the hope that they require. Will the Government commit to urgent analysis to assess the full impact of the pandemic on education so that it can tell us what action is required to save the situation? What further action will be taken to ensure the recruitment of extra teachers now, not over the next five years but now? Will the Government reverse the cuts that it made to the Scottish attainment challenge funding in the budget last week, as that resource has never been more needed? What I said in my statement in November on the Scottish attainment challenge is that the money over this parliamentary term has increased from £750 million to £1 billion. That is part of our response to the pandemic because we have unfortunately been expecting disappointing, exceptionally disappointing statistics such as those, although up until now we have not seen the full impact of those. The evidence today is part of the demonstration of the impact on that, as has some of the recent analysis on the health and wellbeing of our young people when we are looking at mental health. I will try to seek consensus wherever I can on that. I agree with that absolutely the young people of today should not bear the scars of the pandemic. The work of the Scottish Government to ensure that that does not happen has been quite clear for some time. I would point, for example, to the young person's guarantee for those who are moving out of schooling, but I would point again specifically to the work that we are doing to increase teacher recruitment and to increase the attainment funding to demonstrate that. We are already making great strides in the number of teachers. The teacher census, which has come out today, does point to more than 2,000 more teachers now than in 2019. That is more teachers now than at any time since 2008. We are fulfilling on our commitments that we had in the first 100 days to ensure that we are providing local authorities with the funding that they require to make sure that they recruit, because it is them that are the employers that they recruit, the teachers that we so desperately need. I would expect them and I am sure that they will follow up on that. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Scottish Government is investing in teacher recruitment with the biggest increase in investment since 2007 and veiled in the budget last week. Summary statistics for schools in Scotland 2021 published today shows this investment paying off with the pupil-teacher ratio at its lowest since 2009. Can the cabinet secretary set out the importance of that in driving recovery in our education system? Co-cab sure is quite right to point to the significant and sustained injection of teaching resource that is providing additional support to the system while the pandemic is still causing staff absences, as well as supporting schools to help children and young people whose education has most been impacted by the pandemic. As she rightly points out, the additional staff have also brought the ratio of pupil to teachers to the lowest it has been since 2019. That is obviously directly supporting children by increasing the amount of teacher attention available to each child. That will ensure that once that work is in place as it is, that we will have our commitment to 3,500 additional teachers and 500 classroom assistants by the end of this Parliament, ensuring that the work is sustained. As well as reminding colleagues to turn their phones off or on silent while they are in the chamber, can I ask for succinct questions and succinct answers so that we can get all-through the questioners within the time available, making Galleher to be followed by Bob Doris? The cabinet secretary outlined the Scottish Government's intention to reduce class contact time for teachers by 90 minutes per week. As school closures are still taking place due to the on-going pandemic, that could impact young people being able to catch up on lost schooling. Given that 99 per cent of teachers did not believe that their pupils were fully engaged with homeschooling during the height of the pandemic, does the cabinet secretary share my concerns that this is not the appropriate time to be cutting class time between teachers and young people? I genuinely think that Megan Galleher is missing the point on that one. I have said in my statement that there is the intention to bring that in by August 22, but we will work with the SNCT to ensure that there is capacity in the system to allow that to happen, and particularly to ensure that we are providing young people with the support that they need. There is absolutely no suggestion that the Scottish Government will do something that will diminish the number of teachers or the amount of time that we have within the school system until the system is ready, but that is exactly why we are working very hard to recruit more teachers into the process to ensure that that can happen. Bob Doris, to be followed by Martin Whitfield. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I would like to place the record, my thank for teachers and staff in Glasgow for their hard work in the success that has been demonstrated in these stats of police today. That said, achievement for collecting for excellence levels, data publishing ratios, wide variation in local authority performance, including with comparative quintile deprivation levels also. Can I ask the cabinet secretary to set out what lessons we can learn from and, more importantly, what steps she will take to improve the situation? That is a very important issue. It was an issue before the pandemic and something that we are determined to take further action on. Mr Doris will be well aware that the Refreshed Scottish Detainment Challenge programme aims to increase the pace of progress, and it is very important to tackle the variation that he spoke about. That has been a stubborn feature in Scottish education for too many years, so we are right to look right across the system. We have a shared objective on this with local government to develop a framework to support recovery and accelerate progress. That will see better collaboration, greater support and greater challenge, where necessary, across all parts of the education system and see planning for tackling the poverty-related detainment gap streamlined with the identification of the local stretch aims, which I mentioned in my statement. That will be a key area to seek to reduce the variation that Mr Doris mentioned in his question. Reaffirm, better articulate, increase our emphasis, already put in place, drew together, already delivered, have already announced. Given the agreed urgency of the situation, what is new in this statement that will narrow the attainment gap? I mentioned some of the measures. In my statement, there was not time to go into all of them, but I am sure that Mr Whitfield will read the national improvement framework that is published. I would also say that we have known for some time—again, I pointed to this on my statement through the equity audit—that we would have disappointing results. We knew that this was a challenge that all the education systems were going to face. That is exactly why we have already not just been planning but taken action on that. I think that I would be criticised quite rightly, Presiding Officer, if I stood up today and suddenly announced a very great detail of new announcements because we had not done anything up to this point. We have been taking action, and that is exactly what we will intend to keep doing. Stephanie Callaghan joins us remotely to be followed by Willie Rennie. Thank you. Presiding Officer, the statistics on achievement of curriculum for excellence levels show that the attainment gap has widened during the pandemic. Will the cabinet secretary explain how changes to the design of the Scottish attainment challenge will support the efforts to tackle the attainment gap across Scotland over the course of this Parliament? The support of the billion pound over this parliamentary term for the Refreshed Scottish attainment challenge will continue the empowerment that we have seen for school leaders, which is an exceptionally important part of the funding, and that is, of course, through that pupil equity stream. That will ensure that we are supporting headteachers to implement evidence-based approaches to meet the needs of children and young people that have been impacted and, importantly, for them to do so in their local context. Additionally, we have recognised that the impact of poverty and the pandemic is in every local authority area across Scotland, and that is why we have chosen to distribute funding to all 32 local authorities to implement strategic approaches to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap—a change that was, of course, supported by COSLA. Will Willie Rennie be followed by Fulton MacGregor? The cabinet secretary protested a little bit too much in response to Martin Whithield. The truth is that today's statement is just as uninspiring as the education recovery plan earlier this year. There is not much new. What does schools get from this statement today? A new subgroup, a consultation and the threat of a discussion with Education Scotland? Does the education secretary really believe that this is going to be enough to tackle the widest and worst poverty-related attainment gap on record? What schools already have is the 2,000 more teachers that have been demonstrated in the school census as what has came out tonight. What schools already have is the commitment that we have already given over the £1 billion worth of funding that will go into the Scottish attainment challenge. That has increased from £750 million. We have taken action. We will continue to take action. We know that there is a great deal that we need to do to be able to support our children and young people. Education Scotland will play a very important role in supporting schools and supporting teachers through that process. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I ask the cabinet secretary what measures the Scottish Government is taking to expand early learning care, and can she reiterate how she thinks that this will aid in our overall education recovery? It is very important that we continue to look at early learning. It is a very important area that the Government has given a great deal of focus on during the previous session. We have seen the impact that that has had on families during the pandemic. Of course, we have our commitments to ensure that we will expand that to one- and two-year-olds during this parliamentary session. That is a commitment that I am very proud that we will deliver on, just as we delivered on the 1140 hours successfully. Our determination to have early learning and childcare as an integral part of that is, I think, demonstrated in its position within the NIF that is published today. Tackling the causes of poverty and reducing the unnecessary administrative burden on teachers will be key to closing the attainment gap. I ask the cabinet secretary what progress is being made against two important initiatives. First, the production of statutory guidance to cap the cost of school uniforms. Secondly, the review into the role of indicators and measures in the curriculum for excellence. His objective is to reduce unnecessary bureaucratic burdens on staff. Very pleased to work with my colleague in the Scottish Greens to ensure that we are moving forward on our commitment on school uniform. He is quite right to point out that we are looking to see how that can be done on a statutory basis. What also can we do in the interim to make sure that we are making a real difference to children and families and right across Scotland? I will be happy to work with him and others who wish to contribute to that. He also quite rightly points out to the needs to ensure that we look at the data that we gather, to ensure that we are gathering the right data in the right way. I mentioned part of that in my statement around the work that is happening on the collection of data, but I would be happy to keep Mr Greer updated on that issue. Liz Smith, to be followed by Willie Coffey. Cabinet Secretary, the chamber is absolutely united on the fact that one of the most important aspects of wellbeing would be to ensure that more children have access to outdoor education. Can I ask the cabinet secretary why that did not feature in her recovery plan and what is the Scottish Government actually doing to ensure that there is more support for the outdoor education centres and their incredible staff within them? Can I first pay tribute to Liz Smith for her continued support of the outdoor education sector and her determination to ensure that the Government does all that it needs to do on this issue? Outdoor education absolutely remains a critical part of the Government's education plans. We have seen further developments over the last parliamentary session on that, and it absolutely remains a core commitment for us to continue with that and to see what we can do to further expand it. Throughout the pandemic, there has been significant disruption to education here in Scotland across the UK and the world. It is clear that we are not at the end of this. Could the cabinet secretary outline what lessons we have learned and outline what steps are being taken to improve matters? Our education recovery plan was published in October 6 at our on-going response to the impacts of the pandemic, education and some of the important next steps that we will take. The plan draws on studies from our equity audit, which I mentioned earlier and, of course, from the reports from the International Council of Education Advisers. Very importantly, that includes that international context. It ensures that we set out how we should invest the additional funding that we are putting into support education recovery. I think that that is further demonstrated in the detail of the national improvement framework and improvement plan that builds on the advice that we have had from the International Council of Advisers to make sure that we can learn all the lessons that we can from the past few years. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. That concludes this item of business. There will be a brief pause before we move to the next item of business.