 That concludes topical questions. We will now move on to the next item of business. The next item of business is a statement by Jenny Gilruth on literacy and numeracy. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement and therefore there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on cabinet secretary Jenny Gilruth up I welcome the opportunity today to update Parliament on a range of evidence concerning the performance of Scottish education. Today sees the publication of the achievement of curriculum for excellence levels commonly known as ASIL for the last academic year 2022-23. ASIL reports on the proportion of all pupils in primary 1, primary 4, primary 7 and S3 who have achieved the expected curriculum for excellence levels in literacy and numeracy. It is the most comprehensive national dataset on attainment and literacy and numeracy, and it is predicated on teacher judgement. The proportion of primary pupils attending rather than the expected levels in both literacy and numeracy has increased. This is the case for children from both the most and the least deprived areas. The attainment gap in literacy and primary schools has decreased. At secondary level, we have seen increases in attainment across the board, while the attainment gap reduces. It is further worth remembering that this summer saw the overall pass rate for national 5, highers and advanced highers above pre-pandemic levels since 2019 and the poverty-related attainment gap narrowing. I hope that everyone in this chamber will welcome the achievements of our pupils, teachers and our support staff. I do not shy from the challenge presented by the OECD's post-Covid edition of PISA. It is an international sample survey that Scotland participates in. It measures 15-year-olds' ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge to meet real-life challenges. However, it is not a dataset that should be read in isolation. To understand the accurate picture across our education system, we have to fully consider a range of different factors. Today, the Government has published the annual pupil staff and ELC census, which provides a wealth of information, including teacher numbers, pupil-teacher ratios, the number of young people reported as having an additional support need and attendance and exclusion rates. Taken in the round, the evidence shows that the pandemic has had a profound impact on the attendance and achievement of Scotland's young people. However, I want to be clear with Parliament that this trajectory, be that on attendance, on behaviour or on PISA, is not one that this Government accepts. Therefore, we must commit to real-terms improvements in Scotland's education system for our young people, for their parents and for the future of this country. Education can only improve the life chances of young people who are supported and encouraged by their parents or carers to attend. Since being appointed as Cabinet Secretary, I have expressed my concerns about the ongoing impact of the pandemic in our classrooms. Figures published today show that our attendance rate sits at 90.2 per cent in 2022-23, a decrease from 92 per cent last year. Across the country, some councils have higher absence rates than others. Further, there is variation in certain year groups. Anecdotal evidence of unrecorded absence from class continues to suggest that, although some pupils might be attending school, they are not necessarily present in class. That is not good enough. Education Scotland, at my request, has undertaken work to better understand the current barriers and the challenges experienced by our schools, children and young people and their families, which influence on school attendance and behaviour, and their report on improving attendance and understanding the issues that were published at the end of last month. Building on that work, I have tasked the interim chief executive of Education Scotland, Gillian Hamilton, to work directly with directors of education to drive improvements on attendance as a matter of priority. That will require local authority leadership. The role of Scotland's dedicated teachers is critical to improving our education system, and, although the pupil-teacher ratio remains the lowest in the UK at 13.2 per cent, figures published today show a fall in teacher numbers by 0.3 per cent. Although that is a small change, Parliament will recall that the Scottish Government made an additional ring-fenced investment of £145 million to protect teacher numbers. It is therefore extremely disappointing that a number of local authorities did not choose to use the additional funding to protect their teacher numbers. Conversely, I know that some local authorities went above and beyond to protect their teacher numbers. I thank them for that and for investing in better outcomes for their young people. We have written today to each of the local authorities where the numbers of teachers has reduced to seek an explanation, and I will meet with COSLA on this matter later this week. Although the Government will, of course, consider the reductions on a case-by-case basis, I will continue to reserve the right to withhold funding allocated to protect teacher numbers, where that has not been the case. Fundamentally, we cannot hope to improve attendance, behaviour or attainment with fewer teachers in our schools. One issue raised by PISA, and in recent BISA research, I should say, has been pupils' use of mobile phones. As Cabinet Secretary, I cannot unilaterally ban mobile phones. That power, of course, rests with head teachers and our local authorities. However, I want to examine all the evidence on that and encourage schools to take the action that they deem necessary. We will work to provide refreshed guidance to schools on the use of mobile phones in schools as part of that joint action plan to respond to the BISA research. That will take a range of factors into account, including considering pupils' personal circumstances, particularly those of young carers. However, our starting position is that head teachers are empowered to take the steps that they consider appropriate, and if they see fit, the guidance will support the use of banning mobile phones in schools. I want to turn now to reflecting directly on Scotland's PISA results. In absolute terms, it is true that Scotland mirrored the overall international trend of a reduction in PISA scores in reading and mass between 2018 and 2022. We are not unique in that respect. As has been noted, the OECD has referred to this year's results as the Covid edition. Covid impacted and continues to impact on educational outcomes. Whether in Wales, Northern Ireland or England for mass and reading the trajectory on scores is a downward one. Across the OECD, as was the case in 2018, Scotland is above the average for reading and similar to the OECD average in relation to maths and science. The challenge to government is this—it is average good enough, Presiding Officer. I do not think so. Whilst it is true to say that PISA provides only a snapshot of the data, the results should serve as a wake-up to all government. I hope that Parliament hears the gravity with which I am considering these results. The new post-Covid norm cannot be allowed to define the educational outcomes of the next generation. A building on my direct engagement with the OECD last month, next year I will meet with the OECD's director for education and skills, Andreas Schlegger, to ensure that Scotland continues to learn from other countries and starts to improve her international standing on education once more. It is worth reminding the chamber that curriculum for excellence was endorsed by the OECD in 2021 as the right approach for Scottish education. However, I recognise the need to improve our curriculum in a planned and systematic way, as has been recommended by the OECD. We need to do so to ensure that it remains relevant, forward-looking and ultimately supports high-quality teaching and learning. That is why next year we will begin a curriculum improvement cycle. That will include curriculum content, the role of knowledge, transitions between primary and secondary and alignment between the broad general education and the senior phase. My view is that mass education requires to be a central focus for improvement. Indeed, it is critical when considering the 18-point reduction in Scotland's PISA score. Mass will therefore be the first curricular area to be revised. I want this work nationally to be led by a mass specialist working alongside our national response to improving mathematics. That specialist will have a key role in the full-scale update to the mass curriculum, which will begin in 2024 and be tested with Scotland's teachers later next year. They will provide a key role in driving the improvements required, learning from the outputs from PISA and a range of other evidence sources to improve Scotland's performance in maths. Further, to support the implementation of our new mass curriculum, the interim chief inspector has agreed that a mass national thematic inspection with a focus on teaching and learning will be taken forward in 2024, reporting in next autumn. Finally, the council of deans will convene their initial teacher education group on mass education. That group will ensure that initial teacher education aligns with the latest developments in maths and numeracy. On English and Literacy, the national response to improving literacy is taking forward work in identifying priorities for improvement. I have also asked the interim chief inspector to begin a thematic inspection of literacy and English nationally to help to inform the required update and to improve the literacy and English curriculum. Literacy and English will flow as the next priority for curriculum update following maths. Children's speech, language and communication has also been an area that has been particularly affected since the onset of the Covid pandemic. The Government has invested in a new team of speech and language specialists with a clear focus on supporting preventative work on speech and language development in the early years. The curriculum update will therefore require to embed learning on speech and language in reviewing our curriculum content to better ensure progression and drive improvement. As Lucy Crian has noted, the history of PISA can be traced back to an American president back in the 1980s, who was keen to drive national educational improvement, yet he was faced by resistance by state-level Governments. That is not thankfully the case in Scotland. Here, our council's collective ambition to raise absolute attainment in literacy and numeracy and narrow the attainment gap are reflected in their new three-year stretch aims for progress by 2526, which is also published today. If those stretch aims are realised compared to 2016-17, we would see overall attainment in literacy and numeracy increased by around 13 and 9 per cent respectively, and the poverty-related attainment gap narrowing in literacy and numeracy by around 30 per cent over the lifetime of the Scottish attainment challenge. I am very grateful to COSLA for the progress thus far, and I commit to working with our councils in the spirit of Verity House to drive the improvements that we need to see. I recognise that the experience of education has changed for our young people, their teachers and parents and carers. Covid has had a profound impact on attendance, behaviour and achievement. Fundamentally, we need to disrupt the PISA trajectory and drive improvements across school education. That will also be informed by working with our international council of education advisers and working with COSLA, national agencies and professional associations. To that end, the next steps that I set out today are part of the solution, but they are not the whole picture. I agree that a needier political response is not going to help our young people. I believe that Scotland is at an educational juncture perhaps that radical reform to our qualification system is the answer. Some argue persuasively that that is the case, and I look forward to returning in the chamber in the new year to debate those proposals more fully, but others point to the need for improvement versus radical reform, recognising the extraordinary pressures that our teachers are working under. Working with them to plot a pragmatic route forward might just be the way. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for that, after which we will move on to the next item of business, and it would be helpful if those who would wish to seek to ask a question could press the request-and-speak buttons and I call Liam Kerr. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement and I welcome both her acknowledgement of the poor legacy of our predecessors, but also a recognition of the need for action. I also agree with her recognition that teacher numbers are concerning. Despite the Government's overuse of temporary teacher contracts, the forcing of councils to rely on probationers and failure to deal with the rural and non-central belt recruitment, she has reiterated her threat today to withhold money from the 17 councils who have not increased teacher numbers. Can I ask what is her thinking behind this threat, as that uncertainty over funding isn't going to help improve matters? Secondly, there's been a 25% increase in pupils with ASN since 2008 to 34% in 2022, yet a decline of 700 SFL teachers. So what precisely is the cabinet secretary doing to increase the ASN teacher numbers? Finally, whilst there was a welcome rise in PSAs between 2018 and 2022, that was done using additional Covid funding. What's the cabinet secretary going to do to address the consequences of ending that funding on PSA numbers? I thank the member for his question. He touches on a number of points and I welcome the tone with which he has responded to my statement. I think that it's really important that we learn from the plethora of different data sets that we've published today, but also the PSA data that we published last week, to help to support the improvements that we need to see. We need to be pragmatic, because the ASL data tells us a bit of a different picture to the PSA outcomes, and it's predicated on teacher judgment. I trust Scotland's teachers to tell us where our young people are in terms of their progress. That being said, he raises issues in relation to teacher numbers. Of course, the point that I was making in my statement is that the Government has provided additionality for those additional teachers within the system. A number of our local authorities have not delivered on that additionality. It was ringfence for a reason, but, as I have set out previously, we will listen to any mitigating circumstances that local authorities want to provide. We have written this afternoon to local authorities directly to hear what those concerns might be, and I expect to hear from them at the start of next week. More broadly, he touched on teacher contracts. In exchanges in the chamber recently, I have set out the approach that I have taken in working with the strategic board for teacher education. I met his colleague Alexander Burnett, who is not in the chamber today last week, to talk about some of the challenges that he faces in that area of Scotland. I recognise that there are rural challenges and particular subject challenges, too. We need to make sure that the system better meets the needs of our rural areas. It is worth saying that the Government provides the preference waiver scheme, which I benefited myself some years ago now, to help to incentivise our probationers going to other parts of the country. What we have seen, anecdotally, since the pandemic, is that our probationers, or those in their student year currently, are less likely to tick the box, and they might have been prior to the pandemic. I think that we need to look again at that system and whether it is working to help to ensure that we are seeing a spread of probationers to more rural parts of Scotland and in different subject areas, too. He talked about the challenge in relation to additional support needs, which is one of the key findings from the data today. We should be mindful that additional support needs will be higher in certain schools and lower in certain schools, depending on the cohort. I was in a school yesterday, for example, in East Lothian, where the cohort was much higher at around about 47 per cent. Although the national picture will give you a snapshot at around 40 per cent at the current time, some schools will have higher need and some fewer. However, the question that I asked teachers in my visit yesterday was whether they think therefore that mainstream is not working, and that was not their response. They think that mainstream is working, and we need to look again at how we can resource that need and support it. It is worth saying that we have a record number of additional support needs learning support assistants in our schools. We have also supported that with £830 million in 2021-22. We have also ring-fenced additional funding for £15 million every year to respond to the individual needs of children and young people. That also helps to support maintaining our record levels of investment in those staff. I think that, more broadly, in all that I have set out today, what is key to driving the improvements that we need to see is that close working relationship with COSA. That is why I think that Verity House is so important. We need to work with them to ensure that, at a local level, we do not see that variance in terms of the support that is provided. We need to ensure that we get in as many members as I can. Therefore, I always appreciate succinct questions, but also Cabinet Secretary, I do appreciate succinct answers. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of our statement. I also want to welcome the recognition of the gravity of the situation in schools and the need to disrupt the trend seen in PISA. We must do all we can to do this for the future of Scotland young people. There are some announcements in today's statement, however, that we really need some more detail on to understand how they will affect the change needed, including on the curriculum improvement cycle and on the approach to maths. However, where there is a real lack of detail or even mention—and it has already been mentioned in the previous question—is of children with additional support needs, despite their numbers increasing and that fewer of them reach expected levels of literacy and numeracy than others, the solutions pointed to in the document that accompanies the statement are almost three years old, and there is nothing specific in the statement for them. Does she believe that the actions set out today are proportionate to meet the scale of the challenges before us, including for children with additional support needs? I thank the member for her question. I thank the tone she too has adopted in relation to us working together on this, because I think that there is a need now for us to work across parties on some of the challenge here. She has my commitment today that I will continue to work with her to that end, and of course with Mr Kerr. I think that more broadly she talked about curriculum improvement. One of the things that I was very keen to say in my statement today, given that there are a wide range of data sets that we are publishing today, is that this is not the whole picture. This will be part of the response, but we will work with our teaching profession to help to drive the improvements that we need to see, particularly on mass education. I am very keen to work with our mass teachers. That is why I want to appoint a subject specialist with the necessary skills and qualifications, who will help to give me the advice on where we need to see improvement and how that can be driven forward. I am not a mass specialist to trade. I do not pretend to have those qualifications, but I think that it is important that we recognise particularly in our secondary schools the qualifications of those who deliver our subjects. Their investment in their subject and their knowledge will help to, I think, put us in the right trajectory in terms of PISA. PISA is part of the story, and it is survey data, so we need to be careful about making direct comparisons. I think that that is why the ASL data has been helpful today, because of course in my response to Mr Kerr I suggested, and I touched on the point that it is predicated on teacher judgment. I am conscious of time. I have not had time to respond fully to Ms Duncan Glancy's ask on additional support needs, but she is right that there is a challenge here. I have intimated in my response to Mr Kerr the government support that we provide, but I do think that we will need to look again. Part of that work is through the national action plan that we have already with local government. We are working through a number of those actions. They are not yet, to my mind, fully supported in the way that I would like to see them. However, we will continue to work with local authorities and protect that budget line, too, which I think is vitally important to ensuring that we have that consistency at local authority level. However, she has my word that this is not the end of the story in terms of our response to PISA and the other challenges that we have touched on today. We have had two questions and it is nearly seven and a half minutes. Is there any possibility that we can expand the time allocated to questions in response to the statement so that all members who wish to ask questions can have the privilege of doing so on the basis that we will all be succinct? I thank Mr Kerr for his contribution. I assure Mr Kerr that we have a bit of time in hand this afternoon, and I am conscious of that. I also would make a further plea to the cabinet secretary that we need brief responses in order to ensure that members have the opportunity to put their questions to the cabinet secretary. I call Kenneth Gibson to be followed by Ross McColl. University of Melbourne study the effect of classroom environment and literacy development found that noise levels are significantly higher in open-plan classrooms, increasing by an average of 5.4 decibels compared with enclosed classrooms, leading to a decline in classroom speech intelligibility of 10 to 15 per cent. Meanwhile, the reading fluency of primary school pupils in open-plan classrooms was half that of pupils taught in enclosed classrooms. Given his stark findings, does the cabinet secretary agree that it is time that local authorities began working towards the removal of open-plan classrooms that should quickly improve attainment, not least among sensitive and neurodivergent children? I think that he raises a very important point. Of course, the design of our classrooms and particularly the design of our schools is a matter for local authorities. I have never as myself previously taught in an open-plan classroom. I imagine that there are a number of challenges that come with that. I have visited a number of schools, particularly in primary settings, where it seems to work well. However, it has to be a decision, I think, for local authorities working with their teachers to help inform the type of learning and teaching that they see. However, I think that the member raises some important points today in relation to how that can interact, particularly with need in the system where there might be a need for quiet areas, for example, in the delivery of learning and teaching. I note the cabinet secretary's recognition that average is not good enough in maths and reading, and that PISA is not a dataset that should be taken in isolation. Given that the Scottish Government previously announced its intention to re-enter Scotland into Tim's and Pearl's international league tables, and given that the last available data for Scotland comes in 2006 and the next cycle will be in 2026, what international data does the cabinet secretary suggest that we use to measure success in the interim? I thank the member for her question. She is right to touch on Tim's and Pearl's, which, of course, we will rejoining. I have queried with officials whether we could look to expedite her rejoining of those surveys. It is not possible to do so, so at the current time I do not have an answer to the member to that point. However, it is worth saying in absolute terms that Scotland mirrored the overall international trend in terms of our reduction in PISA scores. However, it is also worth the caveatting that and saying that we have maintained our position on that important international study. I actually think that there is lots of work that we can learn from other countries, which is why I am engaging very closely on the OECD on this matter, but also with our Council of International Education Advisers. I touched on that in my summing up, Presiding Officer, and I think that they will help to support us in driving the improvements that we need to see in the interim period. This year's bookbug read-write count campaigns encourage a lifelong passion for learning from the very crucial early years. How will the Scottish Government ensure that parents and guardians are supported to make the most of those early years programmes so that more families can experience the transformative benefits of playing, reading, writing and counting together? I absolutely agree that parents and families play a really crucial role in supporting our children's speech and language development in those early years, and they continue to play that role throughout as the primary educators of their children. However, we know that parental engagement has a significant positive impact on children's achievements, and some of the challenging data from PISA is that that has been disrupted during the pandemic. Our bookbug read-write count with the First Minister programmes help to encourage an early love of books among our children, while also giving opportunities for our parents and carers with their wee ones to spend time together having fun and learning. Some families, of course, need additional support to make the best use of those programmes. That is why it is really important to see broader activity, such as the book trust bookbug for the home initiative, supporting families to share songs, rhymes and stories. I am very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. The cabinet secretary will be aware that last week's First Minister's questions centred around the PISA results. The First Minister assured us that the Scottish Government, quote, we will reflect on that and consider the results and come forward next week with more detail on the action that we will take. Many of the questions so far have sought more detail. Is the cabinet secretary satisfied with the level of detail that she has been able to share in that statement? I thank the member for his question. He will appreciate that I have had a 10-minute statement to Parliament reflecting on a range of different data sets, but I am more than happy to come back to Parliament with a fuller update in relation to the detail that he has asked for. I have set out a number of actions that I hope you will understand. In relation to action, we will be taking, yes, working with Education Scotland, but also reviewing our curriculum. I think that that is where we need to get to in terms of driving the improvements. Mathematics has to be, first, given the PISA results. There is a challenge there, and I think that we need to reflect on that. We are only going to get to the improvements that we need to see by working with Scotland's teachers. That is why they have to be key to understanding the challenge and driving the improvements that we need to see, while also engaging with the point that I think that Ross McCall quite rightly makes, international experts and the international evidence that is available to drive that improvement to. Can the cabinet secretary advise what attention is being given to the qualitative commentary in the PISA report, which gives a much more nuanced understanding than the simple raw statistical data? I think that the member makes a very important point. The questionnaire evidence and the analysis across countries conducted by the OECD are really important aspects to also consider. The wider analysis looks at a much more complex picture and, in many respects, a much more comprehensive picture. For example, the PISA student questionnaire is about their experiences of learning mathematics in schools, their views on maths in general and their future intentions to study and use maths later in life. That data, alongside data on student backgrounds, will be further analysed and used to give us a much more rounded understanding of the experiences of learning mathematics and what factors help to support learning in schools. That is why it is so important to reflect on and share that wider analysis with local authorities in schools and with Parliament, too. I call Willie Rennies, who is followed by John Mason. We need to remember the context of this. We were promised, back in 2016, significant improvements in the performance on education and the poverty-related detainment gap. In that context, those ASL numbers have hardly budged at all. I am really disappointed that the education is, secretary. The only ambition now is to close the poverty-related detainment gap by a third by the end of this Parliament when it was supposed to close absolutely completely. Do I detect a fundamental change of direction on curriculum for excellence towards knowledge and away from skills? I am not sure whether he was aware that there was a global pandemic between now and 2016. I think that that has impacted on outcomes. I am sorry that I hear a sedentary mumble from the Opposition, but I have to say that the OECD describes— Cabinet Secretary, please resume for your seat for a second. Could I please ask members to listen to the person who has the floor? In the instant case, it is the Cabinet Secretary. Cabinet Secretary, please resume. It was, of course, the OECD that called this data set their Covid addition. That setting that aside, I think that we do need to be mindful in the context of Mr Rennies' point, that this year we have seen overall pass rates for national 5 hires and advanced hires above those pre-pandemic in 2019, and the poverty-related attainment gap has narrowed. The 2223 AESIL data, which is published today, confirms that the proportions of primary school children from the most deprived areas of Scotland, achieving the expected curriculum for excellence levels of literacy and numeracy, are both at record. That is welcome news in the context of the pandemic, which disrupted our children's education for the best part of two years. However, the member asks a supplementary question in relation to the role of skills and knowledge in our curriculum, and, as I intimated in my update, that is something that we will consider through the curriculum review, starting with mathematics education, recognising the challenge. A teacher said to me the other day that she wondered if, in primary schools, we are trying to cover too many subjects, and there certainly are more than when I was at primary school. How would the cabinet secretary respond to that? It is important that all children in primary school experience a broad and balanced education to help them to make sense of the world. That means, of course, experiencing learning right across all eight curriculum areas, as they are currently, which includes literacy and numeracy, as well as opportunities for interdisciplinary learning. However, as I outlined in my response to Mr Rennie, we are soon to embark on a curriculum improvement cycle that, I think, will help to clarify and strengthen a shared understanding of practice from 3 to 18 in each of our curriculum areas. Covid-19 undeniably exacerbated the challenges facing the Scottish education system and others across the world, but most of those challenges existed before 2020. The Scottish Government's package of education reform, including replacing the SQA and bringing our qualifications and assessment system out of the Victorian era, are not the whole solution, but are critical to improving outcomes. International comparisons are far from the most important measurement of success, but today's welcome news on ASAL data suggests that they do matter. Can I ask the cabinet secretary how those reforms are expected to contribute towards improving Scotland's PISA scores? The member raises a very important issue, because reform of our national agencies is a vital part of our work in relation to improving Scotland's approach and our support for education and skills. Reform is essential if we are going to address some of the challenge, the changing needs of our education system now and into the future. The design of those new bodies is therefore an opportunity to deliver the needed change in practice and culture to help to support improved outcomes and to support the teaching profession in terms of how they work as well as strengthening their roles and organisations within the system as a whole. Reform of our qualifications and assessment system will absolutely be an essential part of that wider reform agenda, and it will require to help to address the challenge that PISA presents the Government with. Evidence shows that there is a clear link between mobile phone use and poor behaviour in schools. New guidance on mobile phone use in schools has already been introduced south of the border. The cabinet secretary has said today that she cannot unilaterally ban mobile phones but will work to provide fresh guidance to schools on the use of mobile phones. How long will it take to see decisive action on this? I thank the member for her question. I think that she raised this at FMQs last week and I think as well in a recent parliamentary statement and she knows my views on this that where had teachers see fit, they should use that power at their disposal. I do not have a power as cabinet secretary to compel schools to enforce a national ban. However, I think that it is a matter for teachers to work with their young people, with their parents, with their local community and it will require them to buy into that process but I know of a number of schools that we have discussed in the local area where bands are working quite successfully in practice. There is also evidence to suggest from the United Nations earlier this year that excessive use of digital devices in schools can detract from the quality of learning and teaching and we need to be mindful of that mix between traditional and more modern approaches to learning and teaching. She asked for a time frame. I do not have one in front of me at the current time. However, I am happy to write to the member an update Parliament on that point. We will look to refresh the current guidance that we have, which is not prescriptive on that issue, but I will make sure that the national guidance in the future is prescriptive in giving that option to headteachers so that they are empowered to do so if they choose. I am going to give the cabinet secretary another chance to properly address the question that Willie Rennie raised because I could not help but notice in the way that she described the curriculum improvement cycle. She gave a particular emphasis to the word knowledge and I would like to give her the opportunity to restate her position in relation to the OECD report in 2021, which called for a restoration of knowledge. She mentioned clear guidance on mobile phones, which I think that many of us would agree with. How about some clear guidance on behaviour standards, boundaries, the consequences of misbehaviour, exclusions and on the presumption of mainstreaming? All of these areas require clear guidance from the cabinet secretary as well. I ask two questions briefly. It is not true to say that curriculum for excellence ignores knowledge, but we need to improve the way that knowledge is covered in our curriculum. That is why the place of knowledge is a priority for our systematic improvement cycle that I responded to to Mr Rennie on. I have to query whether or not the Conservatives are now moving away from their support of curriculum for excellence. I hope that that is not the case. The member asked a question in relation to behaviour. Of course, I set out in the chamber a number of weeks ago now the response to the behaviour in Scotland's school research and the commitment to a national action plan that will give the detail that the member seeks. What actions and investment has been put in place to support learners with additional needs, such as dyslexia, to have better access to digital technology to improve literacy and how that teaching can be made more inclusive within the overall curriculum? The member raises an important point that we have heard from a number of young people with additional support needs. The Government is absolutely committed to improving the experience of those children, including those with dyslexia. We are working closely with a number of partners to promote the use of our addressing dyslexia toolkit, which includes advice to school staff on supporting children and young people's literacy through the use of digital technology. The Government also funds Call Scotland to provide advice and training to school staff on support, including on the use of assistive technology for children and young people with specific communication needs. We will now move on after a short pause to the next item of business.