 I remind members that social distancing measures are in place in the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. I ask that members take care to observe those measures, including when entering and exiting the chamber. Please only use the aisles and what ways to access your seat and when moving around the chamber. The next item of business is a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on the OECD report on curriculum for excellence. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. Further to yesterday's Government-inspired question, this afternoon I will update Parliament on one of the key deliverables within our 100 days commitments. This Government's response to yesterday's publication of the OECD's independent review of the implementation of curriculum for excellence. At the outset, I would like to thank the many stakeholders, including the Scottish Practitioner Forum, who shared their experiences with the OECD and whose feedback has helped shape the report and its recommendations. I would also like to thank the OECD themselves, who many in the chamber will recall have worked with Scotland on previous reviews and have wide-ranging international experience and credibility in this area. During my statement to Parliament earlier this month, I made clear this Government's commitment to ensuring the best possible educational experience for children and young people as we emerge from the pandemic. I also signalled my intention to consider a reform process and have underlined the importance of the OECD's findings and recommendations in shaping our approach to improving the way that Scotland's curriculum is implemented. That is why the Scottish Government is accepting the OECD's 12 recommendations in full and that we have published our initial response to each of the recommendations setting out how they will be taken forward. This afternoon's statement is an opportunity to outline some of the key points in our response. First, it is worth highlighting that the OECD have endorsed the continued relevance and ambition of CFE as the right approach for Scotland. Its vision to achieve excellence for all learners, embodied in the four capacities, remains fit for purpose. The report highlights its bold, aspirational, future-orientated approach and states that it continues to be viewed internationally as an inspiring example of curriculum practice. That endorsement is something that I hope we can all unite behind. Furthermore, the OECD acknowledges the efforts made to engage stakeholders throughout our curriculum's life cycle. That engagement has created the necessary conditions for shared ownership and support for its vision, which have given teachers and practitioners the ability to shape and deliver it to adapt to local needs. Ten years since CFE was established, it is right and proper that we review how it is being implemented, so too must we seek to learn from the events brought about by the pandemic. The OECD report notes that there are areas that we need to work on to ensure that our curriculum remains fit for now and the future. I have already made clear my intention to work with all those in education to deliver the reform that is required to improve outcomes. We must ensure that our children and young people can fully benefit from a coherent learning experience from age 3 up to the age of 18. As the OECD has recommended, I am absolutely committed to putting the voices of young people, parents, teachers and schools, as well as other stakeholders at the centre of our education policy. That is why I am today announcing that I will reconvene the Scottish Education Council with our refreshed membership and renewed purpose to support the delivery of the OECD's recommendations, as well as wider education policy, as we move on from Covid-19. Young people will, of course, have seats on that council, but to ensure that the voices of those who are most affected by any changes in education are always held loudly and clearly in strategic discussions. I am also establishing a children and young people's education council to sit alongside the Scottish Education Council. I will chair both of those, and their input and advice will have parity of esteem. I want consideration of the lived educational experience of young people, current teachers, leaders and other practitioners to be fundamental to the work that I do and the decisions that I take as education secretary. It is essential that we take a rights-based approach and that we achieve genuine parity of esteem for young people's views. We will therefore work with children and young people's organisations over the summer on the details of our new arrangements. Those groups will ensure that impactful and representative engagement happens throughout our work to implement the OECD's recommendations and ensure that engagement demonstrates the shape that we wish to make. We know that we must simplify our policies and our institutions so that there is maximum coherence. That includes the need to clarify the roles and responsibilities of national and local bodies involved in delivering and supporting Scotland's curriculum, as well as ensuring that the teacher workforce has the skills, time and capacity to lead, plan and support CFE on the ground. I will come back to our national bodies in a moment. In response to the OECD's recommendation that dedicated time should be provided to school staff to lead, plan and support CFE at school level, we have already committed as a Government to seeing teacher class contact time reduced by one and a half hours per week. We will work with our partners in the SNCT to take forward discussions as to how this can best be achieved. The OECD also identifies a need for the better articulation of assessment methods through BGE and into senior phase, methods that better align with the aims of curriculum for excellence and its four capacities. We will await with interest the outcomes of the OECD's comparative analysis, which is due to be published by the end of August. That will allow us to have initial conversations as to the future of our senior phase qualifications and award, but I want to make clear that I am open to change if change is indeed recommended. To step away from the OECD for a moment, I would like to give a short update on qualifications. We know that learners, teachers and lecturers are keen to understand how qualifications will be awarded in 2022. Feedback from the NQ21 group discussion suggests that there are a range of views on this and a recognition of the needs to carefully reflect on and learn from the on-going experience of this year. The examination diets in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled on the basis of public health advice. I want to be in a position to confirm our central planning assumption for awarding qualifications in 2022 for the start of the school term in August, to give us as much certainty for learners, teachers and the system as possible. That will take account of the state of the pandemic. Last week, the First Minister committed to reviewing our approach to self-isolation for young people identified as contacts, and any changes here could have significant bearing on the extent of disruption for individual learners in the school year and, in turn, on our decision on whether to hold an exam diet or use an alternative model or certification. I know that many stakeholders support us taking the next few weeks to think through those issues and take account of the latest public health advice before we confirm our central planning assumption at the start of the new school term. In my speech to Parliament on 3 June, I announced that we will be considering options for reform so that schools get the best possible support to provide the highest quality of learning and teaching for our children. We need to accelerate the pace of reducing the attainment gap and reduce variability in outcomes achieved by young people in different parts of the country. With that in mind, I signalled my intention to reform Education Scotland in the SQA. I want to be clear that this is not reform for reform's sake. All of the changes that we will make will be guided by the central principle that they improve the experiences and outcomes of children and young people in Scotland's education system. I want to assure learners and candidates across Scotland that those plans will not affect certification and awarding processes in the current and coming academic year. To that end, I also want to acknowledge and thank all those who are working at SQA in the wider profession who are working above and beyond to ensure that learners receive the recognition that they deserve. The OECD review includes important recommendations around the clarity and coherence of the institutions that support our education system. It highlights the unusual configuration of having the inspectorate as part of an organisation that is also responsible for supporting school leaders, curriculum design and teacher professional learning. It also invites us to explore assigning responsibility for curriculum and assessment to a standalone agency. Therefore, I can confirm today my intention to do two things. First, we will move the inspection function out of Education Scotland, as the OECD highlights this can help to balance the dual need for the local flexibility of provision alongside national consistency in outcomes. In addition, I am minded to accept the OECD recommendation to create a new specialist agency that is responsible for both curriculum and assessment, which will replace the SQA. That would help to improve alignment and coherence in those functions, as recommended by the OECD. We will progress implementation with pace that it wants, while change is clearly necessary. I want to move decisively to avoid unnecessary uncertainty. I also want all those affected to have a chance to inform the way in which we respond. I am pleased to announce therefore that we will be appointing Professor Ken Muir, until recently chief executive of the general teaching council, as an adviser to lead this work. I am delighted that Professor Muir has agreed to take up this position, given his knowledge and experience of Scottish education. In progressing this work, Professor Muir will be supported by a dedicated and diverse advisory panel that will be drawn from academia, practitioners, organisational change experts and others. Together, they will lead a wide engagement that ensures that our agencies are designed in a way that maximises the support of excellence and equity for our children and young people. However, let me be clear that this is about designing how to implement the reform. It is not another review, although the OECD has already completed its review, and that gives us a clear sense of direction. I expect Professor Muir to begin his work in August and for it to conclude in around six months' time. What is clear from reading the OECD's report and listening to the debate in education since I took up this post is that there is a clear need for a system-wide response. Neither the Scottish Government nor the teaching profession can do that alone. I therefore welcome the statement from ADES, Education Scotland and the SQA, all of whom have been involved in this work throughout, which outlines their shared commitment to work with the Government to realise those recommendations. The Scottish Government will now work alongside all partners to co-design a more detailed implementation plan on the OECD's recommendations, with a view to publishing that in September. Putting aside political differences, if we can, I hope that members can agree of the importance of us working together as we emerge from the pandemic to maintain our relentless pursuit of excellence and equity in education and to ensuring that our young people realise their aspirations. I look forward to considering the recommendations from the review with my colleagues across the chamber, with learners alongside all those involved in delivering and supporting our young people to succeed in their chosen path. Thank you, cabinet secretary. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I hope to lie around 20 minutes for that, after which we must move on to the next item of business. It would be helpful if members who wish to ask a question were to press the request-to-speak buttons now. I remind members and the cabinet secretary that, the more succinct questions and answers we get, we will be able to call everybody, otherwise we won't. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There can be no doubt that the exam system has been a disaster in recent years. Young people know that the SQA has screwed them over, and it's right that the SQA pays the price for its own incompetence. However, the SQA must not be used as a scapegoat for 14 years of SNP failure. Historically, rigorous exams have been a real strength of Scotland's education system, a cornerstone of how we help young people to succeed in life. The problem is leadership, not the foundations. Yet this morning, the cabinet secretary said that she was very open to a debate that could lead to the wholesale scrapping of exams. No Government serious about raising standards in our schools can contemplate such a radical break from tradition. It would further diminish our international standing and remove one of the last hallmarks of Scotland's world-leading system. Will the cabinet secretary clarify that is scrapping exams altogether seriously on the table? Can I be very clear that the OECD is about to have a second report that will come out, as I said in my statement, by the end of August, which looks specifically at qualifications? I think that it's fair, reasonable—if I didn't do this, I'm sure Oliver Mundell would be one of the first ones to criticise me to do so—it's fair and reasonable for the Government to say that we're open to a discussion about what's in that report. I don't know what's in that report at this point, but given the fact that we have said that we've invited the OECD in to undertake a review, to then open that review out and for somehow me to say that I'm not going to be open to whatever they suggest would seem mighty strange. I would ask Oliver Mundell, as I do, to have faith in the OECD to come up with reasonable proposals, suggestions of a way forward and then together we can discuss that with young people and with teachers and together we will come up with something that I hope Oliver Mundell and others will truly support in the way forward. This isn't reform for reform's sake, as I said in my statement. This is listening to internationally renowned experts moving forward with what they suggest if it's right for us after consultation. Michael Marra, thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The OECD report is welcome. It is right to praise our education workforce. We welcome the Government's acceptance of the recommendations in full. We have the review, and now is the time for urgent action. After two years of disarray and disastrous leadership, we must immediately rebuild confidence in our education institutions. Later this afternoon, I will lay down a motion in this Parliament. The Government should make the inspectorate independent this week by executive arrangement. It must put in place interim leadership to bring together the curricular functions of Education Scotland in the SQA by the middle of July so that arrangements for 2022 assessment can be on teachers' desks when they return. Given the central role of contact time in holding back the curriculum for excellence, the Government must begin negotiations on a new teacher agreement with COSLA and teaching unions immediately and unlock the funds to restore the cuts to teachers that the cabinet secretary's Government has made. Will the cabinet secretary sign my motion? I look very carefully, as always, with any motion that Michael Marra puts forward. However, what I have said in my statement today is that we have Professor Muir coming in to do a specific period of work over six months to ensure that we work with stakeholders to design the right system. As in many of not all areas of education, differing views on where inspection and other areas should sit should it sit independent of Government, should it sit within Government, as other inspectorates are. There is not one defined solution within the OECD's recommendations and there is not one shared agreement among all stakeholders about where that should be. I share his absolute urgency to move forward on that. That is exactly why I have asked Professor Muir to come in and work with stakeholders to design this system. Six months to make sure that we get this right, taking young people and teachers with us and allowing them to co-design it. With the greatest respect to Michael Marra's motion that he will be putting through, I do not think that he will have went through the due consultation that I am going to be asking Professor Muir to do to move forward with this. As I said in my statement, we will look very seriously at what will be happening in 22 over the summer due to our potential changes in self-isolation, for example, among children and young people. We will use that public health advice to move forward as quickly as possible with the determination of what is happening for 2022 qualifications. That is not dependent on any of the changes that we are about to make. That sits separately from that. I can assure him that the discussions that we are already having about the reduced contact time with teachers is on the agenda, and it has been discussed. We hope to move forward with that absolutely at pace. There is a lot in that statement to welcome. For 10 years, students have been let down by completely unnecessary misalignment between the exam system and the curriculum in Scotland, and the body is responsible for both of consistently failed to deliver or even to listen. That needs to be more than just a rebrand. The structural, cultural and policy failures at the SQA must be left behind alongside the body itself. Given that the Government has committed to accepting all OECD recommendations, can I ask for its response to the report's criticism of P1 to S3 standardised assessments and the recommendation to reintroduce a sample-based evaluation system instead? Will the failed SNSA testing system now be scrapped too? Can I thank Ross Greer for his question and reassure him once again, as I hope has been demonstrated by the GIQ yesterday in the statement today, this is certainly not a rebranding exercise but a serious piece of reform. With the aspects around the Scottish National Standardised assessments, that was not a specific recommendation that came through within the OECD's report. It is mentioned, and I am aware that it was mentioned in the webinar yesterday. However, national standardised assessments are a key element of our improvement agenda as part of the national improvement framework. They allow us to have consistent, objective and comparable information, and he will be well aware of the independent review that took place in 2019. That concluded that assessments have a valuable potential and should be continued, albeit with some important changes, which we will absolutely take forward. The OECD's recommendations are infuriatingly familiar. The shortcomings could have been addressed long ago. Teachers and pupils should have been listened to earlier and the Scottish Parliament should have been listened to earlier. Teacher workload was front and centre of the OECD's concerns. Scottish teachers spent more time in front of their classes than almost anywhere else in the world, and before the pandemic, teachers reported that the pressure of their job directly led them to developing mental health problems. Will the cabinet secretary commit to a full review of teachers' terms and conditions? To be to his wish, Parliament and others called on the Government to look very seriously at the curriculum for excellence. As part of that, we invited the OECD in, and on the day of the publication of the report, we have brought forward our initial response to that. I genuinely think that you could not ask for a Government response quicker to a report than what we did yesterday. On the aspects of teacher workload, we are looking, as I said earlier, to ensure that we fulfil our manifesto commitment to reduce teacher contact time by one and a half hours per week. That will assist with workload pressures and ensure that teachers have more time to develop lessons and their planning for the curriculum. I also point out to our commitment within our 100-day document to ensure that we are increasing teacher numbers by 1,000 in classroom assistance by 500 as part of our commitment to 3,500 additional teachers in classroom assistance over the parliamentary term. I welcome the publication of the OECD report. As an ex-teacher, I thank our current teachers, parents and young people as they prepare to break for the summer holidays. As we know, this has been a particularly challenging year for so many. Having already been contacted by many educators, including within the Kelvin constituency, the recommendation of replacing the SQA is particularly significant. Can I ask the cabinet secretary how she will ensure that the concerns, views and voices across university schools and further education colleges will be heard during the process of creating a new organisation that is informed by personal and professional experiences and is fit for purpose? Once again, I thank teachers and young people. As the First Minister has just done during her statement for everything that they have done over the past 15 months, the support that teachers and support staff have given to young people has been extraordinary and young people's ability to persevere through some of the most difficult circumstances any of us can imagine has been fantastic to see. We continue to support them during that process. As I said during my statement, I will reconvene the Scottish Education Council but, importantly, we are looking to refresh the membership and give it a renewed purpose. It very clearly looks at the delivery of the OECD's recommendations as well as wider education policy. Very important for me is the new children and young people's education council, which will certainly have parity of esteem with the Scottish Education Council. That will, at least to begin with, work alongside the Covid education recovery group. I can absolutely reassure Cocab Stewart that the organisations and the stakeholders that she mentioned will play an important part in the process, as we make sure that we are engaging with all stakeholders as closely as we can. Pam Gouzzard will be followed by Bob Doris. The OECD's report points out the lack of clarity in the curriculum on the role of knowledge. Professor Lindsay Paterson has even said that the report did not go far enough in stressing the importance of knowledge creation being firmly included in the curriculum. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the knowledge creation is an important part of an effective education system and will the cabinet secretary therefore commit to ensuring that this importance is made explicit throughout the Scotland's curriculum? I am sure that Lindsay Paterson and others will express their views strongly over the next six months and, indeed, beyond how we can take forward this reform. It is an important opportunity for everyone with views on education, and it is strongly held that they can take part in the process and ensure a wide engagement in that. I think that it is fair at this point for me to leave the work of Professor Muir to develop, but I am sure that he will listen very carefully to voices right across education, regardless of who they are and what particular areas they think we should go further on and make sure that we are taking cognisance of that as we move forward. I am sure that other stakeholders will come forward with ideas to the Scottish Education Council to make those voices heard. Can I ask the cabinet secretary if the Scottish Government is open to considering expanding the use of continuous assessment and embedding teacher judgment within certification in the senior phase more generally, reduce the over reliance on high-stakes exit exams for final grades and where exit exams do continue, challenge previous assumptions on matters such as the waterfall effect, which often constrain the grades of some young people, particularly in my constituency? As I said in my answer to Oliver Mundell, we are looking very carefully at what the OECD will say on qualifications and assessments and particularly the fact that we need to develop approaches to make sure that that aligns better with the four capacities and curriculum for excellence philosophy, and we await the outcomes of their second report expected in the autumn. I have said that I am open to change on that, but I have said that as well. That will not be a simple process. There are many different views, and I think that we have heard two, at least in the chamber so far, about the best way forward for that. I am very cognisant of the fact that the OECD talked about a 19th century model that we seem to have while still moving forward with curriculum for excellence. I think that it is only right that we see what we need to do to reform that, if that is indeed what the OECD recommends. I am very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. From the outset, it is disappointing in the advisory panel that is being drawn up to assist Professor Muir that young people do not get a mention there. My question relates to the thanks that you have given the SQA. Can I ask about a Government-initiated question that was released at 3.02 pm yesterday afternoon, announcing that last year's outstanding exam appeals for those who sat in 2020 cannot be reopened? Will the Cabinet Secretary be writing to each of these appellants that sit on her desk, telling them that their appeal is going nowhere, and that this is just another blow to young people's rights? The advisory panel has not been drawn up yet, so bear with us. Do not please assume that young people will not be on that, but it is important that Professor Muir has just been asked to take up the post. He will begin that work in August, and it is only right that he is involved in who is in the advisory panel. That is not for me to set up, but it would certainly be something that, given what I have said in my statement about the importance that I place on children and young people's views on this, they are very open to it. However, Professor Muir will have his views and, quite rightly, we will take that discussion forward with him. He points to the GIQ that we had yesterday on the exam repeals. I look carefully at that very seriously since taking up the post. However, it is exceptionally difficult to see away how we can have a fair and credible appeals system at this point. However, there is the ability for anyone who still feels that they should have had an appeal with the grounds that the SQA did have in place for the 2020 year qualifications for them to take that forward at this time. I would like to address learners with additional support needs. Can the cabinet secretary tell us what specific work the Re-established Scottish Education Council will undertake to ensure that any future plans for the qualification and assessment processes will also benefit learners who require additional support, particularly those in the senior phase? Gillian Martin has always raised an important point. That is to ensure that when we are working through the Scottish Education Council and, indeed, when we are working through any policy and practice within Scottish education, we ensure that what we are having in place works for every child and every young person. That includes those with additional support needs. We will engage widely to ensure that future plans and assessment do hold to that and are accessible for all learners. Any reforms will be informed by the OECD's comparative analysis that is expected in the autumn that I have mentioned previously, and will, of course, be fully impact-assessed in relation to equality and children's rights and wellbeing. Within the cabinet secretary's statement, she confirmed that the SQA will now be reformed. Given that the SNP Government was aware of the OECD report months ago, can I ask why the Scottish Government waited until this point to announce that the body will be scrapped, especially when our young people have endured yet another exam fiasco this year due to the incompetency of the SQA and the SNP Government? As Megan Gallacher would, I hope, agree, we should move forward when we have the final conclusions of our report, rather than drafts, particularly when a group such as the OECD are continuing to work with stakeholders to see whether any changes will be made to that. Of course, we will move quickly when we have reports through, but it is also imperative that we ensure that we wait for final recommendations, rather than making assumptions. We have moved very quickly when we have the OECD's recommendations and have already moved very quickly to establish an independent adviser that will now take that specific recommendation forward. I ask the cabinet secretary what impact will the OECD review recommendations have on the Government's wider work on closing the attainment gap and ensuring that pupils from our most deprived backgrounds have the greatest opportunity to achieve better outcomes and to guarantee that we will deliver excellence and equity for all pupils? The Scottish Government welcomes the OECD review's recognition that improvement in tackling poverty-related attainment and the impact on socioeconomic status on performance is among the lowest levels across OECD countries. We also note that there is a greater proportion of resilient young people from less well-off backgrounds who perform at high levels. The Scottish Government has demonstrated its continued commitment to closing the poverty related attainment gap, and that is specifically through, for example, the £1 billion investment that we will be taking forward over this parliamentary term. We will now move on to the next item of business. Although front-benchers are potentially changing their positions,