Ms Nessa White:

It is probably timely to provide some balance to the points that are being made. I agree. Making school an environment where people want to go irrespective of their background is what we are all about. That is what we do and what we should be doing. One of the questions was what our starting point would be. I love these opportunities to hear about initiatives like Yellow Flag. I am not in the role a long time and it is something I was not aware of. For me, that is a starting point to explore and to follow up from today in response to the question of how we can expand that and make it happen.

I will try to cover all the questions and ask the members to come back to me if I have missed one. The issue around timetabling again is certainly new to me. It is certainly not a position that the ETB sector or ETB schools take when it comes to how we deal with things, because it is not dealing with things. I will certainly explore that to see the situation in our sector. It is certainly new to me today. On continuing professional development, CPD, for teachers, this is a very good example that I can add to a list of examples of areas in which we need to provide CPD. In ETBI, we are very well placed to provide that for our sector and it is something that can be delivered upon. There are many other areas, like a multidenominational approach to making school a welcoming environment, where we can tie in all of these things as a good practice approach to how we look after children in our schools. That is something I will be taking from today to address the real challenges that have been outlined by people in our schools and all schools, but also to support the teachers who sometimes just do not know and sometimes bring their unconscious bias to interactions they have. It is about acknowledging the good work that is being done by our teachers and acknowledging that sometimes there needs to be support in terms of CPD to change what we are trying to change. I certainly can take that on board and will do something in that regard.

On the incentives and what they would look like, I agree with the point that Youthreach should not be the norm.

Youthreach is put up as an example of what works, and absolutely it works, but if our system was working, Youthreach would be plan B for children of any background who need it. That is what it should be. All the initiatives, action plans and policy documents we have need to be implemented to make it plan B for everyone and not simply a plan B that we have put up as a gold star towering achievement. I take that on board.

Reference was made to reinstatement from the level of cutbacks. It is valid to point out that we think sometimes that going back to what we had is all we should expect. It was certainly a learning point for me in the sense that sometimes we need to think differently. The idea that because we had something does not mean it worked anyway. It is certainly something we might consider and add in to something that we could bring back to the committee, especially if there were different thoughts around the bigger picture and looking forward rather than looking back.

Reference was made to education and training boards being well placed to deliver quickly, and we heard the suggestion of collaboration at school level with parents. Literacy and numeracy services go hand in hand with what we are trying to do. We could implement pilots and initiatives quickly in that area. If it could work, why not try to do it? It is a very good idea and something that I am going away with. I do not think I can change the world, but much of what has been recommended is practical and we can explore it. I had the opportunity to meet, listen and talk to some of the other stakeholders who know better than I ever would what will and will not work. There will be follow-up with the stakeholders outside of this environment to look at some practical pilots and some measurement. Mr. Collins said to me that we need to get better at measuring whether policy is working. We put it up there as something we have done but we do not really get to the point of measurement. That is where we are moving to in our sector. We like to talk about good practice. Baselines and measurement are the only way to know whether something is good or working.