Steph McGovern

No.

But in time, that's what I'm worried about, Alan.

Sorry to interrupt, but like my best mate, who's a head teacher around here in a tough school, majority of the kids taught English second language.

She was around here the other day in tears, having just had Ofsted round.

And she was like, oh, you know, they just kept asking me questions about the academics.

And these kids are like going through, she deals with social services more than anything else in her job.

She's constantly, you know, it's less about the curriculum and the education and more about survival.

And, you know, that's not how it should be.

I know this isn't your fault, Alan, but this is the type of thing that I get really frustrated about because we keep saying, oh, yeah, maybe we need to look at the system.

Maybe we need to... And we should change it.

And then it doesn't.

It doesn't change.

But you've been one and they listen to you.

I've forgotten, you know, I was thinking, what's the best slogan?

Because, I mean, a lot has happened since they've come in and there's been a lot of change.

Probably not change they would have wanted.

So then, because I am an optimist,

And I know I don't sound like it sometimes, particularly when I'm talking about this, but it is hard when you live in a place and, you know, you've grown up in a place as you have yourself, Alan, where things don't improve and you see people really graft in their whole life and things just don't feel like they're getting better.

That is politically the reason why we've seen a lot of, you know, the growth in form and things like that is because people feel left behind and feel like no one so far has made any difference to their lives.

But I'm optimistic because I think you're right.