, Plenary
Debate: The Estyn Annual Report 2021-22
Well, that's a very important point. It's a part of our ongoing discussions with the inspectorate. He will know that the reforms that the inspectorate have undertaken in Wales have moved away the focus of accountability in schools from that single, summative…
, Plenary
Debate: The Estyn Annual Report 2021-22
I agree, Llywydd, that this includes a number of the items that Members have raised today. Gareth Davies spoke about the importance of investing in oracy, and whilst I disagree with him that the solution to that lay simply in a policy approach to masks, and…
, Plenary
Debate: The Estyn Annual Report 2021-22
Thank you, Llywydd, and thank you to everyone for their contributions to this afternoon's debate. It has been an important opportunity for Members to express their views on the annual report. As more than one contributor has said, education in Wales is…
, Plenary
Debate: The Estyn Annual Report 2021-22
I was pleased to read that, despite the challenges from the pandemic, the report recognises that education and training providers have responded with fortitude and institutions brought closer to their learners and the communities they serve. I'm continually…
, Plenary
Debate: The Estyn Annual Report 2021-22
Thank you, Llywydd. I’d like to open this debate by thanking Owen Evans, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales, for his annual report. It’s an independent picture of how providers of education and training are performing and helping…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language: Our National Mission
I agree with the Member on the important role of the commission and of the vision that we share in terms of the contribution of the commission to reforming post-16 education in all parts of Wales, and I will refer her to the response that I gave last week on…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language: Our National Mission
I thank the Member for her questions. I didn't quite catch the entirety of the last question, but I think I had the thrust of it, so I will do my best to respond to it. Thank you, firstly, for inviting me to attend, with her, Perthcelyn school. I found it an…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language: Our National Mission
Thank you very much to the Member for those questions and for listing the challenges. I’m sure she is eager too to celebrate the successes in our education system and all of the work being done in our classrooms on a daily basis to provide the best possible…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language: Our National Mission
I thank the Member for his questions. He will know from my statement and from other statements that I have made that, closing the attainment gap between those students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers is a key priority for me, as I just…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language: Our National Mission
Dirprwy Lywydd, it's designed to be a useful tool for practitioners, providing a timeline for our plans and coherence across the portfolio. Our ambitions for education are unchanged: our national mission is to achieve high standards and aspirations for all…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language: Our National Mission
Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Our national mission action plan was published in 2017. Since that time, we have made great strides in education. Amongst many other things, we are rolling out the Curriculum for Wales, implementing a new additional learning needs…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
In the next financial year, the South Wales West region of the Member will receive £945 million in settlement funding, and Wales as a whole sees an increase of 7.9 per cent in settlement funding over last year on a like-for-like basis. These increases are…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Local authorities are required by law to have an established school forum, and the purpose of a school forum is to help develop informed and confident dialogue between local authorities and their schools, including, importantly, on budgetary issues.
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
I agree entirely with that. In the Member's own area, the Blaenau Gwent Welsh in education strategic plan includes specific targets and challenging targets, in the local context, to increase the number of post-16 learners studying Welsh as a subject and…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Increasing opportunities allowing people to continue to learn through Welsh is crucially important. That's why we're investing additional funding to expand post-16 Welsh-medium delivery. We're doing this jointly with Plaid Cymru as part of the co-operation…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Well, I thank Joyce Watson for that important supplementary, and I recognise there's a particular challenge sometimes, as she was saying, for people going back to education perhaps later on in life. I know that she shares my pride in the fact that we are…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Living costs should never be a barrier to studying at university, which is why, despite continuing budget pressures, the Welsh Government has ensured that the value of support has increased significantly by 9.4 per cent in line with the national living…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Thank you very much to Adam Price for those important points. I acknowledge, of course, the important contribution made by campaigners such as Eileen and Trefor Beasley to the story of the language, and their stance has been very important in that history. I…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
The emphasis on the history of Wales in the new curriculum will give young people an opportunity to learn more about the history of our language. Due to the efforts of people like the Beasleys and others, the linguistic landscape of Wales has been…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Peter Fox has asked for the facts. The facts are these: the funding that we received as a Barnett consequential from Westminster was passported fully on to local authorities, and not only that, it was increased through the education budget. So, in Wales…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Well, I think this is bold, coming from a member of the party that is the only party in Wales to campaign at an Assembly election to cut the education budget by 12 per cent. It's quite something. It is quite something, and it shows just how shallow their…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
The Welsh Government's education budget sets out our continued commitment to implementing our programme of educational reform, ensuring that educational inequalities narrow and standards rise.
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Yes, I know what you're asking and I'm describing to you the alternative universe in which a Conservative Government is asked to deal with these questions and fails. [Interruption.] In Wales, what we do is we work in social partnership, and I reject the…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Well, I reject the premise of the question, and I'm not going to take any lessons on social partnerships from a Conservative. If you want to look to see what Conservatives do when they are asked to try and resolve disputes with trade unions, you can just look…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language
Can I just say that the Member makes an important point in her question? I speak with UCU regularly in any event, but I was able to attend their conference, their congress, a couple of weeks ago, and to discuss with them at first-hand some of the concerns…
