, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Well, can I thank John Griffiths for that supplementary and say that I'm delighted to congratulate and commend both the local authority and all of the schools in question? It's really great to hear of the progress that they're making. And I think that what it…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Improving attendance continues to be a top priority. Whilst we have seen improvements, returning attendance rates to pre-pandemic levels is an ambitious task. To support this, I have announced £8.8 million, across this year and next, to increase capacity…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Thank you very much, Natasha. And I want to be clear, as I hope I was with Cefin, that this isn't a question of just doing new work. This is about looking at what we're doing already, and we are doing lots and lots and lots of work around recruiting and…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
On 13 January, I published a written statement setting out my intention to work with the sector to develop a strategic education workforce plan to address a wide range of issues and improve recruitment and retention in the education workforce.
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Thank you, Cefin. As you’ve highlighted, we’ve got a whole range of incentives designed to tackle shortages in key subjects, and we’re investing a substantial amount of money in those. For some teachers, that could mean an incentive of £15,000 each. I’ve…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Thank you, Cefin. I’m very happy to give you that assurance that I am very committed to creating a bilingual workforce. It’s early days for the new workforce plan. I can assure you that the Welsh language will be a key part of that, just as it was a key part…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Thank you very much, Cefin. You won’t be surprised to find that I don’t agree with you that the statement was an admission of failure. The statement was the result of my reflections since coming into post on the range of workforce issues I’ve been dealing…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
I’m not aware that anybody has abolished cueing completely in England, actually. If you can point me to where they have actually outlawed cueing—. We have been really clear that we expect the teaching of phonics to be the key part of teaching literacy in…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
We’re doing this work in phases: we've clarified expectations with schools that we expect all schools to be teaching phonics; we are putting in place enhanced professional learning to assist schools with the teaching of literacy and numeracy; and we have a…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Can I thank Natasha Asghar for her questions and welcome her to her new portfolio and wish her well with it? Like her, I hope that we can continue to have constructive engagement. We all want the best for our children and young people in Wales. You referred…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Thanks very much, Rhys. As you know, our ALN system is a nought-to-25 system, and we have legal obligations under the Learning and Skills Act 2000 to provide provision for post-16 learners; there's a process that families go through with Careers Wales. In…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Thank you very much, Darren. Obviously, the numbers of children and young people on ND waiting lists are a cause of major concern for us across the Government. As you've highlighted, additional money was announced by the Cabinet Secretary for health to really…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Can I thank Mark Isherwood for that supplementary question? As he's highlighted, the UK Government has made the decision it has on levying VAT on private schools. That's to generate investment in our schools in the state sector. I'm happy to confirm to the…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Llywydd, I understand that you've given permission for question 2 and question 8 to be grouped today. The additional learning needs statutory framework secures additional learning provision for ALN learners, underpinned by a whole-school approach to mental…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
Diolch, Delyth, and can I acknowledge you've been raising long-standing concerns about this? As I said in my initial answer, we are having this joint summit with stakeholders, to look at some of the really thorny issues about this. I'm sure you're also aware…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education
I have had numerous discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales about learner travel. We will jointly lead a learner travel summit in the spring. This important issue will benefit from our combined efforts, and those of our partners…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
Thank you.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
Thank you.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
Okay. Well, thanks, Joel. I mean, that's quite a big question, really, and we know that it is a really challenging time for the school workforce. They're grappling with not just lots of reform, trying to raise standards, but they're also still dealing with…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
Imagine what it’s like for me. [Laughter.]
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
They do have different purposes. The education reform LAEG BEL is the direct allocation to local authorities and education settings. The curriculum and assessment BEL aligns with the local authority support and provides funding for a range of other…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
Can I—? Sorry, I forgot to say that there's also £1.73 million that's going for local authority curriculum support from the education reform BEL. That's going to the curriculum assessment BEL and that's to take forward some of the national programmes that…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
Okay, thanks. Well, as Georgina said, it's a question of money moving around the system, and it's important to say that there is more money available. We're making more money available, it's just in different places and is influenced by the fact that we've…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
Yes, the system will be based on school-to-school working, because school leaders were very, very positive in the review about the potential for that. We want to have a self-improving system that's based on really strong self-evaluation in schools, but they…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - evidence session 2
Well, the budget—. It's in several different budgets, but all of them we're increasing funding for. But we've had to move some of the budgets around, because, obviously, the consortia aren't going to exist any more [correction: the consortia may not exist any…
