, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 8
Diolch, Gadeirydd. Thank you. I want to move into the questions that you may have seen I've asked other witnesses before about the use of the common European framework of reference for languages, or CEFR. There's, I guess, a couple of different parts to this…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 7
I'll stop there, Chair, because I know we have lots of questions to get through, and I perhaps took up too much time in the previous section.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 7
So, we’re regularly asking people what the level or the threshold is for someone to be a Welsh speaker. And the challenge is that sometimes this can be loaded in a way that isn’t helpful, I think, for people who want to be able to go out and use the Welsh…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 7
I wanted to move into the next point, which is that we’ve had evidence from other people about whether this is an appropriate framework for people who have either gone through the whole Welsh-medium system or, indeed, whether it's appropriate for people who…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 7
Okay. Can I check if there is a different view from NASUWT? Because I want to come back onto some of the other points made around whether it's an appropriate framework for the Welsh-medium sector.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 7
Right.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 7
So, do you think that will impact on the wider curriculum then? Is that, essentially, what your evidence is? Just so we understand. I don't want to put words in your mouth. We want to understand if you think it would or it wouldn't.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 7
Thank you, Chair. I want to go back to the common European framework of reference for languages. We'll call it 'CEFR'; it'll make it much easier and shorter. The Bill suggests using this as the measuring tool, as it were, for the language acquisition acquired…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
Well, I certainly hear more Welsh in schools compared to when I first got elected. As a local Member, going around, I definitely hear more Welsh in primary and secondary schools now, compared to 2011. That is absolutely my experience. But that's a different…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
Just in terms of the discussion we're having now, it seems like it's not a lot to do with the Bill. There's a broader discussion about why people do not want to be teachers, and there are pressures outside what the Government does and about what people face…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
I think you've answered the last question, which is about CEFR not providing a description of people with no level of Welsh ability, so I don't think I need to ask that question. There are others that we could follow up in writing, Chair.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
We haven't had many heads who don't have a view, as I regularly find out in private meetings in their schools.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
I guess it's just a point that comes back to the differing levels of proficiency and ability. So, we have this difficult question about what is a Welsh speaker. Is a basic user a Welsh speaker or do you need to be a proficient user? I'm interested in your…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
Okay. So, can I just stick with the question about that, because I know you organise in the Welsh-medium sector as well? So, when you have pupils coming through the Welsh-medium sector, whether you think this framework is still appropriate, and the levels it…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
So, that's quite interesting. That comes into some of the other follow-up questions. In line with what we heard last week, Cymdeithas yr Iaith were very clear that they thought that the framework itself wasn't appropriate. That was partly because their view…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
Okay. So, I want to move on because I can almost feel the Chair looking at me and the clock. But the next area of questions is about the framework used to try to measure and understand progress. So, the Bill proposed the common European framework of reference…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
Okay.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm trying to understand whether you've had a discussion, you've been told, 'It'll be fine', and this is like a field-of-dreams approach, of pass the Bill and the teachers will come, or is it that there is work that the…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
So, it's a message from school leaders in both our current sectors that the workforce isn't there. So, I just want to be clear—I know you've had some engagement around the Bill—about what the engagement was with Welsh Government, because I assume that these…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 6
Yes. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, thanks for coming. I just want to be clear, to understand the clarity of the message you're giving: support for the aims and ambitions of the Bill, and want to be part of creating more confident Welsh speakers in school…
, Petitions Committee
Updates to previous petitions
We should write to the committee and say, 'Peter Fox believes that more council housing should be built in Monmouthshire'.
, Petitions Committee
Updates to previous petitions
Apologies, Chair.
, Petitions Committee
Updates to previous petitions
Yes, but that goes into supply and it goes into tenures—so, your point about tenure, about the mix of shared home ownership and social home owners, as well as private sector homes and how you persuade people to build them in different places. It's the same in…
, Petitions Committee
Updates to previous petitions
There aren't very many in border areas. In some parts, in my constituency, Penarth is almost always immune to reductions in property values, and you can buy the same house just down the road in Barry and it costs a lot less. So, the variations in property are…
, Petitions Committee
Updates to previous petitions
Chair, I don't agree with that. There are lots of houses in Wales where you can buy them for less than £225,000—
