Kirsty Williams: Well, the Member is correct in saying that we've had to take very seriously the response that we have had to the draft code and amend our timetable accordingly. I can give her and the Chamber an assurance that we will continue to work with all stakeholders to address the concerns that have been raised and to ensure that the new system is effective and provides the change that parents and...
Kirsty Williams: David, you are absolutely correct. Local education authorities are bound by the law as it stands now, and simply because we are transitioning to a new legislative framework, that does not allow them not to attend to the needs of children who are in the system now. My expectation is that they apply the law to children who have a range of special educational needs as it is currently stated, and...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Hefin. I made a written statement updating Members on the roll-out of online personalised assessments on 3 September. By the end of the summer term, over 268,000 learners had successfully taken online numeracy procedural assessments. Following extensive development work and trialling, reading assessments will be available to schools from October.
Kirsty Williams: Well, I'm grateful to the Member for making the representations that he has done on behalf of that cluster of schools. We have acted on that feedback, not only from yourself, but from other schools, and we have, over the summer, made a number of refinements to the system that should address the concerns that were raised in your letter. By introducing assessments on a phased roll-out, we are...
Kirsty Williams: Firstly, the Member will be aware that the first part of our new curriculum is the roll-out of the digital competence framework and, therefore, there is an expectation on schools to address these skills with their entire pupil population. With regard to information technology facilities within schools and ensuring that there is equity of provision across the piece, you'll be aware that the...
Kirsty Williams: The Welsh Government's supporting service children in education Wales fund helps schools provide additional support to mitigate the challenges that children of armed forces communities can face because of their family's military lifestyle. I have made available £250,000 for applications this academic year.
Kirsty Williams: Presiding Officer, I am very alive to the issues faced by children of serving families, which is why we have made this fund available. That fund this year is supporting three projects in the county of Pembrokeshire, and I'm sure the Member would be glad of that. If he's not aware of the individual projects, I'm happy to write to him with details of the schools that are in receipt of that...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. I'd like to start by thanking Jayne for bringing forward this debate today and for describing the fantastic practice of her local schools. It always gives me a huge amount of pleasure to hear from Assembly Members of the fantastic work that our teachers and support staff are doing every day in communities the length and breadth of Wales. As has...
Kirsty Williams: But, actually, what does that mean in practice and what is a whole-school approach? Teachers tell us that they are concerned about their students' mental health. They feel that they're being asked to deal with mental health issues outside their competencies as teachers, and they often feel unsupported by specialist services. There is a clear need for teachers to have help and support in...
Kirsty Williams: Formally.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Back in August, I had the privilege of celebrating examination results with the learners at Coleg y Cymoedd on A-level day, and, as Nick Ramsay just said, with the pupils at King Henry VIII Comprehensive School in Abergavenny on GCSE day—a day when that school was celebrating its best ever set of GCSE results. And I'm sure that all Members...
Kirsty Williams: Mark Reckless asked the question about whether we can attribute some of this success to the Seren network. Of course, this is the first year that the students will have been through the entirety of the Seren programme, and I think there is definitely something there that has driven those excellent results. Alongside those results we have seen a record number of offers from Cambridge...
Kirsty Williams: The Member may be aware that there is a significant demographic change, so actually there are simply fewer of those pupils of that age in the system. And we've just heard from Suzy Davies of the need to value and have parity of esteem between academic qualifications and vocational qualifications. It is about the right students doing the right qualifications, and if those A-level students are...
Kirsty Williams: The Minister for health and I are jointly leading work to embed a whole-school approach to emotional well-being. While the focus is schools, much of the work has equal relevance to other settings such as further and higher education, where complementary working is also under way.
Kirsty Williams: Local authorities have been advised that schools procuring temporary workers through an agency should do so through the National Procurement Service framework. Purchasing through this framework provides schools with the reassurance that an agency has been through a compliant tender process and is bound by contractual terms and conditions of the framework.
Kirsty Williams: I am committed to ensuring that all young people receive high-quality sexuality and relationships education. In May 2018 I announced our intention to rename this area of study and have proposed that relationships and sexuality education will be statutory in the new curriculum.
Kirsty Williams: Today I launched the formal consultation on an updated draft of the school and community-based counselling operating toolkit. This is an integral part of our work to embed a whole-school approach to emotional well-being, led jointly by the Minister for health and I.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Alun. Today I launched the formal consultation on an updated draft of the school and community-based counselling operating toolkit. This is an integral part of our work to embed a whole-school approach to emotional well-being, led jointly by the Minister for health and myself.
Kirsty Williams: Well, thank you, Alun. I was very pleased to visit Tredegar comprehensive with you, although slightly disappointed not to see your photograph on the wall, amongst other notable ex-pupils of the school. [Laughter.] But I have to say the conversations that I had with the pupils at Tredegar are ones that I have with school pupils constantly. I've yet to go to a school council meeting where the...
Kirsty Williams: Well, Oscar, it's disappointing to hear those statistics because for the academic year 2017-18, over 11,000 young people benefited from the school counselling service. But we do know that, for some young people, there are barriers to accessing that service. That's why we are, as I said, putting new resources forward to local authorities to look at ways in which we can address more...
