Kirsty Williams: Demand for Welsh-medium education in South Wales East remains high. Our investment in five new Welsh-medium primaries and several childcare and school extensions in this region will further support this upward trend. This is encouraging news, I think, as local authorities head towards the publication of their new Welsh in education strategic plans, with individual targets aligned with the...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Delyth. Welsh Government are supporting Blaenau Gwent with the development of the school that you have just referenced with a grant of £5.8 million. That grant has been awarded to address the very real logistical and travel problems that you have identified, and that has meant that families who would previously have chosen Welsh-medium education have not done so, because of the...
Kirsty Williams: You're absolutely right. To achieve the target in 2050 we do need to recruit more teachers who are able to teach in our Welsh-medium schools and in our bilingual schools, and we also need to equip our teachers working in English-medium schools to deliver high-quality Welsh lessons. We have set targets for ITE providers to recruit to the initial teacher education programmes, and we have...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, David. The Curriculum for Wales’s fundamental purposes include learners becoming ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world. Our guidance is clear that embedding the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in learning and teaching is key to the vision for every school’s curriculum, so that learners can learn about, through and for human rights.
Kirsty Williams: David, I couldn't agree with you more and I will indeed write to you.FootnoteLink As I said in my original answer, guidance for our new curriculum for schools includes a section on learning about human rights, so that's understanding human rights and the sources of those rights; learning through human rights, which is the development of values, attitudes and behaviours that reflect human...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Huw. There are currently a range of measures to support learning, including extensive professional learning, significant investment in devices and connectivity, and £29 million for the accelerating learning programme. I am considering further actions to address the pandemic’s impact on learners’ education, health and well-being, and I will publish a learning recovery plan shortly.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Huw, and thank you for acknowledging the immense efforts that headteachers, classroom teachers and teaching assistants have put in, finding innovative new ways to keep children learning at this time, and going above and beyond to support children and families. Clearly, we need to utilise all opportunities to address the interruption of learning, and ensure that children have the...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Dai. Since the pandemic began, the Welsh Government has made available over 138,000 devices to schools. A further 54,000 devices will be delivered in the coming weeks, and my officials are in regular contact with colleagues in all local authorities, including those that make up the region of South Wales West, providing support and guidance where that is required.
Kirsty Williams: You're right, Dai. We don't need to wait for the delivery of those additional 54,000 devices. At this time, any device that is sitting in a classroom that is not being used on a daily basis needs to be allocated to a family. I have to say, Dai, if you would write to me with those families that are continuing to have difficulties, we can explore that with local authorities. We have done a...
Kirsty Williams: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Back in autumn 2016, I came to this Senedd to announce the biggest change to student finance in Wales in a generation. As all of us know, student finance reform is a complex and controversial issue. Political parties and Ministers of all stripes, across the United Kingdom and further afield, have taken difficult decisions, and sometimes faced the consequences. Over...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Suzy, for those comments, and can I thank you for your acknowledgement of the hard work of university lecturers and staff the length and breadth of Wales, who have done everything that they can in the most challenging of situations to support their students? And I'm sure all of us in the Chamber would want to associate ourselves with the comments that people have been working...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you to Bethan. She is right—I don't believe any political party can say that they have completely clean hands when it comes to the issue of student fees, and I would remind her of which parties were in Government in Wales in 2009 when the top-up fees were introduced. So, I think all of us have got parties where we've had to make some really difficult decisions, whether it be at...
Kirsty Williams: Can I thank Mark Reckless for his comments? As I said, it's an important principle to me that there is portability of the package, allowing students to make choices about where they study. I don't know about deliberately trying to weaken the bonds of the union, but I think where the Welsh system does compare very favourably to Scotland is in terms of social mobility—I don't know about...
Kirsty Williams: I move, Deputy Presiding Officer.
Kirsty Williams: Formally moved.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I thank colleagues for their contributions to the debate this afternoon. Can I say that I am very proud of how the Welsh Government and local authorities have reacted to the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring that those who rely on free school meals have not had to go without whilst they are not in school? We have now made...
Kirsty Williams: Oh boy, Presiding Officer. I am sorely tempted to riff on the concept of false equivalence and to debate Mr Hamilton on his interjection this afternoon. What I am able to assure Senedd Members is that concepts such as false equivalence, fake news and propaganda will indeed form part of the new Curriculum for Wales, and we will indeed be equipping our children and our young people to debate...
Kirsty Williams: To be absolutely clear, and for the avoidance of doubt, I recognise the importance of educating our children and young people about climate change, its causes, its impact, both here at home as well as globally, and the action that is needed to safeguard all of our futures. And of course, in Wales, we have a strong basis on which to build. We have been supporting two key climate and...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I make it absolutely clear to all Members that life-saving skills are an aspect of learning that forms part of our new health and well-being AoLE? The statutory guidance as drafted emphasises the importance of learners developing the ability to respond to a range of conditions and situations that affect their physical health, and, indeed, the...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is a large group of amendments with quite a variety of potential impacts on the legislation, so I'm going to try to go through them not necessarily in order, but in groups, if that's okay, starting with the easiest first. That is amendment number 40 in the name of Suzy Davies, which enables learners in years 12 and 13 in schools to request RSE, and...
