Lee Waters: ...18 per cent of children who have been looked after achieve 5 GCSEs grades A to C. So, it’s little wonder that the Buttle Trust found in 2011 that only 7 per cent of care leavers were in higher education. As I say, a stain on us all. So, it’s self-evident that we need to be far more demanding of ourselves, at every stage of the school journey, to support looked-after children to achieve...
Lee Waters: I’ve been speaking to some headteachers recently who are concerned about the evidence base for this policy. They’re also concerned that schools that are already oversubscribed—by reducing the standard number, it may result in them being able to take even fewer pupils. They’re also concerned about the ability of the school buildings to cope with the changes that will flow from this...
Lee Waters: ...is that this rests on a false premise—there is no such thing as free car parking. The money has to come from somewhere, and it currently comes from other services—from social services and from education. The cost of providing a so-called free car parking space, according to the Department for Transport, is between £300 and £500 a year for one space. It’s not free; it’s paid for....
Lee Waters: ...the confidence to encourage people who are overweight or stressed or suffering one of the number of conditions that are contributed to by physical inactivity, to get active. We need leadership from schools. Active children learn better. Bike Week is all well and good, but how do we make every day Walk to School Day, every week Bike Week? For employers, there’s ample evidence that workers...
Lee Waters: How does the Minister plan to support schools beyond the term of the Schools Challenge Cymru programme?
Lee Waters: How does the Minister plan to support schools beyond the term of the Schools Challenge Cymru programme?
Lee Waters: I must say I’m very disappointed that Schools Challenge Cymru has come to an end and I would have much preferred to see it recalibrated rather than abandoned. There is an evidence base that we can draw upon from Manchester and London of where it has succeeded and I do think it’s important the Cabinet Secretary does prioritise investment in schools, where there is evidence to justify that....
Lee Waters: Diolch. The weight of the discussions around increasing the provision of Welsh-medium education—. We know that only around 16 per cent of children are educated through the medium of Welsh, which means that the majority, the overwhelming majority, of schoolchildren in Wales get taught Welsh at some level as a second language. Now, there’s a lot of evidence to show the quality of that in...
Lee Waters: ...payback for knowing the precise location and concentration of grass in a field: the application of precision agriculture. There are pockets of innovation across Wales, in our further and higher education institutions. I recently met with the principal of Coleg Sir Gâr in Llanelli, Barry Liles, who told me about how one of their campuses is already reaping the benefits. At their farm in...
Lee Waters: ...base. Any concerns I had about this policy have been assuaged by the changes you’ve made, and I very much welcome the extra targeting that you put in place, and I warmly welcome extra funding for schools. In my constituency, schools have been having to make redundancies last year, and again this year; a £3.7 million cut by the Plaid Cymru council, and a potential 135 members of staff...
Lee Waters: 2. What is being done to promote the Library of Wales series in schools? OAQ(5)0474(FM)
Lee Waters: ...within this series that can tell them something about their community and about their past, to help us reflect on our common heritage. So, I’d welcome any further initiatives, to make sure that schools and colleges make use of the copies they now have, so we can reflect on this important investment.
Lee Waters: ...people which they were most concerned about, the PISA report or the Estyn report, I’d be met with blank looks. Most people don’t obsess about these things, but they have a view of their local school, and it’s usually positive. Of course, for most people, schools are much more than about data; they are focal points for their communities. Before becoming an Assembly Member, I spent 10...
Lee Waters: ...it—the mundane economy, as Professor Karel Williams has described it. Now, his is a name you’ll hear a few times this afternoon, I’m sure. Along with his colleagues in Manchester Business School, he’s done much to give life to the idea of the economy of the everyday, the so-called foundational economy. As a son of Llanelli, Karel Williams has taken the forlorn state of the town I...
Lee Waters: Thank you, Minister. The most recent annual report by the chief inspector of schools showed there was far too much variation in standards of teaching, learning and leadership in schools across Wales. Given that, is the Minister concerned that Estyn is not planning or inspecting local education authorities in the next inspection round? Instead, it plans to focus on the regional consortia.
Lee Waters: ...and instead of exporting and allowing other countries to get the added value from these products, allowing them to be exploited internally where they could be served as high-quality food in schools and hospitals. We need to think laterally around the potential of the blue economy. I just want to say, finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, about the need for innovation. The development of the fourth...
Lee Waters: ...I’ve done to intensify this debate. I did find it really unhelpful of Neil Hamilton to turn up and join a picket line in Llangennech, which I found to be deeply disrespectful to the village, the school, the teachers and the pupils of that village. There’s been—
Lee Waters: ...he set out is an incomplete one, because the one thing we’re missing from here is that there was genuine concern among parents, who have put generations of their children through a dual-stream school in the village and are deeply committed to the future of the Welsh language, who felt that the decision was being done to them. Although, yes, it had gone through the formal structures of...
Lee Waters: In your area. [Laughter.] But when she leaves education, the ability to programme computers will be an essential skill, everything from programming a manufacturing line to designing the next innovation. But the chief inspector of schools found that ICT standards are strong in only a very few schools, and not enough understand the potential of digital learning to aid teaching and learning....
Lee Waters: ...landscape of initiatives, bearing in mind that we are meant to be doing fewer things and keeping things simple? So, how, in particular, do you see this fitting in with the consortia and with local education authorities, because I think there’s a danger we have a cluttered landscape? Secondly, we have an emphasis on school-to-school support for raising school standards, and there is, as...
