Bethan Sayed: Can I ask for a statement or a debate in Government time on post-education provision for people aged 19 to 25 specifically with autism? I don’t particularly want to be going into constituents’ casework here but I feel I have to briefly because it’s come to the position where the grandmother was at my office on Friday, crying her eyes out because she’s trying to keep her grandson at...
Bethan Sayed: Thank you for that answer. The third question, and I’m sure you are very much aware of this—. I had a Bill on financial inclusion and education in the last Assembly term, and I worked closely with the former Minister and a group working on new ideas and a new strategy for financial inclusion and education. Can I ask you what is happening with that crucial work? I had a representative on...
Bethan Sayed: ...issue I have is with regard to the question I asked last week. I don’t think I had a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ from you with regard to whether we could have a statement on autism and the post-educational needs of those who’ve left school. It’s an urgent situation. Leighton Andrews, in his capacity as education Minister, did have a taskforce looking into provision for those who’ve...
Bethan Sayed: ...centre won’t deliver jobs in and of themselves—it’s what goes in and around that that counts. Lastly, I’d like to know what this taskforce will do to break the link between poverty and poor educational attainment. In this party, we’ve pushed for community-focused schools with strong links to families and the wider community, and I think that the Welsh Government must deliver its...
Bethan Sayed: 7. Will the Minister make a statement on the provision of education for autistic pupils? OAQ(5)0006(EDU)
Bethan Sayed: Will the Minister make a statement on the provision of financial education?
Bethan Sayed: Thank you. I recently raised an issue with the leader of the house on a local issue brought to me by a constituent, who is trying to keep an autistic grandchild in a special school, Maes y Coed, in the Neath area for an extra year, in addition to the school year, until they can reach agreement with Abertawe Bro Morgannwg health board on the long-term future. There is provision to allow this...
Bethan Sayed: ...public services; that we should decimate our emergency services, endanger the safety of our country through cuts to the police and the Border Force; reduce our children’s opportunities through education; and risk the lives of our loved ones in hospitals because of slashed budgets—all in the name of austerity. This is the environment in which trade unions now have to operate: outright...
Bethan Sayed: ...there—. How, then, can they be sensitive to what’s happening around them, rather than just trying to cycle as fast as they would on a mountain, for example? So, what can you do in terms of education to ensure that everyone can share the same environment comfortably?
Bethan Sayed: ...well, did a campaign to raise awareness of bullying issues in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in south-east Wales, and notified that there was a high level of bullying in schools in relation to that agenda. I was wondering if you had noted that research that he had done and taken much time to complete, and whether you had looked at the whole scope of Wales in...
Bethan Sayed: ...record so that we can understand fully how they operate. So, I hope that answers most of your questions. On the cross-cutting issues, of course we may want to look at, for example, Welsh language education. So, of course, then we would want to discuss with the Children, Young People and Education Committee if they were doing work. Obviously, we wouldn’t want to duplicate it. We harp on...
Bethan Sayed: ...programme helps around 60,000 of the most vulnerable people in Wales to live independently and prevent them from becoming homeless—very successfully, as I’ve said. It helps people back into education, sustains tenancies, and gets them back into work. The moral case for doing this is well understood, but there is a financial case for doing so as well. In 2006, it was found that, for...
Bethan Sayed: ...you will have seen that Neath Port Talbot council is currently consulting on its budget, but what interests me most there is that they are potentially going to slash £50,000 from their special educational needs budget, affecting two specialist education facilities and up to 11 school-based units in the county borough. This has, sadly, obviously provoked anger amongst parents, some of whom...
Bethan Sayed: ...about whether they own that house or not. I think, in general terms, that this Chamber is in danger of becoming stuck in a time warp. Two weeks ago, we heard calls for bringing back grammar schools and now we have a defence of the right to buy. What next—bring back Bananarama? We should be looking to the future instead. [Laughter.] Well, some of you might like Bananarama; perhaps it was...
Bethan Sayed: ...are, so that would be good to try and find out what they are. Because we do have quite a lot of schemes in that area. So, why did you choose to do it in the communities sense, and not through the education system? Obviously, my passion is to do with financial inclusion, so I’d like to understand from you, Cabinet Secretary, how you’ll be going about introducing the action plan for the...
Bethan Sayed: ...to come out with some inflammatory behaviour. When we had the communities and culture briefing with various organisations recently, we heard people saying that it’s getting worse in our schools, whereby other children are saying, because of the colour of their skin, they should not be present in the school environment anymore. I think that’s very, very worrying, if this type of...
Bethan Sayed: ...my work.’ I think that’s still a massive challenge for the Welsh Government to be able to deal with. What I’m passionate about also is about having more self-esteem and confidence lessons in schools. I’m not necessarily saying we should have mental health lessons, because that may be a danger in and of itself, where we would tell somebody about a condition and they may feel...
Bethan Sayed: I just wanted to pick up on the point you made about deprived areas. I visited a friend who works in a private school in London to talk to him about many of these issues, and, actually, there was isolation from their parents because they were living away from them, and they suffered mental health problems, just as people do in deprived areas.
Bethan Sayed: Thank you, and I’m pleased to contribute to this debate, having many constituents here today. The day that school photos come home is an annual highlight for every parent—as I’m sure you can imagine—who hand them out with pride around the family so everyone can compare the children to how they were a year ago and remark upon how much they’ve grown. So, imagine if your children’s...
Bethan Sayed: ...down the line. I seriously don’t think we should rule it out because there are other conditions that would need to be potentially legislated for. I sat on the Children, Young People and Education Committee when we took out the additional learning needs section of that particular legislation, and it only dealt with people in the education system. Autism is a far wider debate than...
