Kirsty Williams: Welsh Government has awarded local authorities in South Wales Central over £7.5 million grant funding to recruit, recover and raise standards. This will help schools in the local authority area to provide additional support to those children who are most disadvantaged, most vulnerable, and those that should be sitting external qualifications.
Kirsty Williams: It is difficult to find silver linings at this most challenging of times, but there are indeed things that we need to learn. For some children who find the school environment challenging, additional new approaches to delivering education are being developed at this time and could be used to assist those individuals. I spoke to one young man in a school in north Wales who had been receiving...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Mandy. COVID-19 has had a major impact on education, including necessitating the current move to online learning for the majority of our children. I commissioned Estyn to undertake a review of local authorities' and regional consortia's approaches to supporting learning and vulnerable learners during the pandemic, and that will be published later this week.
Kirsty Williams: We have got a chief digital officer for the Welsh Government, who, I understand, has been in correspondence with said commissioner around the approach that Wales is taking at this time. There is considerable guidance that has been published. That guidance is regularly updated to respond to the public health scenario that we find at this time. As I said, we also have additional guidance to...
Kirsty Williams: Our national mission is to ensure all learners are supported to meet their full potential, regardless of their background or circumstances. We continue to provide additional investment to ensure that all children and young people have equal access to an education during the pandemic and beyond.
Kirsty Williams: Welsh Government continues to work with stakeholders to ensure support is available for teachers in Wales during the pandemic. This includes funding a tailored package of mental health and well-being support services for teachers and support staff during this academic year.
Kirsty Williams: I confirmed the approach to general qualifications on 16 December, following advice from the design and delivery advisory group. The group is actively reflecting on the implications of the decision to move to remote learning on public health grounds. I will be providing a further update as soon as possible.
Kirsty Williams: My officials are in regular contact with colleagues in Carmarthenshire, along with all other local authorities. We will continue to provide support and guidance where we can.
Kirsty Williams: I continue to be guided by the latest scientific/medical advice. In addition, schools and colleges are being given the opportunity to perform serial testing of close contacts from this month. This will help to reduce the need to self-isolate and reduce the risk of asymptomatic transmission within schools and colleges.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to thank Meilyr Rowlands, the chief inspector of education and training in Wales for his 2019-20 annual report, and for the work Estyn has been taking forward at this particularly challenging time. As you all know, in March, Estyn had to halt their normal inspection activity, as they rightly turned their attention to the COVID...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Suzy, and thank you very much for taking the trouble to recognise the contribution of our chief inspector to the education system. I think it's absolutely fair to say that his relationship either with the Minister or with education spokespersons has been one of absolute transparency, and he has wanted to share his knowledge and views on Welsh education in a completely impartial way...
Kirsty Williams: Can I thank Siân Gwenllian, Deputy Presiding Officer, again for her kind comments about Meilyr Rowlands? She highlighted one of his particular passions, which is a community-focused education, which has been a real driver behind Meilyr's work. When Meilyr talks about a community-focused school, he is not talking about a school that leases out its school hall; he is talking about a school...
Kirsty Williams: In many ways, it is that baseline of funding that our schools receive via the local education authorities that, by working together, we will need to support them, going forward, because the learning loss that was identified by the inspector in September is being compounded, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, by this prolonged period of schools not being open for face-to-face...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Jenny. You're right—Meilyr has had a relentless focus on children throughout his career, and in the inspectorate, and he is very much child-focused in his critique and in his analysis of the education system. I think one of silver linings—and my goodness me, they are few and far between, but we need to look for them in the middle of this terrible situation we find ourselves...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Caroline, for that, and I'm sure your good wishes will be much appreciated by the inspector. With regard to digital competence, well, digital competence is the first part of our new curriculum that was published and is a platform for driving the development of skills in this area for our young people. They are, if not already—and this pandemic has proven it—as important as...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. Last week, I announced my intention that learners undertaking WJEC-approved GCSEs, AS-levels and A-levels would have their qualifications awarded through a centre-determined grade model. This decision reflects my priority of supporting learner wellbeing and progression in the reality of the public health and policy context we now find ourselves in. While...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Suzy Davies, for your questions and your acknowledgement of the hard work of the design and delivery group, as I said, made up of headteachers and college principals who have worked at great speed to provide advice and guidance. I'm grateful that they have agreed to continue to do that work with an expanded membership now, as we move into the next phase of operationalising the...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Siân, for your comments. We've had an independent review. You have quoted at length from its report. I do not feel that there is any need, or indeed any further help a further review at this time will be. What we need now is to ensure that the lessons of the Louise Casella report are learnt. If the Member was being fair, I'm sure she would acknowledge that already in the...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Jenny. We have to be honest and recognise that in moving to this approach there are risks that we will need to take steps to mitigate, and there is no good pretending otherwise. Sometimes, this debate about awarding qualifications is sometimes dominated by the suggestion that this is the simplest and fairest of models, but, actually, in speaking to young people, there are many...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Rhianon. It is really important, even in these most challenging of times, that we keep focus on learning core concepts within these subjects that children will be examined on. But it is clear that you cannot examine a child on content that they have not sat; it simply can't be done and it's not fair. This system allows schools to be able to make a judgment on work and course...
