Rhun ap Iorwerth: I wear several hats today. I live in a rural village where the school has been under threat recently. I am a former member of the Petitions Committee. And I am the Assembly Member of those who arranged this petition, parents and supporters of Ysgol Gymuned Bodffordd, who are sincerely battling very hard to save their school. There were 31 children in my first primary school. In the second,...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much, Llywydd, for accepting my request to ask a few questions. I have two questions on education—schools education first of all. Now, we talk about this target of 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050, and it's good to see that everyone is working together towards that target. Everyone welcomes the target. We should be able to reach it because the role of schools is so very...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you. I do understand that I have been asking questions of the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport on medical education to date, but it’s good to ask a question to you as the Cabinet Secretary for Education today. Now that the pre-budget agreement has secured development funding for undergraduate medical education in Bangor, will you, as the education Secretary, tell us...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...for the recognition of particular Welsh demographic factors when it comes to measuring the need here in Wales. So, perhaps one of big unanswered questions now. It looks increasingly likely that school closures is now a matter of 'when' not 'if'; for teachers and parents the question of 'when' obviously is very, very important. It would have been good to have a statement from the Minister...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...given the current financial climate. A shortage of adequate funding is certain to have a direct impact from hereon in on areas that, to all intents and purposes, have been protected to this point—education and social services are two that are foremost in my thoughts. A failure to spend sufficiently on social services has an impact on health budgets, and by cutting the funding of crucial...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I think my views on supporting rural schools are well known. I sympathise with councils in all parts of Wales that face impossible budgetary scenarios and I do think that the Government has to secure adequate funding to support innovative methods of keeping schools in our communities and providing support to create multi-site area schools, which is something that I support. One element that...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...imposed by the UK Government, as well as the failure, I'm afraid to say, of the Welsh Government to prioritise local government funding this year, has led to totally unsustainable pressures on education budgets in Anglesey, as in the rest of Wales. I congratulate Anglesey council on succeeding in safeguarding education budgets to a great extent, but, of course, they have had to increase...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...but, at the end of the day, it's a matter of promoting the principles of safeguarding public health that drives all of this. The regulations also tighten-up the rules to ensure that schools and further education institutions don't allow students to attend. Again, under the circumstances, this is the right step to take, and that it is justified, but may I remind, as others have done—as...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...consider the state of the nation. Today, we are using our St David’s Day debate to look to our past, our present and our future, and to particularly address the areas of the economy, health and education. We need honesty in terms of how things are today. Of course, we’re not looking back with a sense of nostalgia in terms of how things were for many Welsh citizens over the past century...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...seen that the statistics in terms of training places for GPs are lower in relation to the population than is the case in England and Scotland. Therefore, turning to that other amendment on medical education, we are facing a problem with a shortage of doctors—we know that. So, let’s start to overturn this by investing and setting an ambition in terms of increasing the number of medical...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...also realistic, but it can only be realistic if we actually increase how many people retrain as doctors in Wales. What’s also disappointing, in listening to the Cabinet Secretary, is that medical schools in Wales are telling me that they’re confident that they could train so many more doctors in Wales over the next 10 years, and it is clear, I think, that there is a growing consensus...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...we do invest in all of those things that are going to give the best possible start to people in their lives. Our amendment talks about resources for promoting physical activity, improving health education, more time for physical education. I welcome the pilots that are currently taking place on the school day to create more time for PE. We talk again about the idea of having some kind of...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...health problems as compared to their peers, even a long time after they’ve been rehoused—even 12 months, maybe, after being rehoused. So, given the health impacts, is it any surprise that educational attainment also suffers? Homeless children in temporary accommodation on average miss 55 school days, which corresponds to 25 per cent of the school year, because of the problems that they...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much. I, too, am a fan of the daily mile. The children at the school that my children attended, Ysgol Henblas in Llangristiolus, do that and it brought them a great deal of benefit. But in wanting to see 120 minutes being given to physical activity, I'm perfectly happy for that to include the daily mile. I don't mean formal physical education lessons necessarily. The important...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ..., with Professor Dean Williams, from Bangor University and Ysbyty Gwynedd, who seeded this idea, and the realisation I very quickly had that it was obvious that we needed to move ahead with medical education in Bangor, as people like Dr Dai Lloyd realised the need for the introduction of medical education in Swansea University, and there is a now a full medical school in Swansea. I am...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: It's been a pleasure to welcome pupils from three primary schools from Anglesey to the Assembly today: Ysgol Porthaethwy; Ysgol Corn Hir, Llangefni and Parc y Bont in Llanddaniel. I was discussing learning additional languages with pupils from Parc y Bont and Corn Hir, and the pupils from Corn Hir are already being given French lessons on a weekly basis. As bilingual pupils, they were very...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: Thank you very much. It is wonderful to see the medical school there, or the medical education there developing, at least. Would you agree with me that what I currently see in my constituency, in the Holyhead area—where there are two surgeries that, because of failures to recruit GPs, have had to transfer to the management of the health board, and that causes a crisis in terms of primary...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...or there is a general ambition, if truth be told, to develop Bangor University as a centre of excellence in the area of research and healthcare training. We have an ambition to develop the medical education centre too, and there are very real opportunities to train nurses as well as other health professionals and doctors. In saying that, I’m talking about training undergraduates from...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: I am convinced that it’s through the education system that we can get young people on the right track towards physical activity in order to improve their health. There’s an opportunity here to draw attention to the beginning of the health committee inquiry into physical activity among children and young people. Now, Ireland has just introduced physical activity as an examination—for a...
Rhun ap Iorwerth: ...people say that they would wish to have those skills; and 83 per cent say that they would be far more confident in trying to save a life or in caring for an individual if they had been given that education. If I could just turn to some comments made by the Welsh Government in response to the BBC, saying that pupils do learn about emergency care techniques already as part of personal and...
