Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to start today by thanking our teachers, teaching assistants, childcare workers, lecturers, and all the staff involved in education in Wales. I am enormously grateful for the way in which everyone has responded to the challenge of this pandemic. Diolch o galon. You have truly been national heroes. This is a very challenging time for all...
Kirsty Williams: Well, Mark, quite rightly, as you said, local authorities have a statutory responsibility for the preparation of an accessibility strategy for their entire educational estate, and schools themselves have a similar statutory responsibility. These strategies and plans must be prepared, implemented, reviewed and renewed every three years, and it's very—I'm appalled by the situation that you've...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Mark. I am committed to ensuring an inclusive education system, in which all of our learners are effectively supported to overcome barriers to learning. Our ambitious additional learning needs reforms will drive improvements and raise awareness of ALN to ensure that all of our learners can achieve their full potential.
Kirsty Williams: Can I, alongside Vikki, commend the work and the Spectrum project? Quite often in this Chamber we debate the issue of domestic violence and our response to domestic violence. One of the most effective things that we can do is to ensure that all of our children, no matter who they are, where they're from, understand what a healthy relationship looks like, understand their responsibilities in a...
Kirsty Williams: High-quality relationship and sexuality education has an important role to play in supporting learners in recognising healthy, safe relationships and understanding that. That's why relationship and sexuality education will be a mandatory part of our new curriculum.
Kirsty Williams: Well, the Member is right; we need to identify and support teachers in all their professional development needs. If I can be slightly breaking the rules as well this afternoon, as we all seem to be doing, Siân Gwenllian did raise the issue of initial teacher education and those students who will be on placement. Members here will know that ITE students need to complete a certain number of...
Kirsty Williams: Professional learning is crucial to ensuring that all staff—school staff—have the skills to deliver on our education reforms in Wales. We're expecting a profound transformation in the way that our practitioners think about professional learning in the light of the new curriculum, especially. As you can imagine, earlier this week, we had to stand down our professional learning offer. It...
Kirsty Williams: Well, first of all, I'd like to join you in celebrating the successes of the schools that you've mentioned. As you know, I have a particular soft spot for Trinity Fields especially, which is one of our outstanding special schools, not just in your area, but actually across Wales. I want to make it absolutely clear to our teaching professionals that we're not operating in normal times. You...
Kirsty Williams: Andrew, I appreciate how challenging the announcements on bringing forward the Easter recess will be to students, to teachers and parents, and I say that as a parent of a child that is in year 13 and is in year 11. So, I know how crucial and anxious children are. I would be very disappointed if we cannot make a further decision before the end of this week, because we will need to...
Kirsty Williams: Our national mission in Wales is to raise standards for all of our children. I was pleased to read in Estyn's 2018-19 annual report that standards are good or better in the majority of Welsh schools. However, it is very clear to me that improvements need to be made, especially in our secondary sector.
Kirsty Williams: Can I sympathise with the Member? She's absolutely right when she says that this is a fast-moving situation—actually, minutes feel long at the moment, let alone hours and days, so I sympathise with the Member. She is right, issues around assessment—formal assessments and examinations will be at the forefront of our secondary school practitioners, which is why, as I said in answer to your...
Kirsty Williams: Presiding Officer, I understand that you have given your permission for question 3 and 7 to be grouped. The Welsh Government and Public Health Wales have issued guidance to schools over education and other educational settings on the coronavirus, and the Member will be aware of my statement that I issued at 1 o'clock this afternoon.
Kirsty Williams: I have to be absolutely clear to Members, I do not anticipate that, at the end of this extended Easter recess, we will be in a position to go back to schools as normal. I cannot give any guarantees and that should be nobody's expectation. So, we will not be expecting, nor do I envisage, that every school will be open. We will be working with local government partners to identify certain sites...
Kirsty Williams: Educational professionals have indeed been on the front line and holding the line as this country faces this epidemic, and I want to take this opportunity to thank them, each and every one of them, for what they have been doing, often in very difficult and stressful circumstances. Even when they have been worried about, perhaps, their own loved ones, they have had their pupils front and...
Kirsty Williams: Presiding Officer, as the Member rightly identified, at 1 o'clock this afternoon, I announced that we are bringing forward the Easter break for schools in Wales, which means that schools will close for statutory provision this Friday, 20 March. From next week, schools indeed will have a new purpose—a purpose that is not dissimilar to the one that Siân Gwenllian described. A purpose to...
Kirsty Williams: It was remiss of me, Presiding Officer, not to address Suzy Davies's questions with regard to the student loan company. We are working closely with the student loan company to ensure that advisers are available to respond to students and universities, seeking assurances in relation to their studies and finances. I should also make it clear that universities are doing the very best they can to...
Kirsty Williams: First of all, can I say that any decision that I take with regard to the examinations will have at its heart the principle of fairness and equity to young people? It is not their fault that they find themselves in this situation. Their efforts should not be constrained or affected negatively by the situation and we want to make sure that we deal with them fairly and equitably, but also in a...
Kirsty Williams: Can I thank Suzy Davies for that question? I very much appreciate that this is a source of stress and anxiety, primarily to those young people, who have been working so hard in preparation for external exams, as well as those teachers who've been working alongside them. This morning, I met with Qualifications Wales and the WJEC to take advice on this matter. I am also in close contact with...
Kirsty Williams: As I said in my answer to David Melding, the Learned Society have not identified a lack of resources as a challenge to delivering our new curriculum. But where there are gaps in resources, we'll be looking to work with interested parties, of all kinds—maybe even you, Mike—to be able to develop resources to fill those gaps.
Kirsty Williams: Indeed. It's interesting that you raise this interesting supplementary to this question. I have advised all three of my daughters to keep a diary of this time, so that, in years to come, when this country is back to normal, which we will be—which we will be—then they can reflect on their experiences as a young person, and their reflections on how we, as adults and grown-ups, are reacting....
