Jenny Rathbone: ...very important for people who have other communication difficulties and British Sign Language is a very useful tool for them. There has been a reduction in the number of deaf children who are in school, but I have seen elsewhere sign language being taught, for example in nursery or primary provision, to all children, so that the inclusive school can ensure that all the children are able to...
Jenny Rathbone: ...role for grandparents. If they're too decrepit to get down on the floor, which is what you need in early years, then, of course, there's a very important role for them helping children read in school. But there really is a role for anybody who is child focused to get stuck in with the very early children. Sioned emphasised the terrible impact of the gender pay gap, which is largely, as...
Jenny Rathbone: ...it was focused only on families where both parents—or, in a single-parent household, that parent—are working over 16 hours a week. So, we very much welcome the extension to parents who are in education, training or on the edge of work, and particularly your acceptance of our recommendation that children's rights impact assessments and equality impact assessments need to be carried out...
Jenny Rathbone: .... The lack of affordable childcare is one of the main drivers of the gender pay gap that is persistently seen. As we saw during the pandemic, it was assumed that women would pick up the pieces when schools closed, and that is exactly what happened. We know that women were left juggling their role as teacher as well as cook, bottle washers, and trying to hold down a paid job. Our report...
Jenny Rathbone: ...impressive, after 11 years of raising these issues in this Senedd, that we are still talking about developing a food strategy. We have no farm-to-fork strategy and, in the context of universal free school meals for all primary schools, we have to be candid that our procurement processes are still a work in progress. And it remains quite unclear how the Welsh Government is working in line...
Jenny Rathbone: ...a commitment to not dumping individual pupils who become hard to teach, who may have difficult lives at home or who have additional learning needs. So, I do hope that you can give a commitment that schools will not simply be allowed to get rid of kids who they think are going to cause them problems and particularly are going to affect their exam results, because I think this is an issue in...
Jenny Rathbone: Minister, I very much welcome your commitment to put rocket boosters under the ambition to make all schools community focused. Like Laura Anne Jones, I feel this is a little bit overdue, but it's really good to hear that you are really going to deliver on this. It's really important that what the taxpayer funds is available to the taxpayer, rather than this deficit model that keeps families...
Jenny Rathbone: ...flexibility in the ReAct funding criteria for allowing refugees to access English-for-speakers-of-other-languages lessons, which would also pick up the slack we have in some of our languages schools who haven't been able to recruit as may foreign students because of the enduring impact of COVID.
Jenny Rathbone: ...means by 'regulating with autonomy'. I'm struggling to see where we go in the explanatory memorandum. We've got quite a lot of information about the governance of the commission for tertiary education, but I'm not at all clear how this might improve the governance of our universities in the sense of that critical friend that all democratic institutions need to have, in order to ensure the...
Jenny Rathbone: ...war in Ukraine, but I just want to focus on what we can do here in Wales, because one of the most important agreements within the co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru is the extension of free school meals to all primary school children. So, in line with the Welsh Government's foundational economy objectives and our legal obligations under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act...
Jenny Rathbone: ...a pot of money that could be used to help landlords take out loans to decarbonise their properties, because some of the coldest homes are in the private rented sector? Could it be used to enable schools, hospitals and other public building to be rebuilt or retrofitted to decarbonise their existing buildings?
Jenny Rathbone: ...in at least two health boards. So, there really are far more patients presenting who need help than there are clinicians to support them. But we have to start at the beginning. We have to have schools being much more aware of when the signs are appearing. My constituent makes really good points on this front. This really is a very complicated subject. This is the reverse side to the...
Jenny Rathbone: ...people who do need to get help financially with their period products actually still have them in month four and month five. Obviously, this has an implication, for example, in how we design our school toilets, as Sioned Williams has already talked about so visibly. We need to ensure that in every secondary school, and in the older age groups in primary schools, there is access to toilets...
Jenny Rathbone: My question really is on: if you're going to change the school meal regulations, I applaud that, but who will monitor the quality of school meals? Because at the moment we rely on school governors and for them, actually, it's a bit of a mystery, and I've not yet seen school governors as a whole who take an interest in this matter. Also, what specific approaches do you plan for pregnant women?...
Jenny Rathbone: ...commitment to this area, because it really does require that level of persistence on this complex issue. I was very grateful to the Farmers Union of Wales recently, who have promised to go into schools in my constituency and talk to children about where food comes from. I think that's a pretty basic starting point, and unfortunately, for many of them, it's a complete mystery. So, I would...
Jenny Rathbone: ...doesn't mean to say that we are philistines—that we don't want change—but I just think this building in particular is so important because it's only one of five left of 95 examples of a girls' school that was purpose built for this reason. I've been trying to find out a bit more about Robert Williams, the architect who built it. Because I learnt from the petition that the buildings he...
Jenny Rathbone: ...make their billions. So, to counter that is really, really difficult, because people have forgotten how to cook, and we are having to rectify that in everything we're doing, whether it's in our schools or in other community centres. We simply have to revive the idea that you can cook a meal with some very, very simple ingredients, and it's much tastier than anything that's dished up by...
Jenny Rathbone: I think it's a bit early for statistics. I'm just telling you about the experience of both Preston hospital and all the schools in Essex, because that is where my daughter teaches. I can tell you that the supply teaching agencies are simply unable to supply the schools with the people they need. They are desperately ringing everybody around to see if anybody will work extra hours or extra...
Jenny Rathbone: I just want to clarify whether this is a debate about the impact of COVID on young people and their education, or whether it's a rant about the bits of the curriculum that the Conservatives don't like, because I think there's a bit of confusion in my mind, or rather in Laura Jones's mind, on this matter. I completely agree that it was disappointing that learners in Wales missed more days of...
Jenny Rathbone: ...the view that this is a great opportunity for all learners—the new curriculum as well as the additional learning needs Act. I just wanted to ask you what plans you have to co-locate all special schools on mainstream school sites in the future so that people with ALN, who come in all shapes and sizes, can benefit from the additional resources you get in mainstream schools, particularly in...
