Angela Burns: I just wonder, speaking with my mother hat on for a moment, if you would consider, or if you are already doing, guides or advice for parents about how to help them. Because, of course, schools are one half of the equation, but they spend 50 per cent of their time elsewhere. Whilst many do have chaotic lives, there’s an awful lot where you can have the most robust family, but still have one...
Angela Burns: ...try and drive this change forward, would be absolutely key. So, Cabinet Secretary, I would ask you to perhaps tell us a little bit about what discussions you’ve had with the Cabinet Secretary for Education to drive this forward. I do want to add that I speak not just as an Assembly Member, but also as a mother, and, as many of us who have young children in our lives whom we love and...
Angela Burns: ...a UK-wide strategy that we can all look at and see how we can take it, move it through Wales, and help to drive our economy. Because what we need, Adam Price, is research and development. We need education and skills. We need support for the vast majority of businesses in our country, many of whom are in the small to medium-sized sectors. We have to spread that equitable economic growth...
Angela Burns: ...went out of my head. Thankfully my husband was present and he saved our little girl’s life. Today she is 14. I can tell you now, she does not and has not learnt any lifesaving skills at school, but she’s learnt them from her mummy and her daddy, and she will grow up to be an adult who, perhaps, won’t panic if the same thing happens to her—if her child were to choke on a grape. I...
Angela Burns: I know, Cabinet Secretary, that you and I both share the same view and priority to get as many children into school, as often as possible. But there is one small area that does concern me, and that’s the area of children who are persistently sick. I have had a number of constituents come to me, where their children have either had the bad luck to have a series of tonsillitis bouts, where...
Angela Burns: 1. Will the Cabinet Secretary outline the guidance that the Welsh Government is providing to schools on how to improve attendance? OAQ(5)0088(EDU)
Angela Burns: ...out in your statement something we all know, which is that cardiovascular disease remains a major cause of ill health and death in Wales. Would you please expand a little bit more on any potential education programmes? The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have suggested a ‘make every contact count’ approach when trying to address the issues of obesity and weight loss. What...
Angela Burns: And I think that’s a point absolutely well made. I think that what we can do is use schools to ensure that young people, by the time they leave schools, are actually at an appropriate body weight, understand all the nutritional values, and understand the importance of exercise and the joy in exercise, because so many young people actually find exercise utterly, utterly joyless at school,...
Angela Burns: ...t talk too much about the Public Health (Wales) Bill because you and I have explored that in great detail today, but what I would like to do is focus the rest of my contribution on children. The Education Development Trust have highlighted how schools can play a role in tackling obesity through school-based interventions. It notes the following interventions have had a positive effect:...
Angela Burns: Thank you, Presiding Officer. David Rees said that education is a gift, but I think that education is actually a fundamental right. Because without a good education how can the child grow into an adult with a good education and with the capability to contribute to their own lives, to the lives of the people they know and love, and to the lives of our country? And how will our country grow and...
Angela Burns: ...this, especially as I organised and led the opposition coup that made your Government agree to bring this Bill forward. There are two things I think this Bill has to achieve. The first is a good education for those children who need it, because 22 per cent—just under a quarter—of our young people will grow up to be just under a quarter of our adults who are not able to be the best they...
Angela Burns: ...sport or that kind of sport.’ I think that it’s really vital that we address it. It’s also very vital that we address the amount of time that we give to sport. Let’s be really clear: in our schools, the amount of time that we give to sport has been decreasing over the last decade, and that goes in the face of everything we’ve spent the last hour talking about here. Of course,...
Angela Burns: When you visit the school tomorrow, I’m sure that you’ll be very impressed with the new additional learning needs dedicated classrooms, which are an enormous step forward for the provision of services and support to children with additional learning needs in south Pembrokeshire. However, the school next door, the Welsh medium school, doesn’t have quite such up-to-date facilities, and I...
Angela Burns: ...cent. This is a really, really telling table. Cabinet Secretary, one of the areas that have been highlighted recently is the sexual abuse and harassment that young girls and young women face in school. They put up with levels of sexual abuse from young men who haven’t quite understood what the game is all about, and how you respect each other—levels of abuse that we would not...
Angela Burns: ...re having to sit it a year early or six months earlier because the school’s decided to put everyone in for early examinations and you’re not allowed to pull out of it at present, according to schools. Those are two items where you, as a Minister, and the Cabinet Secretary can make an enormous difference to the lives of the children today.
Angela Burns: ...their handwriting. However, it is becoming more common for dyslexia to be diagnosed early, and it is this early detection that enables the intervention that is so critical to forging a successful educational flight path for a dyslexic child. Close to 10 per cent of the UK population has dyslexia; in real terms that’s more than 6.3 million people. Extrapolate this figure for Wales, and we...
Angela Burns: ...the impact it has had on them. A study by KPMG finds that by the age of 37, each illiterate person has cost the taxpayer an additional £45,000 to £55,000 if you add in the extra costs relating to education, unemployment support and, very often, a tangle with the criminal justice system. We do not just have a duty to help those with dyslexia, but we also have a duty to wider society. Now,...
Angela Burns: My apologies. Could the public health Bill not legislate to monitor air pollution outside of Welsh schools? My initial investigations indicate that the issue of monitoring pollution levels outside schools could be factored into the Bill and that they could be enacted, providing we’re mindful of EU law and will not cut across the Wales Bill. Finally, Minister, I would raise the subject of...
Angela Burns: ...per 100,000 to 69.2 per cent, which is, by anybody’s standards, quite a significant jump. We also move amendment 4, which is to ask that the Welsh Government should improve access to screening, education and awareness. Now, in the Welsh Government amendment to this motion, I note, Cabinet Secretary, that you mentioned that there is an extra £1 million for end-of-life care. May I ask you...
Angela Burns: Will the Minister outline the Welsh Government's plans to improve the education of those with special educational needs in Wales?
