Kirsty Williams: I think—. As I said, I don't think it's ever too soon to start to teach children about values and ethics, and I would reiterate the point I made earlier in the reassurances I gave Darren Millar, that I have no intention of children being taught lessons that are not appropriate for their age. Now, the Member has just said that her party's policy is that there should be no sex education—I...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Llyr, for your welcome of the statement. Just to provide clarity, I am accepting all the recommendations of the report in principle, and I want to make progress on all of them, the most important of which is to ensure that, as we move to our new curriculum, RSE will be a statutory part of that curriculum, which is new policy. It wasn't the intention initially to make it a...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Darren, for that series of questions. If I didn't make it clear, Presiding Officer, in my initial statement, let me say it again: I have no intention of teachers in our schools teaching children this topic that they are not developmentally—I can't even say the word—that they are not ready to learn [Laughter.] It's age appropriate and I've got no intention of doing that and I've...
Kirsty Williams: Last year, I established the sex and relationship expert panel to provide independent advice on these matters, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the expert panel members and its chair, Professor Emma Renold, for their excellent work. Their report recognised that there is some excellent practice happening in our schools. This, however, is not happening in all of our...
Kirsty Williams: Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Many of you will know that this month marks the thirtieth anniversary of the introduction of section 28 that forbade schools to promote, or treat with equity, non-heterosexual relationships. Though section 28 has been consigned to history, its effect can still be found within our education system. Schools often find it difficult to provide fully inclusive sex and...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Rhianon, for your welcome to the academy. Obviously, our online resource is absolutely crucial to making sure that the academy is accessible, as is one of the crucial roles of our first tranche of associates of the academy. So, these are people that have applied to be part of the academy, they are from the length and breadth of Wales, and part of their role is to be out...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, John. Well, great leadership and great leadership development impacts upon all of our children, but I would argue that it impacts disproportionately on those children from a poorer background. Undoubtedly, leadership in different settings requires sometimes a tailor-made specific programme for support. So, it's not for me to dictate all the time to the academy, but I do envisage a...
Kirsty Williams: Can I thank Michelle Brown for her observations? It's important for Members to understand the way in which the leadership academy has been set up, as a company limited by guarantee that is arm's-length from the Welsh Government, because I wanted to be able to create some kind of independence, on a day-to-day operational basis, from Welsh Government. We announced last week that the...
Kirsty Williams: It's also crucial, as the OECD and Estyn have identified, in terms of the teaching profession: being managed by a leader that is not good adds to your workload as a teacher, adds to your stress as a teacher, and doesn't help you be the best that you can be. But good leadership in our schools raises everybody up. One of the focuses of having the academy is to say to people who are thinking...
Kirsty Williams: I thank you very much, Llyr. I think, to begin with, I would acknowledge that being a school leader is a challenging, time-consuming, sometimes difficult, job to do, but it is also an extremely rewarding job to do. The impact a school leader can have on the lives of the children and young people who travel through their institution can be absolutely immense. Most recently, I was talking to an...
Kirsty Williams: Can I thank Darren Millar for his positive welcome of the development of the academy? He's quite right to say that this has been a priority for me since coming into office. If we look back at a series of educational reforms in Wales, there has been a glaring gap, I believe, in the focus on leadership support within the system. It was identified in the 2014 Organisation for Economic...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I believe that the key to building success in any organisation is good leadership, and nowhere is that truer than in an education system. Time and time again, evidence shows that a good school leader is essential in transforming a school environment so that its students and teachers can flourish. A common trait amongst great leaders is that they...
Kirsty Williams: What's important to remember about how that scheme operates is that it's up to the individual school to work with the arts council to identify creative partners to deliver the project. So, it's for the school to identify the type of practitioners who they want to work with. I wouldn't want to take away from the autonomy of head teachers to be able to plan that provision and to work with a...
Kirsty Williams: Of course.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. I'd like to begin by thanking Rhianon for bringing forward this debate today. I'm sure that all Members would recognise her determination and her passion for the subject, and I'm sure we'd all agree that the same is true of Bethan also. Acting Presiding Officer, one of the joys of being the Cabinet Secretary for Education is visiting schools...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, David, for those series of observations and questions. Just to reassure you, Tom Crick remains an integral part of support for Government on these areas. He chairs one of the networks of excellence, and I notice from his Twitter feed today that he has very much welcomed the announcement and thinks that it's a really important thing that we've done today in terms of the...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Lee. I don't shy away from the fact and the findings of the Estyn report about what needs to happen in day-to-day practice in our schools. That's what's absolutely key: what can we do that is impactful on practice, because we need to see a step change within classrooms? How we can get that leadership from the very top of the school to recognise the importance of this and then to...
Kirsty Williams: I'd like to thank the Member for his welcome to the statement and the work that the Welsh Government is doing in this area. He raises an interesting proposition about the curriculum at Wales's universities. What I should tell him is that any even sniff of Government interference in the autonomy of our academic institutions is something that I would wish to avoid. The curriculum and offer of...
Kirsty Williams: The reason I looked at Lee Waters was because Lee and I continue to have these discussions because he doesn't just let it drop—he doesn't do his five minutes of glory in the Chamber and then forget about an issue. I'm sure nobody does that, actually; I'm sure no Member ever gets up and says something in the Chamber and then forgets all about it once they've left and they've had their two...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Llyr. With regard to Cardiff and Swansea universities' successful grant application, it is for HEFCW to make the decision on which universities will be funded. Those two universities sent forward a bid that was regarded as worthy of that funding and I'm sure HEFCW and individual institutions that want to participate in this work will continue to have those conversations. What I'm...
