Michelle Brown: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree with UKIP that parents should be able to trigger an Estyn inspection into their child’s school where they have specific concerns about the school?
Michelle Brown: Thank you for that answer. I note that Estyn doesn’t look at school drop-out rates or the opinions of parents, missing potential indicators of a problem at the school. If a parent removes a child because of a problem with the school, it could be over concerns about poor teaching or something that they’d already tried to resolve with the school. It could, of course, also be because...
Michelle Brown: If we have the money to be spending on IT, wouldn’t that money be better spent on literacy and numeracy in schools, which has been failing for a while?
Michelle Brown: ...that youth work has a crucial role to play to help young people achieve their potential and have a range of experiences. It’s character building and just plain fun. The Children, Young People and Education Committee reported in December 2016 that local authorities had seen a loss of almost 20 per cent in staffing levels for youth work in just one year. CWVYS reported that 30 per cent of...
Michelle Brown: Thank you for that answer. The Welsh education system has, unfortunately, got a very poor reputation. Whether you agree with that reputation, whether you agree that the Welsh education system deserves that reputation or not, we’re going to find it very difficult to recruit young professionals with young families, researchers and medical professionals, unless that reputation is upped. What...
Michelle Brown: ...-paid contracts as a consequence of childcare and other caring responsibilities. UKIP will not be voting in favour of amendment 4 as there is no causal link between healthy relationship lessons in schools and educational attainment, and it is educational attainment that is the most significant factor in the pay and conditions of female workers. To those who bemoan the slightly lower pay...
Michelle Brown: ...research evidence, using data and new technology, and leadership. They emphasise that unelected—and, I repeat, unelected—third sector charitable foundations such as the National Foundation for Educational Research, the Sutton Trust, the Education Endowment Foundation, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, play some role in gathering evidence to impact upon these updates. These topics,...
Michelle Brown: Welsh Labour has had control over education in some shape or form since the inception of the Assembly. Sometimes they’ve been assisted by coalitions with Plaid Cymru or the Lib Dems, as they currently are now. Elements of the Estyn report today clearly show the people of Wales what happens when you hand control of education policy to one of the so-called progressive parties. Firstly, Estyn...
Michelle Brown: ...wanting to make a claim for unfair dismissal is now having to pay £1,250 for the privilege of having their rights protected, is absolutely unacceptable. Young people should also come out of school understanding their basic legal rights and obligations as workers, tenants and customers. The left have spent the last 40 years patting themselves on the back for introducing or supporting laws...
Michelle Brown: ..., the Cabinet Secretary hasn’t mentioned in her statement the other recommendations made by the OECD, which calls for further policy attention in areas including: moving towards a needs-based school funding formula; development of a new assessment and evaluation framework for teachers; and a national approach to identifying and celebrating good practices in schools. I acknowledge that...
Michelle Brown: ..., Cabinet Secretary. I welcome the announcement of the endowment fund for music that you’ve made today. I’m very supportive of any constructive ways that we can improve music tuition in schools and bring more children and young people into enjoying and loving and playing and taking part in music. I would like to ask you for some detail, though. How long do you think that it will take...
Michelle Brown: ...asked about the scale of the problem, it’s, of course, wrong to treat anyone, especially children, as statistics. So, I’d like to hear some reassurance from the Cabinet Secretary that any school requiring help will be treated equally compared with other schools needing help, regardless of the size of the school.
Michelle Brown: Thank you for that. As far as the red, amber, and green classifications are concerned, can the Cabinet Secretary tell us how many children live in catchment areas where both primary and secondary schools are deemed as either amber or red? I’m sure the Cabinet Secretary agrees with me that subjecting a child to a school that requires improvement is unacceptable and it would be a national...
Michelle Brown: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Cabinet Secretary, you recently published the categorisation of schools in Wales. Classification of the schools will only be of use if that information is used promptly and effectively to help schools improve; otherwise, children will continue to languish in schools that are not performing to standard. Are you prepared to give a personal assurance to the Assembly...
Michelle Brown: ..., as they say, is better than cure. There is often a series of opportunities along the timeline of an accident, all of which offer a chance to prevent the accident, but the starting point is education and awareness. DangerPoint, in my constituency, is an educational facility that is eliminating future accidents and injury in the home and elsewhere as we speak, as well as making children...
Michelle Brown: ...The Hazelkorn report makes many excellent recommendations, and I agree that there should be a single new authority established, but I would say that it’s a shame that the self-proclaimed party of education haven’t done it already. I also go along with the need for clear delineated roles and functions for the executive—the new tertiary education authority—Welsh Government and...
Michelle Brown: Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. You’re quite right that class size is a relevant factor for the educational attainment of children, and the Cabinet Secretary is also correct when she admits that class size isn’t the only factor that needs dealing with. What I wonder is why this initiative only attempts to deal with the issue of class sizes to improve education for...
Michelle Brown: ...we do need to acknowledge that we have finite resources and public services in this country. To pretend otherwise is irresponsible. International research funding is important, but has to pass the education principal quality test. There is no such thing as a free lunch and it would be a shame to see research only being done because it is sponsored by profit-orientated, multinational...
Michelle Brown: Whilst it can be a character-building experience attending higher education, the rush to turn every subject and vocation into a degree course has been a character-destroying experience for many young people. The jobs market has been flooded with graduates to the extent that their wages are lower than ever before, their debts are higher, and the taxpayer is footing a much larger bill for the...
Michelle Brown: ...to set pay rates or compel local authorities to operate pools of supply teachers.’ If she gets these powers as part of further devolution, would the Cabinet Secretary impose a set of rules on schools for dealing with the issue of supply teachers?
