Jenny Rathbone: 6. How is the Minister ensuring that all new school building projects are zero carbon? OQ56953
Jenny Rathbone: ...state, but that is a debate for another day. I want to turn now to how nutrient density might inform public procurement of food and what that could do for the health of our nation. First of all, school meals. The 'Feeding our Future' report by Peas Please, which came out earlier this year, highlights how little veg is being consumed in schools, even in normal times. We're not the worst in...
Jenny Rathbone: ...operators are highly trained in the use of complex pieces of equipment. But I struggle to understand how we'd be able to translate that technology into a really different context to be operated by school cleaners, who are very important members of the school community but, in the main, they have had little or no training of any sort at all. So, what training do you think would be required...
Jenny Rathbone: ...possible and, at the moment, there is a £50 million difference in the cost calculations of the Bevan Foundation and the calculations of the Welsh Government on what it would cost to introduce free school meals for all children on universal credit. I'm well aware that the accounting errors may occur, but £50 million is not far short of the fine of £70 million imposed on Southern Water...
Jenny Rathbone: ...for people to do. And in the context of some of the really serious county lines activities that have happened in Pentwyn in my constituency, I wondered if you can tell us how much you think the school holiday enrichment programme should be carrying the load here. There's a wonderful programme going on at St Teilo's Church in Wales High School, where I declare I'm a governor. For five out...
Jenny Rathbone: ...has been the most challenging 16 months that all of us have ever experienced. I agree, absolutely: we need sustainable all-round tourism so that greater numbers of people who are not locked into school holidays can enjoy Wales's many sites of outstanding natural beauty, which are with us all year round. Edwards Coaches, I know, do a fantastic job of getting people who don't have the means...
Jenny Rathbone: ...number of young people are feeling confident enough to express their sexuality as not being heterosexual and wanting to link up with other people to work on good practice in our secondary schools. I was particularly struck by a young man aged 14 who approached me, asking for advice on how to get involved in politics and how to engage with other schools on good practice around LGBT groups...
Jenny Rathbone: ...I'm not talking about the Home Office aversion to asylum seekers, but about the public health emergency that requires us to control the freedom of movement from one country to another. But language schools in my constituency have been hugely impacted, obviously, by the inability of foreign students to come and study English here. They simply have no customers whatsoever, which they had...
Jenny Rathbone: ...is the most effective way of doing something about these things, but, unfortunately, in my constituency we have a significant number of drivers who think they have a God-given right to speed past school entrances, to not stop for pedestrians on zebra crossings, even when they are children, and also to park on prohibited zig-zag lines that you often find around schools, as well as around...
Jenny Rathbone: I very much commend the work that you've done to scope the numbers of young carers, particularly those under 16 years, who obviously are the most likely to be missed unless schools are paying attention. I think your idea of respitality is one that's definitely worth focusing on, particularly outside the normal holiday season. At the moment, obviously, all the hotels and bed and breakfasts are...
Jenny Rathbone: ...history in the curriculum is very, very important. But we're not going to be reaping the harvest of that for many years because, obviously, it takes time for children to work their way through the education system, and there's so much more that we need to do now. I'm afraid that the death of people like Mohamud Hassan, Christopher Kapessa and Moyied Bashir really do make black and ethnic...
Jenny Rathbone: ...wanted to ask you about, really, is how we are going to achieve the cultural shift required so that in an urban place like Cardiff, we have to assume that most pupils will be able to bicycle to school.
Jenny Rathbone: ...week. I note the Deputy Minister's statement on International Women's Day highlighting the extra funding that's been given for the free helpline, and we also have the new relationship and values education in the curriculum, which I think are both very important contributions to combating misogyny that, unfortunately, they still haven't got round to in England. I just wondered if there's...
Jenny Rathbone: ...of taking over the role of parents, when, in fact, it's absolutely right that we ensure that children have the right to know how their bodies work. Nowhere is this more clear cut than in menstrual education. It really is a scandal that at least 30 per cent of all girls do not know what is happening to them when they start their period. That is just such a clear-cut sign that parents find...
Jenny Rathbone: ...and their commitment to ensuring that we are not contributing to the problems that we now face, and that we're tackling them effectively, but I think that these problems need to be debated by school governors to ensure that all our pupils are realising just how serious the climate emergency is.
Jenny Rathbone: ...'s food budget is spent outside of Wales, and so that's at least £10 million that we could be recirculating into the Welsh economy. I would guess that the local authorities' catering budget for school meals and for care homes would be of a similar order. So, this is a really important issue, particularly if we're going to do more around school meals. We need to be spending more of that...
Jenny Rathbone: I welcome very much the commitment that Rebecca has given to ensure that all free-school-meal children, in term time and in the holidays, are getting one meal a day, right up to Easter next year. This is a hugely complex issue, and it's much more than about that one meal a day. The importance, for example, of the Food and Fun programme isn't just the quality meals lovingly produced by the...
Jenny Rathbone: Thank you, First Minister for that answer. We've all seen the photos of cut-up carrots and peppers, which were supposed to be sufficient for making five lunches for free-school-meal families in England, and I'm sure you would share my shock that private companies have been permitted to charge £30 for such utterly inadequate food parcels. In contrast, all free-school-meals children in Cardiff...
Jenny Rathbone: ...physical appearance, prior learning difficulty, that consciously or subconsciously, any human being is capable of making. We've got lots of research to back all that up, and we also know that some schools are much better at accurately predicting attainment based on under- or over-predicting what they were going to do in exams and then—. And all of this, of course, is very important to...
Jenny Rathbone: ...the curriculum to ensure that it really does work for everybody. I just want to ask, Minister, how you think the inspection regime is keeping pace with the challenges, which are so much greater in schools that have high levels of disadvantage as opposed to some schools, which are in leafy suburbs and can easily achieve high grades of GSCEs and A-levels, because they've always got the extra...
