Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Mark. I am very clear that there can be real benefits—academic, cultural and social—to pupils in communities through the delivery of high-quality education in small and rural schools. I know, and parents across rural Wales know, that small, rural schools can play an important role in raising standards and extending opportunity for all. I'm convinced that there is an...
Kirsty Williams: If the Member is able to provide evidence of those allegations, I would be more than happy to investigate them. Actually, I am due to meet with New Directions shortly to discuss Members' concerns and my concerns over supply teaching.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Mark. A 14-week consultation on proposals to strengthen the school organisation code in respect of a presumption against closure of rural schools ended on 30 September. We are currently in the process of analysing consultation responses. We aim to publish a summary of the responses before the end of this year.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Vikki. The response that we've had from schools and local authorities involved in the £2.7 million cluster has been extremely positive. Arrangements are in place to closely monitor and evaluate this initiative, including the commissioning of a formal research project, independent of the Government, so that we can ascertain the impact that this pilot has. What's important is...
Kirsty Williams: Given that you have just repeated the points that Leanne Wood just made, I will repeat the answer that I just gave to Leanne Wood. My officials are currently scoping whether a national model register would be appropriate to our nation.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Leanne. Let me make it absolutely clear: we do not condone the practice of schools or agencies negotiating low pay rates for supply teachers. The situation we have at present is that schools are responsible for the staffing of individual schools, and unless we move away from a direct management of schools model, that is currently the situation where we are at the moment....
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Leanne. The responsibility for teachers’ pay and conditions has yet to be transferred to Wales. But we both agree, I know from previous discussions over the years past, that we will welcome that very much indeed. On 24 October, I set out how we are working to support our temporary teachers. This includes £2.7 million funding available to support alternative...
Kirsty Williams: I formally move the motion on the order paper.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Presiding Officer. Developing a high-quality teaching profession and creating inspirational leaders to help raise standards are among the aims of our new national education plan. One important element of our reforms to support this is the work that we have undertaken with our higher education partners and schools to plan for the transformation of initial teacher education. As I...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you for that set of questions. It is important that we prioritise those who will go on to be our teachers in our bilingual and Welsh-medium schools. That’s why Welsh is a priority subject for incentives, attracting the highest level of incentives to go on to a PGCE. We’re also announcing today, as you have referenced, a new scheme, which will be a payment on the successful...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Hefin. As I said, we’re currently scoping the feasibility of a national matching system to coincide with the devolution of terms and conditions. What’s really important is that we’re doing this in discussion with the unions themselves, so they are an integral part of this process going forward. We have a social partnership model here in Welsh Government, where we work in that...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much, Llyr, for that set of questions. With regard to entry into initial teacher training, and whether I’m intending to remove the requirement of a B grade at English and maths, I have no intention to do that at this point. You will be aware that the literacy and numeracy framework runs throughout our entire curriculum for the length of children’s school career, and...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you to Darren Millar for what I think was a broad welcome of the statement today and a long list of questions, which I will try and get through as quickly as I possibly can. I don’t believe that we have a crisis. Ninety per cent of primary school places are met to target. But you’re right, with secondary we do have particular challenges, and then we have particular challenges within...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Llywydd. A key objective of our recently published education action plan is the development of a high-quality education profession. It is impossible to overstate the importance of our teachers’ role in helping to succeed in our national mission to raise standards, reduce the attainment gap and deliver an education system that is a source of national pride and confidence. Today, I...
Kirsty Williams: Quite simply, an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. Our ambitious reforms need well-supported, high-quality, aspirational teachers. We must therefore attract and support the best graduates with the highest level of qualifications to teach. I am concerned that significant recruitment issues across the border can give a skewed view of what is actually happening here in...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Jeremy. It is clear to me from my time in office that accountability measures and how we judge individual schools is key then to the behaviours that we see exhibited within those schools, which is only to be expected and only reasonable. But the current accountability measures only get us so far, and I think it is acknowledged, across the sector, now is the time to look again at...
Kirsty Williams: Can I just very briefly say, acting Presiding Officer, that I enjoy a very challenging but productive relationship with the trade unions and that is how it should be? They have things they say to me that I agree with and I have things that I say to them that they disagree with, but we will move the education system forward in partnership. The Member says that we have no vision for education....
Kirsty Williams: I’m always very nervous when Vikki gets up to ask questions having been a recent practitioner, but Vikki will know that one of the unintended consequences of early entry can be—and it’s alluded to in the report—a narrowing of the curriculum, so that all the lessons become about is getting that child through an exam. Now, don’t get me wrong, exams are crucially important, but...
Kirsty Williams: Can I thank Llyr Gruffydd for his statement and questions? It was, ‘We agree that you’re doing this, but—’, I suspect, trying to hedge his bets maybe with regard—. I’m not in a position to hedge my bets. I have to make a decision, and I have made that decision in the best interests, I believe, of the examination system as a whole, so that we can have public confidence and employer...
Kirsty Williams: Acting Presiding Officer, could I thank Paul Davies, who is double-jobbing once again as the Conservative education spokesperson? He really should be asking for a slice of the wages of his counterpart. But I genuinely thank him for his thoughtful analysis of the report that is before us. The Member’s first question was: why have we decided to act now? Well, Paul, I can’t account for the...
