Kirsty Williams: As you will be aware, Andrew—and if only putting a sweet in your mouth before the question was the only bad idea you ever had or, indeed, told the Chamber about—[Laughter.] If I could just say, we work very closely across the portfolios to ensure that there is a joined-up approach to this. The food and fun clubs operating out of schools are potentially affecting all children in Wales. The...
Kirsty Williams: I would hope that we will have expressions of interest to expand the scheme from local authorities across Wales. What’s really important is if the local authorities who currently don’t already operate this scheme—and there are a number across south Wales and a couple in north Wales who already do—if other local authorities have an interest in this, then they need to let the WLGA and...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you very much. I recognise the situation that food banks have been reporting. In my own constituency, for instance, last summer, both Llandrindod Wells and Knighton, which has an independent food bank, provided a summer scheme to assist families in those areas. The food and fun schemes are demand led and first require an expression of interest from local authorities. Once this has been...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you. Presiding Officer, I understand that you have given permission for question 2 and question 5 from Joyce Watson to be grouped. We have made £500,000 available to allow an extended roll-out of the lunch and fun clubs in the summer holidays. The Welsh Local Government Association will continue to administer the clubs, building on the very impressive pilot schemes already delivered...
Kirsty Williams: Work on developing a new curriculum for Wales is well under way. The first part of this, the digital competence framework, was made available last September. Computer science will form a key element of the science and technology area of learning and experience.
Kirsty Williams: I have set out our national mission to improve education attainment through a programme of education reforms. These include the development of a new curriculum and assessment reform, improved initial teacher education, teacher’s professional development, building leadership capacity and reducing the attainment gap.
Kirsty Williams: The education budget for 2017-18 supports my priorities as Cabinet Secretary—a relentless focus on raising standards, reducing the attainment gap between the most disadvantaged pupils and their peers, promoting teaching excellence, and my national and international ambitions for our higher education institutions in Wales.
Kirsty Williams: Universities are autonomous bodies responsible for their own student admissions. However, Cabinet colleagues and officials have been discussing with representatives from Cardiff and Swansea medical schools how they can encourage Welsh students to choose to study in Wales and how we can overcome barriers that might discourage them from applying.
Kirsty Williams: Today, I published a written statement on Schools Challenge Cymru. The final evaluation report will be available later during the spring term. In the meantime, my officials will continue to work with the education consortia to ensure we fully capitalise on the learning emerging from the programme.
Kirsty Williams: The impact of the pupil deprivation grant, and our focus on school improvement, is making a real difference to the lives of disadvantaged learners. We are starting to break the very stubborn link between poverty and educational attainment.
Kirsty Williams: Yes, of course.
Kirsty Williams: David, you make a really good point, and in the new year, I will be making a further announcement on plans and funding that will target and promote teacher development and learning excellence in science and technology across all age groups. The PISA results showed Wales could and should be doing more to support more able and talented pupils. A new capped points score, a move away from BTEC...
Kirsty Williams: We do indeed have initial feedback from PISA, but I'm not in a position to publish that because it’s their report and they want to publish the full findings, and I will do that in February. With regard to the amendment, the quote in the amendment from the OECD is not a quote from the report. It is a quote from the statement issued by the OECD last week to the public. That’s the quote in...
Kirsty Williams: [Continues.]—not just to Members here in the Chamber, but to the wider world.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Presiding Officer. We have had a full week since the PISA results were published, but that doesn’t make them any easier to digest. I’ll underline what I said last Tuesday. The results are bitterly disappointing; they are simply not good enough. We are not yet where any of us—parents, policymakers, teachers and pupils—would want to be. As I said, again, last Tuesday, nothing...
Kirsty Williams: Formally.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Huw. You’ll be aware of my agreement with the First Minister that highlights our shared priority to develop better links between the world of education and the world of work and industry. And, building on those links, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which you’ve highlighted, is just one organisation that is doing great work in this area. It’s not so long ago that I...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Nathan. It’s good to see you. [Laughter.] Can I say that blame will not improve a single PISA score? It’s easy to do, it might provide entertainment for those of us here in the Chamber, it might get you on the tv tonight, it might provide fodder for a Twitter feed, but it will not, in any way, shape or form, improve the education of our children. So, rather than spending and...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you for that, Vikki. I should have—. Apologies to Llyr because I didn’t address the question about my ongoing commitment to PISA and how important it is. I do believe PISA is important. It is my absolute determination to continue to participate in the PISA study. We do need to see it as an important test, not of individual schools and not of individual pupils, which is what GCSEs...
Kirsty Williams: As the OECD themselves have said, the progress that we have made in maths is encouraging. What we can learn from that is the successful implementation of the numeracy framework, which of course has only been formally assessed for a couple of years now. We have reformed the GCSEs and we have put substantial resource into getting schools ready for the uptake of those new GCSEs. So, a...
