Caroline Jones: ...years ago, at the grand age of 96. During his 70 years of service, His Royal Highness championed many causes and was the patron of around 800 organisations and charities. From the environment to education, the Prince was active in many causes. Most people are aware of the awards that share his name, but not many people know that he helped found the World Wildlife Fund in 1961. Prince...
Caroline Jones: ...cannot replicate in-person interactions. This is particularly true for young people—young people who have had not just their ability to go outside and play with their friends curtailed, but their education and development stunted. What has been more damaging, however, has been the on-again, off-again in-person learning, as well as the inconsistent approach across the age ranges. People...
Caroline Jones: Diolch, Llywydd. I formally move the motion tabled in my name. From a young age, I learnt a valuable lesson—that bigger is not always better. I was perhaps 12 when my small community school was merged with a much bigger one. We lost the personal relationships with our teachers, becoming just another face in the sea of faces. Thankfully, back then, such mergers were rare, and community...
Caroline Jones: Like RSE, the teaching of religion, values and ethics generated a large amount of correspondence from concerned parents, particularly from those whose children attend faith schools. Once again, the Welsh Government has ignored the wishes of parents who wanted to be able to remove their children from lessons that went against their religion, values and ethics. And it's not the job of the...
Caroline Jones: It has been this part of the Bill that has given me the greatest concern. If the Bill had not removed the rights of parents to be able to remove their children from relationships and sexuality education lessons, I feel it would have had less opposition. I thought long and hard about tabling amendments to enable parents to remove their children from RSE lessons, but I was informed that such an...
Caroline Jones: While we agree with the sentiment behind Plaid's motion, we cannot support it. We do need to end child hunger, however, we will not do that by extending free school meals to all children, which is the logical conclusion of the motion before us. We have limited resources and they have to be targeted at those most in need. We will, therefore, be supporting the Welsh Government's amendment. I'm...
Caroline Jones: ...it's all due to this awful disease—a disease that has led to half of our critical beds and a quarter of our hospitals being full of patients with COVID-19. It has led to exams being cancelled for schoolchildren for the second year in a row, and parents across the nation struggling to home school their children. And it's led to the closure of large parts of our economy, thousands of...
Caroline Jones: ...inspector and his team and wish him well in the future. Also, a huge 'thank you' to all the teachers and staff who have done all they can to limit the impact the pandemic has had on young people's education during the past 12 months. The chief inspector highlighted, in his report, how digital learning could complement traditional teaching and learning in future. So, what plans do you have...
Caroline Jones: Minister, I'm sure we can all agree that there is no substitute for face-to-face learning. Attending school is not just about educational achievement, it's an important part of the emotional development of our young people. While COVID is impacting upon school attendance, it must not be allowed to impact a young person's development, and I've been contacted by a constituent who is concerned...
Caroline Jones: ...economy to cope with the changing climate, greater automation and future pandemics. And while we were unprepared for COVID, we can't be unprepared next time, otherwise we won't have funding for schools, hospitals, teachers and doctors. So, we need to deal with today, but we need to prepare for tomorrow, and I don't believe this budget does enough of either. Diolch yn fawr.
Caroline Jones: ...? Reports from the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group seem to report that the new variant can be spread more readily by children. What assessments have you made of the role schools have played in the increase of COVID-19 across Wales? The move into alert level 4 restrictions was driven, mainly, by falling numbers of beds available in our NHS. Minister, how does the...
Caroline Jones: As it stands, we cannot support the curriculum Bill. If the Bill continues to remove the rights of parents as primary educators, I cannot, in all good conscience, vote to support its introduction, regardless of any other improvements it brings to education in Wales. The compulsory teaching of RSE, or relationships and sexuality education, and RVE, or religion, values and ethics, is derisory...
Caroline Jones: ...3 million people possibly hope to compete with a nation of 56 million people? And to complicate things, we rely on the goodwill and taxes of those 56 million people to fund our health service and schools. If not for them, then our taxes would be so much higher and our nation so much poorer. We have to adopt a sensible, four-nation approach to ensuring our goods and services are of the...
Caroline Jones: I'd like to call for an urgent statement from the Minister for Education regarding the teaching of relationships and sexuality education. I've been contacted by many, many concerned parents who feel that the proposed new curriculum is a step too far. They are also very concerned that parents can no longer opt their children out of such lessons. Thousands of parents rightly believe that sex...
Caroline Jones: ...What role do you envision the Welsh Government playing in promoting understanding and awareness between the faiths as well as those in secular society? With a number of different faiths running in schools in Wales, how will the Welsh Government ensure that interfaith awareness will play a part of the religious teaching at those schools throughout the year? And finally, Deputy Minister,...
Caroline Jones: ...be severe, and we are seeing a staggering number of businesses fail, countless numbers of people being put out of work, huge numbers of young people unable to find work, and children having their education stymied. Many of my constituents are already living in poverty. And this lockdown has been for what? You know that this lockdwon will not end the threat posed by SARS-CoV-2 virus. If...
Caroline Jones: ...funding from the Welsh Government, and, while everyone looks to central Governments for action on tackling the pandemic, it's local government that are implementing the measures and keeping our schools open. Minister, what discussions has the Welsh Government held with the UK Government regarding additional resources to tackle the pandemic, so that we don't see cuts to vital local...
Caroline Jones: ...s lives, restrictions that have an impact on people's mental health and economic well-being, restrictions that have had a disproportionate impact on younger generations. Young people have had their schooling interrupted, their exams cancelled and university life changed dramatically. As the committee discovered, shutdown measures have hit the youngest workers the hardest, with employees...
Caroline Jones: ...not be made? How many homeless veterans have died because there wasn't enough affordable accommodation? How many children have had their life chances curtailed because they were failed by the Welsh education system? Imagine what a difference £1 billion could have made to all of those lives. Imagine how many doctors or nurses could have been employed. Imagine how many affordable homes we...
Caroline Jones: ...weeks we have discovered just how hard it is to keep coronavirus in check. Future outbreaks are sadly inevitable. What we have to do is ensure that those outbreaks do not disrupt a single day of education. Minister, we have seen entire year groups sent home as a result of infections, and while we do everything possible to prevent the infections and stop such actions being necessary, we...
