2. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on Welsh Government plans to support lunch and fun clubs in primary schools during the school summer holidays? OAQ(5)0063(EDU)

5. What is the Welsh Government doing to support school children during the summer holidays? OAQ(5)0077(EDU)

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 by Food Cardiff and participating local authorities.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Many groups including the Trussell Trust have identified the issue of holiday hunger, whereby those children eligible for free school meals and their parents often go without food during the long summer holidays. Indeed, the charity says demand for its 35 food banks in Wales peaks during July and August. This rolling out of funding for lunch and fun clubs across Wales can have a crucial role to play in tackling the scandal of Welsh children going hungry, but how will the Welsh Government ensure that support reaches those who need it most?

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 received, the WLGA will contact the local authority and work together with them to determine which schools would be appropriate to host a food and fun club.

Whilst the scheme does indeed offer a healthy free breakfast and lunch, which attempts to tackle holiday hunger, I am keen for the focus of the scheme to be on the enriching activities around those meals, so that it offers learners who attend an opportunity to participate in physical activity, in visits and in learning opportunities that would not be available to them otherwise. We do know from the initial feedback from the pilot that the scheme, where it has been run already, has done a lot to address the issue of learning loss, a concept that we know exists, where many children fall backwards over the long summer holidays and schools then have to catch up when the new school term starts again in September. So, this is not just about food, it is about addressing issues of learning loss, physical activity and enrichment activities for children who perhaps would not have them available to them in other cases.

I’m really pleased with this scheme and whilst I recognise that £500,000 isn’t a huge amount of money, it’s money that’s very welcome, and I see that that is for this year and this year alone. So, my question is that I hope you’ll be able to continue this through the course of this Assembly. You talk about the continued enrichment that children within communities enjoy through these fun clubs so that they don’t slip back and lose all of that momentum that was gained in their school term. Will you also look at isolated communities where there isn’t an awful lot happening because of the nature of their rurality, so that those young children get an opportunity just the same as those who live in other areas?

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 us know that they want to participate, so that we can then identify the communities that will benefit from it most. So, if there are individual schools in people’s constituencies that are interested in being a part of this scheme, then, again, I would urge them to get in touch with their local education authority to show an interest so that we can make sure that as many children as possible who will benefit from this have the opportunity. The pilots have been very successful and it is my anticipation that we expand that success and open it up to as many Welsh children as possible, regardless of whether they live in urban areas or whether they live in rural areas. But the emphasis is on local authorities to come forward and I would urge them to do so.

Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. It’s never a good idea to put a sweet in your mouth just before you ask a question [Laughter.] This initiative that the Government has brought forward, will it be part of the childcare offer that is being made available, because it has been alluded to at committee stage that schools obviously might form part of the facility through the school holidays? I appreciate this initiative is only funded for one year, but will it be looked upon as part of the offer that the Government is making to increase childcare provision across Wales to meet its manifesto commitment?

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 childcare offer is about an opportunity for our very youngest children. These clubs are open to primary school-age children and secondary school-age children, so whilst there may be some crossover, it is not intended to be a part of that scheme; it is above and beyond the childcare offer that will be available.

There is another way of looking at this, of course, and there is a strong argument for restructuring the school year and distributing holidays in a more balanced way across the year. Doing so over the year, rather than having one big block over the summer, would assist in improving attainment levels within schools and make it easier for working parents. Many experts argue that children, particularly boys, from deprived backgrounds do find it difficult to maintain information over lengthy brakes and that they could benefit from briefer school holidays that happen more often. When Plaid Cymru first raised this issue, your party and your spokesperson for education at that time, Jenny Randerson, was very supportive of it. So, what assessment have you made of this proposals of restructuring the school term? And if it hasn’t happened, will you commit to carrying out such an assessment and then report back to the Assembly on that?

Thank you for that question. No assessment has been carried out since I took over this job, although there has been an independent report and some research done on restructuring the school week—for instance, having a four-day school week, allowing for one day at the end of the week to be for teacher preparation and training purposes—but nothing has been done to look at the overall academic year. I absolutely recognise this principle that, for some children, that long summer break does lead to the concept, as I said earlier, of learning loss, and that’s why these food and fun clubs will not just focus on the issue of holiday hunger, but actually look to ensure that they—and the pilots suggest that they have been successful in doing so—address that concept of learning loss, especially with regard to literacy, numeracy and oracy. One headteacher spoke to me recently and said that if it wasn’t for the fact that her high school remained open during the summer, many of those young people would not have an adult to talk to for most of the day and their oracy levels dropped considerably. So, we know that this is an issue. This policy intervention is hoping to successfully attack and solve a number of problems.