3. What is the Welsh Government doing to improve education in Pembrokeshire? OAQ(5)0114(EDU)

Thank you, Paul. I have set out, as Cabinet Secretary, on a number of occasions the programme of education reforms to improve education across Wales, and, of course, that does include Pembrokeshire. These include the development of a new curriculum and assessment reform, improved initial teacher education, teachers’ professional learning, building leadership capacity and reducing the attainment gap.

I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for her response. Now, you may be aware, Cabinet Secretary, of the reading ambassadors scheme, which aims to improve children’s reading skills by working closely with cluster primary schools in my constituency. This collaboration has been praised in a recent ERW report, with the Schools Challenge Cymru adviser, Hefina Thomas, saying it had resulted in ‘a direct impact on standards’. In light of this, can you tell us what the Welsh Government is doing to promote this activity, so that all schools across Pembrokeshire can benefit from this kind of collaboration?

Paul, thank you very much for highlighting that good practice that happens in your area. As you know, because of concerns regarding the standards of education in Pembrokeshire, particularly the inability of Pembrokeshire’s high schools to improve their level 2-plus attainment rates as quickly as the Welsh average, the regional consortium has recently deployed additional advisory support into the county of Pembrokeshire. Estyn have carried out a case conference in the county of Pembrokeshire to try and impress upon the council and the local education authority the measures that they feel are necessary for the council to take to improve standards. But it is clear such schemes as that, where we can increase pupils’ literacy within the primary school sector, bode well for their ability to access the curriculum later on, and I would hope and expect that the regional consortia are learning from good practice and are utilising the resources that they have from the education improvement grant to ensure that where programmes are successful, they are replicated.

Well, around five years ago, education in Pembrokeshire was in such a poor state that the Government had to send a specialist team in to save the situation there. Since then, education in Pembrokeshire has improved. Now, the county is around the middle of the list of counties in terms of educational attainment. I would still think that there is room for improvement, though. The disagreement that there’s been recently over the sixth-form provision in Pembrokeshire also suggests that the county council hadn’t had as firm a grip as it should’ve had on progress in education in this county. Given the fact that there is a possible change of leadership in Pembrokeshire at the moment, does the Cabinet Secretary intend to get in touch with the county council to ensure that that progress that we have seen over the past four years does continue, and that pupils in Pembrokeshire can expect their council to continue on a path from the poor position they were in five years ago to something far more positive for those pupils in future?

Thank you, Simon. It is true to say that the level 2-plus inclusive in Pembrokeshire has improved from 51 per cent in 2011 to just over 59 per cent in 2016, and this is an improvement in attainment of 8.3 per cent since 2011, but it is not where you or I would want Pembrokeshire to be. You’re quite right, it is the primary responsibility of the new administration to get to grips with their school improvement plans, school organisation plans, to drive standards up further. As I’ve said in answer to Paul Davies, the regional consortia, because of concerns about Pembrokeshire, have deployed additional support to the county and I can assure you I will be meeting with the portfolio holder and the director of education in Pembrokeshire, as I do regularly with all portfolio holders and directors of education, to impress upon them the need to make progress.