5. 5. Statement: Successful Futures: An Update on Digital

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:42 pm on 13 June 2017.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 4:42, 13 June 2017

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I certainly welcome your statement about the future investment in coding. I think that’s very encouraging and I do hope, given the opportunities there are from coding, that the announcement is of a sufficient scale to be able to take advantage of those opportunities. I also acknowledge your remarks about the DCF and Hwb being hailed across the world and we should congratulate all those involved in those projects to get that kind of recognition. But, of course, we should be cautious. We’re not short of our strategies being recognised across the world as being innovative, but we know that the implementation of them is the tricky bit. And we should be worried about Estyn’s comments in the last chief inspector’s annual report about the level of digital excellence in schools across Wales. Though, of course, that does raise the question of whether or not Estyn are best placed to make those judgments. Would Estyn recognise good practice in digital learning and do they have the skills and capacity to be able to be in a position to make assessments of that? I ask the Cabinet Secretary to say something about that.

My primary question though, Cabinet Secretary, is about the need for leadership in this area and the need for headteachers and school leadership teams to see digital learning just as important as numeracy and literacy and what the Government is doing to ensure that the new national academy for educational leadership instils digital leadership amongst future heads on an equal basis.