Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 14 June 2017.
Well, Llyr, as we rehearsed in the committee this morning, one of my priorities is to ensure that we have an excellent and outstanding workforce in all aspects of education, and workload concerns are very real. They vary greatly across the education workforce; they’re not just confined to teachers in schools, as you have recognised. Different issues and priorities arise depending on a variety of factors, including what phase of education somebody might find themselves teaching in; a rurality where, perhaps, teachers are teaching a class with a variety of age groups, requiring significant differentiation, which can be difficult to do; deprivation; subject area; and their role. What’s important is we try to do something about that. The first ever teacher survey that we’ve done has provided us with a wealth of opportunity to try and understand some of these very real concerns from the chalkface, and we continue to analyse those data. Detailed discussions are taking place with the education workforce unions on policy in early development, and we continue to work in partnership with those unions to try and address the concerns to a variety of work streams within the Government.