The next item is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education on digital skills and coding, and I call on the Cabinet Secretary to make the statement. Kirsty Williams.

Diolch yn fawr. A vital part, Presiding Officer, of our national mission is to equip all learners with high-level digital skills that ensure that our young people are digitally competent to become enterprising, creative and critical thinkers. I know that this is an area of interest to many Members, so I thought it would be helpful today to outline progress made.

Our national education action plan sets out how the school system will implement the new curriculum, with a focus on leadership, professional learning, and excellence and equity at the heart of a self-improving system. The digital competence framework—the DCF—aimed at embedding digital skills, was made available in September 2016 as the first element of our new curriculum. Digital competence will form one of three cross-curricular responsibilities, alongside literacy and numeracy, within the new curriculum. That, in itself, is a clear signal of the importance that I and the Welsh Government attach to this important area. A range of tools is available on our learning platforms, Hwb and Learning Wales, to help schools implement the DCF, plan their provision and develop a digital vision. Digital pioneer schools are actively supporting schools across Wales to implement and develop the materials hosted on Hwb.

To enable schools to be fully embedded in the DCF, regional consortia are undertaking detailed work to configure digital professional learning to the new professional standards, national professional learning models and the leadership academy's endorsement requirements to develop a national digital professional learning framework for all schools. This new framework will support teachers and leaders to develop effective, sustainable digital learning experiences for pupils, equipping them with the necessary knowledge and skills to work in an increasingly digital society. The teaching and leadership standards consider in detail important concepts and behaviours relevant to digital learning. Detailed web design work led by the Welsh Government will be undertaken during the summer term, prior to making the interactive digital professional learning framework available to all schools through a phased approach.

Presiding Officer, you will also know that I have spoken many times of the importance of coding. Last June, I launched 'Cracking the code', our plan to improve coding skills. Backed by over £1 million-worth of funding, we are working with consortia, businesses, third sector partners and universities so that more learners have the opportunity to develop these skills in advance of the new curriculum. In addition, 'Cracking the code' is supported by a number of key stakeholders, such as Code Club UK, Sony, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and Technocamps. And only this morning, Presiding Officer, I had the opportunity to visit St Philip Evans school, here in Llanedeyrn, in Cardiff. It is a fantastic example of how digital competency and coding skills are being developed from the earliest of ages. I'm sure that some of the nursery and year 1 students could have put some of us to shame with their understanding and their ability to see the importance of these skills.

'Cracking the code' is also aimed at increasing awareness of coding, as well as supporting schools, and I'm pleased with the progress that we have made in a short space of time. At the end of March 2018, 473 active clubs were registered with Code Club UK, and that's an increase of around 173 clubs, compared to June in the previous year. Many more schools are working with Code Club UK and the four regional educational consortia that may not have formally registered with Code Club UK as of yet, thus making it difficult to ascertain the actual numbers of clubs that are currently running. Alongside 'Cracking the code', Technocamps—the industrial liaison unit of the department of computer science in Swansea University—has received over £1.2 million of Welsh Government education funding to deliver computer coding workshops to pupils and teachers in schools in Wales. This gives teachers and learners hands-on experience with a range of coding activities and tools, and it ensures that every secondary school has at least one teacher with direct experience of working with code.

The next phase of the Learning in Digital Wales programme will give teachers more choice about the digital tools that they employ in the classroom, with the introduction of Google for Education into the Hwb platform from spring 2018. Building upon the existing set of tools available, including Microsoft Office 365 and Just2easy, teachers will be able to choose from a wide range of tools, such as Google Classroom, facilitating powerful class collaboration and device management for Chromebooks.

Members will be aware that prioritising schools’ access to superfast broadband was a key part of the progressive agreement that brought me into this Government. Together, we must ensure that every school has access to superfast broadband, and our infrastructure must meet our ambition. I have therefore since announced an additional £5 million to upgrade broadband connections in schools across Wales, and the work is currently under way. There are a small number of schools where issues around broadband capacity continue to frustrate. All but one of those schools' orders have been placed with internet providers—infrastructure providers—and we continue to work with all schools to find solutions.

Alongside this, a set of digital education standards to help schools access tools and resources is being developed. Working with local authorities and regional consortia, we are currently undertaking an assessment of 180 schools to help shape standards and understand what support and guidance will be needed for the future. It's also important to recognise that our work does not stop at schools. In a recent visit to Coleg Meirion Dwyfor, I witnessed at first hand how the college is working with key partners and schools to encourage young learners to get involved in coding programmes. The students involved in the college’s coding clubs initiative spoke of their joy at working with local schools and the progression achieved from one visit to the next and the enthusiasm of learners in completing coding programmes, which, in their own words, were praised as almost market ready.

In my annual HEFCW remit letter, published last month, I outlined my expectation for the council and universities to further increase their engagement with industry and schools in enhancing access to coding. That is why I have made available £1.2 million to support Welsh universities in the establishment of the Institute of Coding. This includes £200,000 to support the civic mission activity of coding initiatives in schools, colleges, work-based learning providers and universities. The funding will allow Cardiff and Swansea universities to become active members of the UK-wide consortium that is creating the Institute of Coding. The institute will train the next generation of digital specialists at levels 6 and 7 and allow partners to develop and deliver innovative, industry-focused education across the United Kingdom. This new funding will ensure that Wales plays its full part and that we are well placed to reap the benefits of the institute.

Presiding Officer, as I have outlined, this Government is taking a number of significant actions to ensure our young people are equipped with high-level digital skills. However, what is especially important is that all of these actions, taken in turn, form a cohesive plan delivered in way that will raise standards in the classroom, while supporting pupils in becoming enterprising, creative and critical thinkers. Thank you.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement today. I welcome the news that Swansea and Cardiff universities are to receive funding to expand coding in schools, colleges and communities. This will help these universities to be part of the UK Institute of Coding, created by the Conservative Government, which is a partnership deal with leading tech firms, universities and industry bodies in an effort to bolster future digital skills in this country. I'm sure the Cabinet Secretary will join me in praising this UK Government initiative.

Coding is a skill that every organisation needs. Today, code is so fully integrated not only across businesses, but also our entire lives, that almost all businesses have code at their core. So, may I ask how will she ensure that Government planning to provide Wales with specialised digital skills will keep pace with the scale of the challenges that lie ahead? Teaching youngsters how to succeed in the digital world is crucial. The Welsh report called 'Cracking the code: A plan to expand code clubs in every part of Wales' made several commitments under each strategic heading. However, many of these commitments are vague, with no timescale for change, therefore making progress difficult to monitor. So, how will the Welsh Government monitor the progress of this plan?

The Welsh Government has committed to an increase in the quality and the amount of Welsh language support for schools for coding. Can the Cabinet Secretary confirm whether or not it has created a dedicated zone of Hwb to bring partners together with schools to create a repository of projects and resources? We need a coherent and a long-term commitment from the Welsh Government for digital Wales, from skills to infrastructure. Estyn has raised concerns that pupil progress in digital skills has not kept pace with technology in Wales. They report that opportunities to develop ICT skills across subjects are limited in many secondary schools and in a third of primary schools. In just under two thirds of primary schools, there are important shortcomings in standards of ICT. Though most pupils are confident using programmes such as Word processing and creating presentations, their skills are often limited to a narrow range of applications. How will the Cabinet Secretary address this issue and deal with the fact that the number of students studying ICT in Wales has decreased? There is also a huge gender disparity in the number of students studying computing at A-level. Three hundred and thirty nine students sat A-level computing last year; only 32 of these were women. Will the Cabinet Secretary commit to tackling this shocking gender gap?

One major issue is that our digital lives are changing so fast that educators are struggling to keep up with this. Digital skills are changing faster than formal education providers. Industry is developing at such a rate that by the time a curriculum is crafted and approved by the various bodies, and students finally graduate, you can be talking almost a decade from start to finish. How will the Welsh Government ensure that our educators keep up with the pace of change?

Cabinet Secretary, a person's level of digital ability is fast becoming a key determinant of their earning power, yet Wales is a patchwork of digital skills. The Barclays digital development index 2017, which analysed 88,000 UK job adverts and 6,000 adults, claims that Welsh employees score amongst the lowest of all UK regions for their digital skills. I hope we will receive regular statements from you on progress in putting Wales at the top of the league of digital skills in the United Kingdom. Thank you.

Could I thank the Member for his questions? Firstly, I think it is really important that Wales plays its part in the development of UK-wide organisations. We should not cut ourselves off from participating in these initiatives, and I'm delighted that we've been able to successfully fund, via HEFCW, projects from Cardiff and Swansea universities. It builds on their strong tradition, strong presence in these subjects, and will allow them to participate fully in the development of the Institute of Coding. So, I'm delighted that we've been able to work via HEFCW to provide those resources.

The Member asked about the expansion of code clubs. We are seeing significant expansion of code clubs, but of course there is always more that we would like to do, and we've put resources into that. It's important to me, as well as, I know, to other Ministers, that those code clubs are a mixture of provision within school for schoolchildren and that we also look at community code clubs that are open to the more general population. We do recognise that there are benefits for adult learners, for instance, in being able to acquire these skills in terms of improving their employability.

With regard to specialist zones on Hwb, you don't need to take my word for it, Oscar, you just need to log on to Hwb. You can Google Hwb today, you can click on the zones and you will be able to see that we are continually populating the Hwb platform with new and innovative content, including work that is supporting our network of excellence in mathematics and our network of excellence in science and technology, and also, most recently, our new zone on Hwb, which is to support the spread of good practice regarding the foundation phase.

I absolutely recognise what the Estyn inspector's annual report says about the quality of ICT teaching in schools, but we should always make the distinction between ICT and computing. Taking exams in ICT and taking exams in computing are not the same thing, and that's one of the reasons why the digital competence framework—the very first part of our national curriculum—needed to be put out there first to address what the Estyn inspection report has to say.

There are two crucial things that schools need to do in this regard. They need to be able to look creatively at how they can use digital technology not in a stand-alone class, Oscar, but actually coherently through the entire curriculum. The school I went to this morning does not have a computer suite where children go off for a 15-minute period. Computers and digital technology are a fundamental part of how the entire curriculum is delivered, in every lesson and every single part of the school day, and we need to ensure that what I saw this morning at St Philip Evans is replicated across Wales.

One of the key reasons why sometimes that doesn't happen, especially in subjects outside computing and ICT, is the competence of the teachers themselves and the confidence of the teachers, especially if those teachers have done their initial teacher training and their professional practice before these technologies were readily available. That's why I spent a great deal of time in my statement talking about the development of national professional standards and a professional learning package to support those teachers, because they need to have the confidence, the skills and the knowledge. And I would say to all schools that there is a tool available on Hwb where you can test the capability in your school, as it currently stands, and begin to plan what you will need to do to improve your provision.

You also talked about women in these issues. You will be aware that the leader of the house, in part of her work on equality, alongside myself and the Cabinet Secretary for the economy, works closely with a group that is overlooking the implementation of the women in STEM report. We recognise that there is more to do to ensure that girls and women see a space for themselves taking these subjects at school and, crucially, pursuing careers with those skills that they have acquired within the classroom. We will continue to work with outside agencies and individuals to address those issues with regard to making sure that more girls see themselves as taking advantage of these opportunities and the career opportunities that studying these subjects brings.

May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement and welcome what she had to say? Plaid Cymru, for some time, has supported doing more to teach pupils to create as well as use digital resources such as this, so we are certainly moving in the right direction in that regard. As important as it is to have a digital competence framework, as the Cabinet Secretary has recognised, that, in and of itself, won’t be sufficient. The greatest challenge here is to empower teachers on the front line in order for them to implement that framework effectively, and, therefore, CPD and the role of initial teacher training in this area are crucially important.

We’ve heard reference already to the comments made by Estyn. The Children, Young People and Education Committee have also stated in their inquiry into professional education for teachers that the education workforce isn’t currently prepared for implementing the new curriculum. In terms of the digital competence framework specifically, the committee has stated that it’s a great concern, because the results of a survey by the committee highlighted the lack of information or understanding among teachers related to the changes that are in the pipeline in this context. You’ve already referred to Estyn mentioning that the teachers don’t have the information and the confidence needed to deliver this to its full potential, and very few schools, as far as I can see, have carried out an audit of the digital competence of their staff, and that is certainly something that Estyn highlighted.

You mention a phased approach to the digital professional learning framework, and you’ve mentioned standards and so on. Can you give us a more specific timetable? If there is to be a phased approach, when do you expect everyone to be up to speed in terms of being able to deliver this effectively?

You’ve announced additional resources today, and that’s to be welcomed, of course, particularly given the criticism of a statement that you made some months ago from backbench Labour Members. That may still be ringing in your ears, because you turned to the Member who criticised you when you were answering earlier questions. In the context of a previous statement, one criticism was in relation to Minecraft for education as only 10 schools, out of 1,600, were involved in that work, and it was stated that that wasn’t good enough. Well, it’s good to see, in this statement at least, that more schools are to be involved with Code Club UK. I think that’s very positive. The figure that you’ve given tells us one story, of course. I don’t know if you have any information about the geographical spread of some of those schools. I don’t expect you to answer in the Chamber, perhaps, but having that sort of information would be beneficial, because very often it depends on an individual within a consortium or a particular council to be driving this agenda. It would be comforting to know that that growth is happening across Wales rather than being centralised in certain areas.

The additional £1.2 million that you referred to in your statement is to be welcomed, as I’ve already said. It’s not clear to me if that is for this year or for now until the end of this Assembly. Is it an annual commitment or is there a long-term commitment beyond that? Because we do need a long-term financial assurance in order to embed this new culture in the regime. So, more clarity would be something that I would welcome. And whilst that of course is positive in terms of Swansea and Cardiff universities, is it the intention to look to develop this in other institutions? I’m looking at Bangor and Glyndŵr in my region, of course, because we are eager to develop these areas of expertise and this training in all parts of Wales, I would have thought, in order to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity.

I can’t let any statement referring to Hwb pass without referring to your decision not to continue with Hwb+. We’ve had a number of exchanges on that in the past, and I accept that the decision has been taken, but I would point to the fact that Larry Nelson, the managing director of Microsoft Corporation education partners, has described the Hwb+ platform as world leading and a

'global showcase and an example of how technology can support change in educational practice.'

And the Welsh Government’s own evaluation came to the conclusion, and I quote again:

'abandoning the project would severely disappoint and alienate teachers who are enthusiastic about further take-up of digital learning and have invested their considerable time and effort setting up Hwb+ school sites and promoting it to colleagues at their school.'

Therefore, I’m not going to ask a question about the decision. What I am going to ask is: how can we have confidence that the enthusiasm that the Government’s evaluation refers to won’t be undermined by the decision not to continue with Hwb+?

You didn’t respond to an earlier question on the provision of Welsh-medium resources, because one of the frustrations noted in ‘Cracking the code’ is the lack in the levels of Welsh language resources and facilitators in this area. It is a problem in other areas, and it’s something that the education committee is looking at tomorrow in a particular scrutiny session. I would be pleased to hear, and to have an assurance from you, that schools will have access to the necessary resources to provide digital skills and coding through the medium of Welsh.

Finally, you were saying, if I understood you correctly, because you did add something orally that wasn’t included in the written statement, that every school bar one has problems in accessing broadband or is in the process of finding a solution to be put in place. I would be interested to know which one school is left. Thank you.

Thank you, Llyr. With regard to Cardiff and Swansea universities' successful grant application, it is for HEFCW to make the decision on which universities will be funded. Those two universities sent forward a bid that was regarded as worthy of that funding and I'm sure HEFCW and individual institutions that want to participate in this work will continue to have those conversations. What I'm really pleased about is that Welsh institutions will form part of this new body. We should not cut ourselves off from UK development, and Welsh universities need to be at the table, especially when they have such strengths in these areas and an outstanding department, for instance, like Swansea has. It would be awful to think that we were not part of the table because of a lack of resources. I'm glad that we've been able to do something about that. 

I would offer you the same advice as I offered to—. Llyr, you don't need to take my word for the expansion in code clubs—if you Google Code Club UK's website, they have a map that will show you exactly where every code club that is registered with them is currently located. The clubs are being developed all the time, and therefore sometimes those things take a little bit of time—there's a lag—but I've just been looking at my most recent club, which is hosted in Brecon library on a Saturday morning, and I'm glad to see that that's on there. So, by all means have a look. What you will see is that there are code clubs the length and breadth of Wales—in urban areas, rural areas—but, of course, there is always more we can do because our young people are everywhere, and we should be looking to do what we can to encourage volunteers to be able to provide those opportunities for young people.

The reason I looked at Lee Waters was because Lee and I continue to have these discussions because he doesn't just let it drop—he doesn't do his five minutes of glory in the Chamber and then forget about an issue. I'm sure nobody does that, actually; I'm sure no Member ever gets up and says something in the Chamber and then forgets all about it once they've left and they've had their two minutes for their press release. Lee, actually, continues to bother me on a regular basis about this issue outside the limelight of the Chamber, and I'm grateful for his insights.

It's clear to me that we have a way to go in ensuring the true spirit of the DCF is embedded throughout our curriculum. There are a number of things we need to do about that. We need to ensure that schools know where they are at the moment, and that's why I would urge all schools to use the DCF mapping tool that is available on Hwb, and the professional learning needs tool, which will help schools plan their provision and develop a digital vision.

I continue to liaise with the National Digital Learning Council to give me advice on what more we can do to ensure that schools are using these resources and that schools are really thinking about, and planning, for the needs of the DCF. But crucially, professional learning is a key part of that, and that's why, for instance, we continue at the moment to use our LiDW continuing professional development grant, which is in phase 2. That money continues to be available via the regional consortia. It provides a focus on a range of activities, including support for practitioners in school to develop their confidence and competence in using a range of digital resources and tools through the LiDW programme. It's providing capacity for expert digital leader support, which co-ordinates work in schools with the regional consortia. It's actively promoting digital citizenship in relation to safe and responsible use of technology—that's something that hasn't been discussed so far in the Chamber, but it's actually an important part of the digital competence framework: it's not only giving young people the skills but knowing how to use those responsibly and to keep themselves safe while they're online. So, that grant is available to consortia, and its primary focus is to develop skills, competence and confidence.

With regard to Hwb+, this decision has been welcomed by those outside of Government who are knowledgeable in this field, who provide advice in this field, and it's based on an ever-developing understanding of what resources work best in schools, and it reflects feedback. That's not to say that everything in Hwb+ was bad—I'm not saying that—but the contract has come to an end, and that's when the contract was due to come to an end. It gives Government and Ministers an opportunity to reflect on the best way forward. We have taken a decision that that platform is not the optimum platform that we need, going forward, to support teachers. We've been very clear about what schools need to do to migrate their data, and we have provided support for that to schools.

I have to say, Llyr, the feedback that my officials have had is that schools themselves have not raised any questions with us, or complained to us, about the removal of Hwb+. What we're giving them is a greater choice, and hopefully a greater level of easy interaction with the platform that will help them embed these facilities into their everyday practice. As I said, we've provided remote support to help schools transfer their data, and where schools have requested it, we have provided individual on-site support for those schools that have needed that level of support.

The issue of the schools—as with all of these things, you think you've cracked it, and everything is done. There is one school—and I have the name somewhere, but I will write to the Member with it—where an order has not been placed, so for all the other schools, orders have been placed with the suppliers, and that work is programmed to be done. But there is one outlying school, and we are working to look to see how we can address those needs.

Increasingly what is coming to the fore with schools is not the infrastructure outside the school, it is now infrastructure inside the school. And we do continue to receive complaints from schools who are struggling, but often on examination of that, it's problems within the school. That's why we're working with 180 schools at the moment to get a feel for what the constraints are and what the issues are that we need to tackle, so that we can look, once we've addressed speeds outside, at what we can do then to address infrastructure within schools to ensure that it is what it needs to be.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement. Can I say it receives a broad welcome from both me and my party? We were particularly pleased to hear about the involvement of businesses and the funding for Welsh universities in your proposals, as well as your emphasis on prioritising superfast broadband provision in Welsh schools. I also welcome the fact that the scheme 'Cracking the code' has raised awareness of coding in schools and, in particular, I note there are now 473, maybe even more, active clubs registered with Code Club UK, which obviously shows a significant increase in engaging children in coding. Can we congratulate you on that success?

There are some points about the finer details of the statement that I would like to briefly comment on. Firstly, and I think Mohammad Asghar touched on this in his comments, there will always be educators, companies and universities who will want to sell or receive Government funding to teach coding and computer skills. After all, that has been the case for the past 30 or 40 years. However, the nature of computers, software and code rapidly changes as technology and the pace at which such technology progresses are likely to quicken in the coming years. So, it is important that the education programmes that the Cabinet Secretary is proposing will not just be programmes that are at the cutting edge of technology now, but are long-lasting education programmes that develop transferable computing and coding skills that students can use for many years into the future. I must say that signs look promising in this regard, given the Cabinet Secretary's quite detailed outline of the involvement of stakeholders such as Sony and the involvement of Cardiff and Swansea universities.

Can I just briefly discuss the topic of what lies behind a piece of computer code, software or technology? Why does the software produce the outputs that we see? Why does it do what it does? What makes it do what it does? There will be some intellectually curious learners on the programmes that the Cabinet Secretary is proposing who will be asking just these kinds of questions. There is an immense amount of academic theory underpinning code of software, as you will obviously know. Some of that theory lies in the sphere of mathematics, often pure mathematics, and, of course, various systems of logic. Unfortunately, I have to point out that the teaching of logic tends to be categorised somewhat nebulously in our universities. Sometimes, it goes to the mathematics department, but, much of the time, it goes to the philosophy department. Figures for philosophy in Welsh universities are not as positive as they might be. The philosophy department that was at Aberystwyth in the 1980s and 1990s was actually shut down at the end of that decade. So, Cardiff University's department is not amongst the biggest department of this sort in the UK, even though it is one of the larger ones in Wales.

So, can I conclude by asking the Cabinet Secretary does she not see a massive opportunity to use her coding programmes as a springboard to develop the intellectual curiosity of Welsh students to consider more traditional university courses such as logic, philosophy and pure mathematics? Can she further see an opportunity for these more traditional subjects to be expanded in Welsh universities, using the programmes she details as a springboard?

I'd like to thank the Member for his welcome to the statement and the work that the Welsh Government is doing in this area. He raises an interesting proposition about the curriculum at Wales's universities. What I should tell him is that any even sniff of Government interference in the autonomy of our academic institutions is something that I would wish to avoid. The curriculum and offer of each individual university is really a matter for them, but, like you, I'm glad that, in Wales's universities, we have a strong tradition in many of the subjects, including maths. Computer science, as I said, is particularly strong in Swansea. There is a table that comes out about what happens to people when they've done a certain degree, and what their destination is. Swansea computing does particularly well in finding its graduates some very well-paid jobs only a matter of months after their graduation. So, it's certainly something that the students who take that course do very well. But it really is a matter for the universities. What I'm keen to do is harness, in the universities, the expertise that they have within their departments, across their curriculum, and to be able to use their expertise to help us build up capacity in our schools system, which was one of the reasons why we are investing, as we are, via the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, in these universities, and we have done previously with Technocamps, because we recognise that this is a collective endeavour—individual schools, the private sector and enterprise, as well as our universities. By working together, we can provide a really fantastic offer for our children.

Cabinet Secretary, maybe I could bother you a little more. I wish you'd said in your statement what you said in the questions, because I do think you genuinely get the problem. I was slightly depressed that the statement puts a gloss on where we're at, and it seems to me that if we've got any chance of addressing the scale of change we need to carry out, it needs to start with an honest analysis of where things are at. You quoted the Estyn report, which said that, in two thirds of primary schools, there are important shortcomings in standards of ICT that should be a wake-up call to all of us. My frustration goes across all departments in the way that we are embracing digital. But in terms of education, I don't think that listing a litany of useful initiatives we are undertaking really does cut it, given the scale of the challenge that does face us. I genuinely am alarmed that we are way behind where we should be.

You mentioned that there are 473 code clubs. I'd be interested to know how many pupils are going through those code clubs. I would be particularly interested to know how many pupils on free school meals are going through those code clubs. Let's not kid ourselves: the amount of people we're engaging with is trivial, given the challenges that we are facing as a society, and I'd much rather the Welsh Government started its statement by saying that, and be honest about where we're at, rather than trying to pretend all was well.

The other findings in the Estyn report are that teachers lack knowledge and confidence. You mentioned that Hwb is a tool on it—a DCF mapping tool—but given the fact that schools are not auditing their digital competence already, they're hardly likely to start using a mapping tool on Hwb. It was also said in the Estyn report that schools lack a clear vision about ICT from senior leaders. That is a profound and damning indictment of the state of our school leadership. If they haven't got the skills and the knowledge and the confidence, they're not about to suddenly start doing this. The items you addressed are some way in the future, and they are going to take a long time to trickle down through all of our schools. That's what we should all be confronting. As it happens, I agree with you on Hwb+. I think Llyr Gruffydd is wrong on that. I think the feedback I'm getting from the profession was that that had lost its way and a new approach needs to be taken.

But I do implore you, Cabinet Secretary, to be honest with us all about where we're really at, and what really needs to change, and the pace and scale at which it needs to do so.

Thank you, Lee. I don't shy away from the fact and the findings of the Estyn report about what needs to happen in day-to-day practice in our schools. That's what's absolutely key: what can we do that is impactful on practice, because we need to see a step change within classrooms? How we can get that leadership from the very top of the school to recognise the importance of this and then to plan appropriately is key. I continue to discuss with the learning council who advise on these issues what more we can do and what more I can do to ensure that each school is addressing that seriously, strategically and consistently, rather than individuals getting ahead.

Our pioneer school network is also absolutely key in this in ensuring that they are out working with schools that are not part of the pioneer network to see change and practice. I think it's really important that we do that because, sometimes, some of the resistance to change is, 'It can't possibly work in my school. It's all very good for you, the sage on the stage, to tell me that, but you come to my classroom—', and actually by using the pioneer network we are demonstrating that these are approaches that have been trialled and tested in schools and that have worked and therefore, 'There is nothing to stop this being transferred into your own school.' So, the pioneers are a crucial part of that. We will continue via Estyn inspections of individual settings to keep a very close eye on how those schools are addressing these particular needs.

To hand, I don't have figures on free school meal children accessing coding club. I will go back to officials to see if it's possible to ascertain that data. We don't want this to become yet another divide between those children who can and those children who cannot. What was really interesting with the approach taken at the primary school in Llanedeyrn this morning is that that headteacher pays the teaching assistants to stay after school for an extra hour so that all children, whether they've got access to computers or technology at home, get to have that time to use that technology for their homework or to attend the coding club. That's just really interesting. That's in a school with over 20 per cent of children on free school meals, in an area of very mixed economic status for the families attending the school.

This will continue to form part of my work that I'm doing, following on from the debate that we had last week, about the true cost of secondary education and what the financial barriers are for all children being able to experience all that our education system has to offer. I'm determined to keep my officials' feet to the fire on this; also there is the digital council's willingness to keep my feet to the fire on how we can develop this to create that step change that you talked about, and it is my intention to continue to come back to the Assembly so we can monitor and you can monitor developments in this case.

But I don't underestimate the challenge of incorporating the DCF into the literacy and numeracy framework. When we think about how long it took the literacy and numeracy framework to be embedded into practice, and we were talking about concepts that all schools would have been familiar with—the teaching of literacy and numeracy—that gives us a picture of the challenge of introducing something consistently in our classrooms where perhaps there hasn't been that experience and that track record. And we should be mindful of that, and we are learning the lessons of the implementation of the literacy and numeracy frameworks in how we approach this.

Finally, David Rees. 

Diolch Llywydd. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement today, because, clearly, the important role of computing and digital competency within our future operations is critical? I won't repeat some of the points on Estyn. You've made those answers quite clear so far, but I want to remind you, perhaps—and remind everybody—that digital competency and coding are not the same things. In fact, coding is perhaps a more advanced skill within digital competency, and we have two different tasks there to achieve. It is important that we assess the skills and coding skills of staff, and I think that Llyr is right that we do need an audit of those competencies: can someone use digital technology to actually deliver the work, but also can someone code? Because that's also different. 

I also welcome the work of Professor Faron Moller and Technocamps, originally set up I think by Beti Williams. I have to admit that I was involved with—. I knew of Beti Williams' role in the early days as part of the team that helped Beti set those things up. But my concerns are, again, the skills and coding, because back in the early part of the last Assembly we had Tom Crick who led the working group initiated by the then Minister, Leighton Andrews, and he set up the need to look at the differences, including science to ICT, as you've already highlighted in one of your answers, and he indicated the work we would need to do because we were already then behind the work in England. I still think our skills in coding among teachers, and the competence and confidence of teachers in that coding, is short, and we need to actually get something under way.

So, how is the Welsh Government taking this forward, not just in Technocamps, because that's limited, but how are you going to push so that every teacher in every school who is delivering the curriculum in computer science has the skill to actually deliver coding, and make sure it's coding in a particular language that is applicable across all of Wales, so you don't get different languages across different schools, which can confuse pupils and confuse teaching mechanisms? In my days, I was teaching Assembly language, CESIL and BASIC, but those days have gone, and we are now into C# and Java and other things, but there we go.

But, again, it's important about that development, because if we want to get young people who are developing apps and who are developing and modding games, they need to have those skills. The staff need to have those skills. Very often, we find that young people actually have better skills than the staff, and the staff learn off them, but we should not be frightened of that. And the staff should not be frightened of that, because staff tend to find they have a lot of other things to do. Pupils and young people tend to find they have a lot of time to spend on games and coding, but that's important and we need to develop that. 

And can you also look at what industrial partners are involved in developing those skills, and the girls? To give you an example, Microsoft have been running this DigiGirlz scheme, and I hope that you would agree with me that we want to praise the young pupils in Ysgol Bae Baglan who went up to Microsoft last week, and came back with a social impact award from that event. These are young girls going into a competition and developing code at Microsoft. That's the type of scheme we want, to ensure that pupils can see a future and can see a career, and they can take it further, because there's a difference between using ICT and developing applications that actually produce those applications by writing the software code for them. That is hugely important. So, can you look at where we're going with that, so that we can where industrial partners will direct girls on and will give role models as well, because there are many female role models required? I can give you the names of several, but we need to ensure that that is there as well. 

Can you also look at schemes that allow teachers to go and work in software development, because being given training and development in a classroom environment to develop those skills is different from actually going in to the workplace and actually applying those skills to software development itself? And you learn an awful lot more by ensuring that the short cuts and techniques you gain are passed on to your young people.  

Thank you very much, David, for those series of observations and questions. Just to reassure you, Tom Crick remains an integral part of support for Government on these areas. He chairs one of the networks of excellence, and I notice from his Twitter feed today that he has very much welcomed the announcement and thinks that it's a really important thing that we've done today in terms of the investment in Swansea and Cardiff. 

With regard to coding, gosh, I'm so old that even I remember doing BASIC, and I'm so old I did O-levels. When I did an O-level in computer science, in fact, Beverley Thomas and I were the only two girls in the class. It was either computer science or scripture, so Beverley Thomas and I went to do computer science, the only two girls in the class, and we learnt BASIC. 

I think the issue about coding, I wouldn't want us to be in a position where we said to schools, 'That's the only coding programme that you should use', because first of all, there's a developmental issue there. So, for instance, you wouldn't want to start your very youngest children on Python, for instance—it's probably too advanced for them—but you probably would want to start your youngest children on Blockly, which gives them the basic understanding of instructions, and then you would build them up to something like Python. So, you don't want to just say to schools, 'That's the only one—' [Interruption.] Like you know anything about it. [Laughter.] Nice try. But you wouldn't want to say that's the only language that we would use in school. But what we do need is to develop the skills of those teachers within our schools. You're quite right; many of the teachers are being taught by the young people themselves, and trying to keep pace with them is a real challenge for the staff, and that's why we need to develop our national learning programme for all staff, so, no matter where they are in Wales, they can have access to a professional development programme that is going to assist them in many, many different ways. Thank you.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary, and that brings today's proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 18:45.