1. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the educational well-being of adopted children? OAQ52403

Thank you, Dawn. 'Our National Mission' is clear on our commitment to deliver real and lasting improvements in the educational experience and outcomes of our disadvantaged learners. Adopted children can often face challenges and barriers in their education, and improving their well-being, alongside that of all learners, is a key theme running through our educational reforms. 

Thank you for that response, Cabinet Secretary. We've both just attended the launch of the report called 'Bridging the Gap', which deals with the educational well-being of adopted children. And I'm sure that all of us want to play our part in ensuring that every adopted or looked-after child has an equal chance in school. And while I know that budget decisions are for debate in the financial round, can you assure me that the recommendations made in this report regarding staff training and awareness, the creation of environments in schools that are supportive to adopted children, and steps to ensure the collation of outcome data for adopted children, will form part of your considerations in taking this work forward?

Thank you very much, Dawn. It is important that we recognise that resources aren't necessarily the answer to all the issues that are faced by looked-after and adopted children in our education system. But the looked-after children element of the pupil development grant actually stands, for 2018-19, at approximately £4.5 million, and that is available to support the education of adopted children. I'm very keen for myself and my officials to work with representatives of Adoption UK Cymru to look at the asks in the report, especially with regard to the collection of data. I know that there is some frustration that we're not able to easily identify educational outcomes for adopted children because that's not part of our pupil level annual school census data at the moment. Whilst I would not want to be in a position to force parents to reveal or divulge information regarding adoption if that's not something that they feel comfortable with or want to do, I understand the rationale behind wanting to improve the data collection, and I'm very happy to continue to work with officials and those with an interest in this area to look to see how this can be achieved proportionately and sensitively.

As one of those with an interest in this area and who has discussed it previously with the Cabinet Secretary, it's very positive that, in Wales, we have the pupil development grant giving options to free-school-meals children, but also to looked-after children and to those who are adopted. And, of course, in most cases, adoptive parents will want the school to be aware and will want to make sure that the school gets that extra support. How is progress going in terms of those data sharing, and, in particular, has the Cabinet Secretary learnt any lessons from some of the provisions they have for data sharing in this area with social services and adopted children in England?

Well, as I said, Mark, the door is open, and I would very much welcome a continued discussion about how we can improve data collection for adopted children, as long as we don't force parents to divulge information that they may not want to divulge. What's also important is that we continue to look at the education of these children in the round, and that sometimes does mean that we need to work across departments, in local education authorities, specifically with social services, so that there is a greater understanding in how best we can support individual children's needs. The PDG looked-after children element, as I said, this year is worth £4.5 million. That's administered at a regional level, and we continue to work with our regional consortia to ensure that that money, those resources, are deployed to best effect.

I thought what was striking from the event that both Dawn and I, and other Assembly Members, attended this afternoon was that many of the things that they're asking for actually do not require additional resources. It is about changing the mindset in some of our schools to ensure that there is an atmosphere that responds appropriately to children who are adopted. So, for instance, when a child who has experienced trauma, or issues around attachment, the teachers, within themselves, know what is the appropriate way to support that child. And that's about then ongoing professional learning development as well as changes in our initial teacher education provision.