1. What plans does the Cabinet Secretary have to ensure that pupils’ wellbeing gets as much attention as attainment in our secondary schools? OAQ52785

Thank you, Jenny. Positive mental health and well-being are key factors in a pupil’s performance and attainment in school. That is why we have committed to a step change in the support that is available in this regard and established a ministerial task and finish group to consider a whole-school approach that will ensure that well-being becomes part of every school’s ethos.

Well, I think that's a very welcome development. We know that Estyn has been evaluating standards progress and well-being of learners living in poverty in all its inspections since 2010, but that obviously hasn't been sufficient to ensure that all of our learners are achieving to the best of their ability. We know that there are multiple reasons why pupils may be struggling, with issues at home or issues at school, including bullying or unidentified special needs. This can, and does, impact on their behaviour in the classroom and therefore sometimes I appreciate that exclusions are necessary to enforce the rules of the school and ensure that all pupils are safe and in a position to learn. 

Looking at the statistics, unlike in England, I think it's good to know that there doesn't appear to be any disproportionate exclusion of black pupils. However, we have to recognise that permanent exclusions have a devastating impact on the long-term prospects for any young person in that situation, as their employability is obviously going to be in doubt and the cost to public services, in terms of being on benefits and most of them ending up either in mental health services or in the criminal justice system, is obviously huge.

So, with this new working party and its focus in mind, how can you ensure that the most disadvantaged children are getting the well-being support they need so that all can achieve to the best of their ability? And, are you satisfied that the pupil deprivation grant is a sufficiently robust tool for tackling this? 

Thank you, Jenny. We know that children with higher levels of emotional, behavioural, social and school well-being on average have high levels of academic achievement and are more engaged in school, both concurrently and in latter years, and that's why we've been very clear in our national mission to have put the well-being of learners, including all aspects of a learner's life, as of paramount importance to schools. 

You referred to the work that Estyn has previously done in this regard. In this year's remit letter to Estyn I have asked them to do a refreshed piece of work looking at how schools are establishing a whole-school approach to well-being, establishing what needs to be done to make that happen successfully and so that we can share that good practice. 

The pupil development grant is a highly important tool in addressing the specific learning needs of children from our poorer backgrounds. Only last week, on a visit to north Wales, talking to teachers from Christchurch County Primary School in the Rhyl area—a school that has free school meals levels in excess of 60 per cent—they said that the funding available to them by the pupil development grant was invaluable in ensuring they could address the whole-child needs of the pupils in their school. 

The Cabinet Secretary will be aware of the hugely successful Hafod project following her recent visit to Ysgol y Preseli in my constituency. As she will know, the Hafod project aims to improve the well-being of pupils and promotes positive attitudes to learning, which I feel is vital to assist pupils to progress and reach their full potential. Given the great interest the Cabinet Secretary expressed in this project, can she give us an update on the progress now being made by the Government in looking to support this successful project?

Thank you, Paul, and thank you for the invitation and the opportunity that I had to visit Ysgol y Preseli with you to hear first hand from the staff and the students at the school that participate in that scheme. Since that visit to Ysgol y Preseli, I have been very fortunate indeed to visit the PEAR Institute at Harvard University, which is the partner with Ysgol y Preseli in delivering that programme, and officials have been instructed to contact the PEAR Institute to look at how we can develop the project further, with the potential of seeing if other schools would be able to participate in that programme, and I will write to the Member with an update on that work. The impact that the programme has in Ysgol y Preseli is very interesting indeed and is clearly making a difference to pupils' levels of well-being, which in turn reflects on their academic achievements within the school. And there is certainly something, I believe, in that programme that we can learn from.