2. What action is the Welsh Government taking to improve school standards? OAQ53132

Thank you, Darren. Our national mission is to raise standards of education for our young people across the nation. We are developing new evaluation and improvement arrangements, which will further support school improvement, and I will update Members on those arrangements in the coming weeks.

Minister, you will no doubt have seen the report in the Western Mail on Monday, where there were comments from quite a number of headteachers and teaching unions expressing a great deal of concern about the pressure that they are under. It described people being exhausted, stressed, unable to switch off, and some headteachers turning to drink as a result of the pressure that your Government is putting on schools at the moment, not just in terms of the reform agenda that is currently under way, but also in terms of finances. And, of course, we know that there is a funding gap per pupil between England and Wales. That's culminating in headteachers taking prolonged periods of absence. The report suggested that, over a three-year period, around eight years and 10 months had been lost, at least, in headteacher absences across Wales, and 108 headteachers had been off for more than six weeks. This is a concerning backdrop at a time when your Government is seeking to improve school standards. So, what are you doing to reduce the pressure on headteachers, particularly given the shortage of applications that are coming in for new headship posts when they become vacant?

Thank you for that question, Darren. Securing, nurturing, and inspiring school leaders now and for the future is an important priority for the national mission. That's why, last year, we launched the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales, so that we can better support those who are already in the job, or those who aspire to leadership in our education system, to get the support that they need. There are statutory measures in place to support all employees, including teaching staff, to maintain their health and well-being. And, as you will be aware, we are undertaking work with how we can ensure that schools are places where well-being can be nurtured, and that's as important for the staff as it is for the pupils within the school. We will be working—. As you will be aware, a number of reports have been commissioned and workstreams are under way with regard to workload. One positive example has been the introduction of the business manager pilots, which takes tasks and duties away from headteachers so that they have got more time to think about curriculum and teaching and learning. And we will continue to work with our local authorities, the regional consortia and the headteacher unions themselves to see what more we can do. Of course, we demand high standards of our school leaders; they are integral to the delivery of the national mission, but obviously we want to do that in a way, as I said, that is nurturing and supportive, not punitive, and, of course, our reforms to curriculum assessment measures have an important part to play in that. 

Minister, would you agree with me that we should recognise and celebrate excellent standards of education in Wales, such as those provided by St Julian's Primary School in my constituency, which had an Estyn inspection in October of last year that assessed them as having excellence right across the board? It's a just-under 700 pupil primary school. It's a pioneer school in terms of digital competency and professional learning. I'd very much like to pay tribute to the staff, the school governors, the parents and the children, and I'm sure you'd like to do the same. 

John, you're absolutely right—we need to challenge underperformance where we find it in the Welsh education system, but we also need to recognise and celebrate success where we find it in the Welsh education system. Too often, we are ready to talk our teaching processionals and their efforts down. St Julian's Primary School—a school that I've had the privilege to visit to see the work that they are doing in terms of digital competency—is a fantastic school that does a wonderful, wonderful job for the children who attend. I would like to join you in paying tribute to the work of the headteacher and the team at St Julian's. Of course, I look forward to joining them, because, if they've been given 'excellent' by Estyn, they will be at the Estyn annual awards dinner and I will have a chance to congratulate them personally, which I will look forward to doing.