Improving Educational Performance

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 12 March 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:17, 12 March 2019

Well, I thank the Member for that. I congratulate her on her success in lobbying for twenty-first century schools expenditure in her constituency. It was a real pleasure to be with her on Thursday of last week at the most strikingly beautiful site that the Cwmaman Primary School now occupies, and to be shown by the headteacher and others the new opportunities that that brings for allowing children to learn in the open air. It's a really truly beautiful site and those opportunities are very real there. As the Member knows, we put great emphasis in the foundation phase particularly on outdoor learning, but that goes right through to the Welsh baccalaureate in its community challenge component, where, again, young people are encouraged to be out and about and learning in the world outside the school.

The new buildings that we are providing through band A of the twenty-first century schools programme and now through band B as well mean that right across Wales we have a more extensive building programme than any time in 50 years, and it is not simply the number of buildings that are being provided, it is the quality of those buildings, the fantastic quality of Cwmaman Primary School and the opportunities that it provides to allow children to thrive inside the school building and beyond it.