Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Suzy Davies. 

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Minister, can I just begin by thanking you for facilitating the briefing on the new curriculum yesterday, which Lynne Neagle organised? I think the overriding impression I've had at this stage is that this wholesale change of philosophy and culture is going to take some time to grasp and convert into real-life lesson plans, especially as schools, of course, will have to be delivering two sets of school curricula at the same time, on squeezed budgets, for some time. But, just because it's difficult doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it, and while I might feel the same about funding formula, perhaps we can leave that for another day.

I'm a one-nation Conservative, so I believe in co-production, big society and empowered individuals taking on personal responsibility as well as being under a duty to empower those around them. And so I will support the aims of a curriculum that helps raise young people who are resilient, compassionate problem solvers who recognise the imperative to contribute their talents to society as well as their taxes to the state. But they will also need a depth of subject knowledge based not just on their own experiences and choices. This is not a content-based curriculum—that was repeated a number of times yesterday—but it will have content based to a significant degree on staff and pupil choice. How will this proliferation of content be quality controlled?  

Well, first of all, can I say I'm glad that the Member found the briefing yesterday useful? And could I also share her thanks to Lynne Neagle, the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, who helped facilitate that briefing? I'm grateful to all the Members from the committee and, indeed, beyond the committee who took the time to come and listen to the presentations yesterday with regard to the new curriculum? 

I think it is really important to recognise that the curriculum is not devoid of knowledge. It is a curriculum that builds on knowledge, skills and the experiences that I believe children and young people in Wales will need to ensure that, when they leave school, they will go on to live successful personal lives and will be able to contribute successfully to the nation. 

With regard to quality control, obviously there are assessment arrangements that were also published yesterday, which demonstrate where we would expect a child to be in relation to the six areas of learning and experience broadly at stages throughout their educational career. And, of course, we will continue to assess those children via our innovative online assessment regimes, as well as a teacher assessment. And, of course, the overall policy of the curriculum experience will be underpinned by our accountability regime—the individual accountability of teachers, the role of governors, the role of our regional consortia or as our school improvement service and, ultimately, of course, Estyn, which will be visiting schools more often under our new regime than they currently do presently, and they will be there to look at ensuring that the curriculum that is being delivered is one of high quality. 

Well, thank you for that answer. I think it's actually quite a difficult question to answer outside the traditional world in terms of monitoring and assessment that you've just explained. I actually quite welcome the idea that it's going to be a more varied curriculum, but how to keep tabs on that I think is going to prove quite difficult. And how those links work over the next few years I think is going to be pretty important, because I think it would be fair to say that every new system will have its bedding-in period, even with the less demanding changes that we've seen in the made-in-Wales qualifications recently in moving some children from BTECs to GCSEs, and I know why you did that. We have seen some confusion about how to benchmark standards. Obviously, Qualifications Wales has the main role here, but I would like your view on how we are going to avoid prejudicing the transitional guinea pig cohort of learners—if I can call them that—who are going to be taught by teachers who may have had the CPD but have had no actual experience of teaching the curriculum these first few years. Because we did see casualties when we switched from the grammar to the comprehensive system all those years ago, before the new system bedded in. And I just want to make sure, as I'm sure you do, that you don't want to see that risk repeated. 

The link between the new curriculum and what qualifications look like is still very unclear to me. So, how will you help learners and professionals protect standards and achievement in this transition period so that they're not compromised in the eyes of FEs, HEs and employers in the future who will have huge influence over a learner's post-16 choices? 

Well, Suzy, the first step that we are taking to ensure that children's life chances are not compromised was the decision that I made previously to roll out the curriculum over a number of years, especially in the secondary sector. It would have been unimaginable, indeed unthinkable, to think about changing the curriculum during a child's maybe crucial year 10 or year 11 period of study. And that's why you will be aware that the curriculum will begin to be rolled out in our secondary schools in 2022 in year 7, and will follow that cohort through. 

With regard to a bedding-in period, you will be aware, again, that I took the quite difficult decision to delay the implementation of the curriculum, having listened to teachers who told me very clearly that they would need more time to prepare themselves and get ready. So, we had the draft published yesterday. This is now a period of genuine feedback for people to engage—not just the teaching profession, but also the employers, the colleges, the universities that you talked about so that they can feed back to us also. The final curriculum will be published in January of next year, thus giving schools, again, a significant period of time before it becomes statutory before they have to deliver it so that they can truly engage in it.

You will be aware that, throughout this process, Qualifications Wales have been deeply embedded. They have already begun their work on the implications for end of year 11 examinations, as a result of the changes to the curriculum. They are very clear in their advice to me that the GCSE brand is a strong brand—it is well understood by parents, pupils, employers, further education and higher education and they expect GCSEs to remain, but clearly the content may need to change. And we will continue to work with the independent body, Qualifications Wales, to ensure that the currency of those examinations will give Welsh students and young people a passport into the world of work and into the world of study, whether they do that in Wales or whether they choose to do that somewhere else.

Thank you for those answers. Yes, I've spoken to Qualifications Wales myself about this and I am still unclear about what it is that will be examined in approximately seven years' time in a GCSE. I appreciate that, in the period in between, we might get some clarity on that, but I still do have concerns about those individual teachers who start in year seven, and, even if they're with the same children until year 11 or 12, they will have had no prior experience of teaching this. That's why I asked this question about will there be some kind of—I don't want to call it 'special arrangements', but breathing space for the children who are caught up in the process in its first seven years.

I just want to move on now, still with the curriculum: Welsh Government often invites us to look at international comparators and I'm sure that we'll be invited to do so again, quite rightly, during the debates on removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Professor Donaldson's proposals were inspired by the experience of other countries—as we know, not least some of those were in Scandinavia—and we've had the chance to see them in practice, closer to home, in Scotland. Now, the Scotland experience hasn't been without its problems and you have reassured us, Minister, on more than one occasion that you've learned lessons from Scotland to avoid their mistakes. Recently, Scotland has learnt from its own mistakes. All of its councils have instructed their schools to teach CPR on the secondary school curriculum. It is compulsory on the curriculum in 20 per cent of European countries, including Norway and Denmark—Scandinavian countries—and in Sweden, where it's not, guess what, the chances of surviving a cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting are lower than in the rest of Scandinavia. Even America is on the ball now, with this training being compulsory in 36 states. If you are prepared to learn lessons from Scotland, why won't you learn this one?

Let me begin my saying that life-saving skills and emergency first-aid procedures are clearly incredibly important, and I am very keen to raise awareness of those skills. I would encourage everyone to learn first aid, whether they are schoolchildren or indeed have left school. But it is for the schools themselves to decide if and how best to provide first-aid learning and those opportunities within the curriculum. 

As you'll be aware from the briefing yesterday, the curriculum does include the new area of learning and experience of health and well-being—an AoLE that has been broadly welcomed by all who have given feedback to date and there will be ample opportunity within that AoLE for these subjects to be taught in schools. 

As you may have seen over the weekend, Buzzfeed reported that the UK Government was considering abolishing home fee status for EU nationals studying in England post 2021. I understand that the current Welsh Government position protects the current situation up until 2019-20 academic year here in Wales, and we, as a party, would support that. But, just in the interest of continuity and clarity, can you confirm if the Welsh Government will not abolish home status and financial support for EU students post 2020?

The Member is quite correct—we have confirmed that we will continue to provide tuition fee support to students from the EU who start their studies in the 2019-20 academic year. I would like very much to clarify the position for 2020-21, but I am unable to confirm until we have a clear position from the UK Government on the provision of loans.

Okay, thank you very much for that. And if I could ask for when you think, in your deliberations with the UK Government, you will be able to get that confirmation—from a previous response that you've given, I think it was to the education committee, you said it was because of Treasury rules. So, I'm understanding that that isn't now so much of a challenge for you. And, if that isn't so much of a challenge, could you tell us if you could continue with the support for students post 2019? Because, as far as I understand it, we already have that funding in place for EU students. So, could we not therefore continue the current settlement as is—i.e., we've already got that in our budgets as part of what we've agreed here in the Assembly—because of course it's really important that European students don't choose to go to another part of the UK? For example, Scotland, they've said that they will extend it beyond 2021, and so we don't want to lose out when students will be making those decisions in the next year to decide potentially not to go to Wales and go to Scotland instead, when we need the financial backing from European students, because we are losing some of those students already because of, unfortunately, the discussions around Brexit.

Well, firstly, let me be clear that I want as many students from the EU, indeed as many students from around the world, to come and study here at our universities. We have a significant higher education offer, which would be of huge benefit to them. If I could just clarify to the Member, it is not our own budgets that are pertinent to this point—we need to have confirmation from the Westminster Government about the provision of loans. If that does not come forward, the Welsh Government would have to guarantee around £45 million of support to EU students to ensure that they would have the funding in place for the entirely of their study. I'm sure the Member would agree with me that would pose a significant risk to the Welsh Government budget. That's why we require clarity from the Westminster Government around access to loans. Without that clarity, I do not feel that I'm in a position to expose our budgets to those risks. I have pressed the UK higher education Minister, Mr Skidmore, on this issue at every meeting that I have with him. My understanding of the situation now is that we are unlikely to receive a decision or publicly have confirmation from the Westminster Government during the purdah period for the European elections.

Thank you for that reply, and I'm not asking from a position of hostility, I'm asking from a position of support, because of course we would want to support the Government's stance on this because we acknowledge how important those EU students would be to the Welsh economy, but also to enhance the lives of the students not only from the continent of Europe, but the lives of students who are here in Wales. So, if there's anything we can do to put influence on the UK Government in regard to the loan, then we would be fully supportive of being able to do that to show that Wales is open for business, despite the deliberations around Brexit. 

On the third and final question, I just wanted to ask in relation to continuing the theme on the curriculum reform, but specifically in relation to further education. I've heard that many—. There has been welcoming of the actual change in process, but I've heard from some in the sector that they are worried about the progression to work-based learning and to post-16 education in relation to the transition. So, can you guarantee that this process will happen in a seamless way so that, when people are leaving school with these changes in qualifications, when they're accessing post-16 education or work-based learning, those skills will be able to be adaptable to that environment and that you will be engaging with the post-16 education sector in that vein to include them fully in any deliberations that you will be having on the changes to the curriculum?

Well, I'm grateful for the Member's support of the Welsh Government's stance with regard to the desire to continue to welcome EU students to study at our universities. I'm grateful for her understanding that, until we have clarity around those students' ability to access loans, which comes from the Westminster Treasury, we're not in a position to make further announcements.

Can I assure the member that FE have been intricately involved in the pioneer process in the development of the curriculum to date? Clearly, we would want any child emerging from our schools, following the implementation of the curriculum, with a set of qualifications, skills and aptitudes that will allow them to go on to pursue either the world of work or further education study, whether that be in apprenticeships, whether that be traditional academic A-level courses or vocational courses, and representatives of the FE sector have been involved to date. But may I use this opportunity, Presiding Officer, to encourage everybody who has an interest in Welsh education to engage in the period that we are in now, as we test, refine and challenge ourselves as to the development of our new curriculum—the first time in the history of this nation that we will have devised our own curriculum for our children and young people?