Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 5 June 2019.
Well, Presiding Officer, given that the question is about schools in the south Wales Valleys, can I give a warm welcome to Tredegar Comprehensive School pupils, who I think have joined us in the viewing gallery this afternoon? Tredegar comprehensive is the old school of Alun Davies AM. I'm not sure whether the children have a suitable role model in Mr Davies, but it's something to aspire to. And I do know that some of the pupils who are with us today are ex-pupils of Deighton Primary School, which, again, is Mr Davies's old primary school, whom I had the pleasure of meeting when they were in the primary school.
But returning to Dawn's question, can I agree with you, Dawn, that it's totally unacceptable for children's success to be determined by their social or economic circumstances? And underpinning all of our work is the belief that someone's ability to benefit from education should not be determined by where they live, what their background is or what their parents' income is. As I said in my first answer, we are investing unprecedented amounts in the pupil development grant—over £190 million last year—to improve outcomes for some of our most disadvantaged learners, and we're also looking at different types of opportunities. We have committed a total of £1.5 million to fund shared apprenticeships across the Valleys taskforce area, and our junior apprenticeship programme offers year 10 and 11 pupils the opportunity to study full time for a future career in a college setting, from the age of 14, and that is specifically targeted at those children who may have low aspirations or are in danger of being not in education, employment or training.