3. Statement by the Minister for Education: Managing Workload and Reducing Bureaucracy

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:15 pm on 11 June 2019.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 4:15, 11 June 2019

Thank you very much for your statement and for your earlier remarks, particularly about the fair pay for supply teachers—that is very welcome.

I just wanted to probe a little bit further on how standard is it to have lesson planning and evaluation done by teachers collectively, appropriately, in their year group or key stage, because we've all read the alarming figures about burn-out of the teaching profession, and people leaving the profession only a few years after they've been trained. So, this is obviously a very important issue. But in St Teilo's Church in Wales High School where I am a governor, as you'll be aware, all the teachers do their lesson planning and evaluation collaboratively with other members of staff, which enables them to share good practice, share good ideas and share their strengths and weaknesses. It seems to me rather obvious that that is a positive outcome for the pupils, because we don't need good ideas to be monopolised, we need them to be shared for the benefit of all pupils. So, I just wondered if you could tell us how this workload and well-being charter and toolkit are going to roll out the good practice that's going on, I'm sure, across many parts of the education system, to ensure that that collaborative working becomes standard and that people think it's fun to work together on ensuring that the challenges of the next day or the next week are going to be shared and, therefore, less burdensome.