8. Will the Minister provide an update on the roll-out of online personalised assessments for learners and schools? OAQ54362

Thank you, Hefin. I made a written statement updating Members on the roll-out of online personalised assessments on 3 September. By the end of the summer term, over 268,000 learners had successfully taken online numeracy procedural  assessments. Following extensive development work and trialling, reading assessments will be available to schools from October.

In addition to that, the Minister will know I wrote to her on 16 July on behalf of a cluster of schools in Caerphilly county borough, particularly Glyn-Gaer in my constituency. They had concerns about the way the tests were happening in the school, the fact that you couldn't carry out certain activities within the tests, and that the results were difficult for teachers to interpret easily and quickly. She mentioned in her statement that changes have been made and improvements have been addressed. But with that in mind, can you confirm that you've met with the schools that wrote to you, or your officials have met with the schools that have written to you, and what actions have been taken directly with those schools as a result?

Well, I'm grateful to the Member for making the representations that he has done on behalf of that cluster of schools. We have acted on that feedback, not only from yourself, but from other schools, and we have, over the summer, made a number of refinements to the system that should address the concerns that were raised in your letter. By introducing assessments on a phased roll-out, we are able to use the experience of maths to ensure that we don't fall into some of those bear traps as we roll out with reading this autumn. As promised in my response, officials are already discussing with the relevant regional consortium how they can best engage with that particular group of schools, and I understand that, in response to the invitation in my letter, a teacher from one of the schools has already confirmed her attendance at the next teacher panel for the review of the online numerical reasoning assessment, which will be held in October. So, those teachers are actively engaged in the process, and I'm very grateful for them taking the time to do just that; it's really helpful.

Minister, I welcome, too, the value that these online assessments can add to the assessment programme the teachers undertake, but one of the concerns that have been raised with me is that, obviously, there is a bit of a digital divide in our country between those children who perhaps will not have the opportunity to be as skilled as others in the use of computers and don't even have access to a computer in their home, or access to broadband at home, where, of course, others will have, and they could potentially gain an advantage. What have you got built in to these systems to make sure that those sorts of issues are considered in the way that these assessments are undertaken?

Firstly, the Member will be aware that the first part of our new curriculum is the roll-out of the digital competence framework and, therefore, there is an expectation on schools to address these skills with their entire pupil population. With regard to information technology facilities within schools and ensuring that there is equity of provision across the piece, you'll be aware that the Government has invested heavily—tens of millions of pounds—to ensure connectivity for our schools. I'm very pleased to say, and I'm sure every Member of the Chamber will be pleased to hear it, that our final school in Pembrokeshire, which was the last outstanding school in the programme, has now been connected, and in doing that we've also solved some of the community connectivity issues as well.

Our attention therefore has now turned to supporting schools with the IT infrastructure within their schools, and the Member will be aware that, prior to the summer recess, I announced a £50 million capital investment project in edtech. Each local authority at the moment is conducting individual school surveys so that we understand where individual schools are with their infrastructure within their schools, and therefore Welsh Government will then be working with local authorities, with that £50 million, to ensure that there is equity of provision within schools.

Outside of schools, the Member will also be aware of the deal that the Welsh Government has struck to supply Microsoft Office software to all schools in Wales, paid for by the Welsh Government, and that software is also available for pupils, to be able to use on devices at home, so parents will not have to buy a licence for Microsoft Office software and their children will be able to use their log on in the home. Again, that helps address same of this digital divide, if a parent is struggling to find money to pay for those licences.

The final question, question 9, Paul Davies.