Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:12 pm on 25 September 2019.
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.