Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 15 January 2020.

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Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 1:47, 15 January 2020

Thank you for that answer. I understood that the targeting was at areas of deprivation, but it seemed that, in the way that it's been crafted, it was able to have a slightly wider remit than, perhaps, the pupil deprivation grant.

This £36 million, though—you'll have seen it in the press this week—has already prompted some questions about its value for money in terms of its outcomes. You've also heard that schools are worried that maintaining the levels of employment of all of these new staff, and actually populating the new rooms that this £36 million may have bought, may be pretty difficult when this class-size funding commitment comes to an end.

Some of those schools that have used this money will also be eligible for a considerable amount of pupil development grant income, but, of course, not all of them. So, firstly, can you tell me whether you're expecting the extra PDG that you've announced for infant-age children just this week to pick up the cost of this activity from 2020-21, which would soak up any rise in that budget line?

Secondly, what do you say to rural schools that may have made that investment in staff and buildings to reduce infant class sizes, but don't have access to high levels of PDG, which also supports the sustainability of schools in terms of staffing numbers, whose provision of SEN support, which goes back to my first question today, is doubly difficult due to sparsity and therefore, they can't tackle the effects of poverty in the way that they would like and, presumably, in the way that you would like?

Some schools in my region really do quite well through the central education budget, but my rural schools do not. And I can only imagine what this looks like in your own overwhelmingly rural constituency.