Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:05 pm on 28 January 2020.
I thank Lynne Neagle for her comments, and I'm delighted to hear that there were practitioners yesterday talking in such warm terms about the health and well-being AoLE. You and I were both in the ministerial task and finish group yesterday, and we heard from the primary school headteacher representative about the opportunity that the new curriculum gives them, and she was very excited about it.
The health and well-being AoLE looks to, specifically in terms of what matters, develop children's understanding that physical health and well-being have lifelong benefits; that how we process and respond to experiences affects our mental health and our emotional well-being; and also that our emotional decision-making impacts on the quality of our lives and on the lives of others; and that how we engage with social influences shapes who we are and affects our health and well-being; and, lastly, that healthy relationships are fundamental to our well-being as human beings.
Those are the 'what matters' statements that underpin our health and well-being AoLE, and they chime precisely with the need for all children to access that to address good mental health and well-being in the way that you have just described, Lynne. To have this on an equal path with traditional subjects of education gives us a real opportunity to address some of the social problems that this parliament spends a lot of time talking about, and responds to what children and young people themselves are crying out for.