Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:08 pm on 4 March 2020.
I completely accept that point, but if you're in a world where qualifications mean so much, we need to be acting in a way that doesn't artificially prevent children who have care experience from being able to access that and getting the most out of qualifications if they can. So it's certainly not a position that everyone's got to have 6,000 GCSEs, regardless of their background.
Nevertheless, I think this is an important point, Rhianon. The children's commissioner herself has pointed out that 43 per cent of children who are looked after or have been looked after aren't engaged in education, training or employment at the age of 19, and that's despite some of them now having pretty good GCSEs. And it does compare with 5 per cent of their peers. So, while qualifications absolutely aren't the only thing we should be thinking about, it does matter that the children who can get them do get them. What contribution does it make to your well-being if, after a lifetime of school, you emerge without a single qualification? How easy it must be to write yourself off when you've barely started on your adult life.
The Minister for Education, of course, is putting well over £100 million into the pupil development grant. I imagine you're frustrated with progress a little bit on the outcomes for our most deprived children, including our looked-after children. Estyn point out, of course, that provision is very variable, so that maybe is something where we can have some ministerial oversight. But your version of our looked-after children premium is going to consortia; you mentioned that yourself just a few weeks ago. I'm quite keen to find out how much money is going directly to schools to help them help looked-after children negotiate the new curriculum, and contribute to a whole-school system that really nurtures looked-after children, because online resources are one thing but teachers need time to assess and use them.
Deputy Minister, I think this is where some cross-Government work would be useful. Ministers and Members have talked about ACEs for a long time, and I was a bit disappointed to know that it's only now that a holistic approach, which Siân Gwenllian mentioned, to children and education specifically is being explored, when well-being and the capacity to achieve potential are well interwoven.
I just want to finish, Dirprwy Lywydd, on the point that Janet Finch-Saunders raised about the Skolfam programme developed in Sweden—and the Welsh Government love Sweden—which is a system for children in foster care, based entirely on multi-agency commitment and mapping. It saw the attainment of participants improve considerably and results in standardised tests improve significantly. But what mattered to me was looking at the number of young children who achieved the required results to attend post-16 education: we go back to life chances. A hundred per cent on this scheme achieved those grades compared with 67 per cent of children in care who did not. Now, that 100 per cent of children, that's 100 per cent of them reassured that they had a future that defied their past, and I think that's the kind of ambition we need to be looking for here in the Welsh Government. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd.