4. Statement by the Minister for Education: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:31 pm on 29 April 2020.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 4:31, 29 April 2020

The number of vulnerable children who are eligible to attend our hubs has been low, but I am pleased to report that since the end of what would have been the traditional Easter recess, we have seen an increase in those numbers, and we will continue to work across Government and with our local authorities to ensure that all parents are aware of the support that is available to them. We have received assurances from local authorities that those children who have a social worker have been risk-assessed, and contact is being kept with those children, either by their social worker or indeed by their teachers. We do know that some children are vulnerable but they don't have a social worker, or they don't have a statement for special educational needs, and we know that schools in many areas have been very diligent in doing welfare checks on children whom they have concerns about, and we will continue to work with local authorities to ensure that the right children are receiving a service in the right way. But let's be clear: we have told parents consistently that the safest place for their child is at home, and it should not be, then, a surprise to us when parents have taken that advice to heart and have kept their children at home.

The continuity of learning plan will continue to adapt. We published the policy statement last week. The next stage of that work is to be able to develop and get agreement across Wales on what a reasonable expectation should be of individual headteachers and teachers in this new form of education in Wales, and we will indeed want to be able to track that those expectations that we have are actually happening on the ground.

With regard to the digital divide, I do not regard it as paltry to be the only part of the United Kingdom that has made available Microsoft Office to all its pupils and students. We are the first in the world, as I said, to make available Adobe software to all students. I am acutely aware, however, that there will be some students who do not have the hardware or the connectivity at home to avail themselves of our Hwb platform, but, as I said, over 150,000 children a day are logging into that platform. That's why, as we discussed earlier this week, Siân, and as I referenced in my statement, I'll be making a statement tomorrow on how we will use Welsh Government investment to provide additional hardware to students who do not have it at the moment, and MiFi connections to allow them to have the data connections that they will need to be able to utilise other platforms going forward. And that will be to all children—not to a selected group of children, which appears to be the case across the border, where the emphasis is on those children just taking exam classes. But we'll need to work with our local authorities and our teachers to identify those families that are in need of that assistance. It's no mean feat, but we are doing that work.

With regard to online live streaming of classes, at this stage, we are recommending that schools do not do that, and we have recommended at this stage they do not do that for very good child protection and safeguarding issues—both for the children themselves and for the staff. Hwb allows teachers to record their lessons and for students to be able to download them at a time that is convenient to those children. That is because, as you can imagine, we have potentially some very young children, and teachers working from their home environments, where perhaps it would be inappropriate for children to be seeing teachers in their home environments. I have to say I have seen more of some of my colleagues' bedrooms than I would have hoped to during this process of endless Zoom and Skype meetings—that's not really appropriate in an educational setting.

So, we are taking a very risk-averse stance at this moment, while we evaluate what is safe and what is the appropriate thing to do in these new, challenging circumstances. So, we may well change that advice, but, at the moment, live streaming of lessons from teachers in their homes into children's homes is not recommended—also recognising that teachers may see something on that screen that could be misunderstood, but would have a professional duty to report what they had seen. So, these are not easy things as simply saying we can allow teachers to stream live lessons in real time. We will reflect on this, we will continue to have discussions with educational practitioners and the unions, and that policy may well evolve over time, but, at this moment, we do not recommend it.