5. Statement by the Minister For Education: Update on Education Provision

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:49 pm on 3 June 2020.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 2:49, 3 June 2020

Firstly, I think it's really important that we have a testing, tracing and protect regime that is robust to support the safe next stage of educational operations. You'll be aware that SAGE papers made it very clear that, in opening up schools to more pupils, testing and tracing had to be in place. We will have a month of the testing and tracing regime here in Wales before additional children will be going into school. That gives us the confidence that that system is up and running and is robust.

With regard to antibody testing, we will be including teaching and educational staff who've been working in our hubs to undergo antibody testing. That will be able to enhance our understanding of how—if there are any—the disease works in a school, childcare setting. The latest figures that I saw is that the vast majority of tests that have been carried out on those working in educational institutions have come back as negative. We have had some cases but, of course, it is impossible to know whether that person acquired the virus within their workplace or whether they acquired it when they were in their local supermarket or when they were having, potentially, other interactions. What we do know is that children are very, very, very rarely the index case in any provision of the disease—very, very rare indeed that they have passed that disease, the virus, on to anybody else. And, of course, all teachers are currently eligible—as is the Welsh general public now—for testing, and we will take further advice as to how routine testing should happen, but the TTP regime is absolutely crucial to us.

With regard to checking what is happening at the moment, we have a number of ways in which we are doing that. Parentkind recently did an independent survey of parents. Eighty-four per cent of Welsh parents said they were satisfied with the support that they had received from their children's schools. Obviously, there is a continued road here for local education authorities. Their job of supporting their schools hasn't gone away, neither has the role of regional school improvement services.

We have asked regional school improvement services to begin a methodical way of looking at practice at the moment. Their first report will be published on 19 June, and then we would expect that report to follow on a regular basis to ascertain the levels of engagement and the nature of the engagement of online learning, and that will report at regular intervals so that we can have assurance as to what schools are doing. Estyn have already begun work on good practice guides, looking at how the system has responded to the emergency and ensuring that best practice is understood and spread as we move forward.

Can I just say that I think schools have moved with tremendous speed to embrace new ways of learning? That will continue to develop, because what we are facing is a prolonged period of education where there will be a mixture of online learning and face-to-face contact. But all the evidence suggests that online learning is greatly enhanced when that can be supported by regular face-to-face sessions.