Part of 5. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:16 pm on 24 June 2020.
Minister, I'd like to place on record my personal thanks to you for the absolutely phenomenal effort you have made to maximise children's time in school this summer and, crucially, for putting children first through all of this.
Garnteg school in my constituency have been truly outstanding in lockdown, but we know that the variation in what children have been receiving across Wales has been huge. I'd just like to read Members some words my eight-year-old constituent Florence wrote to me recently when she nominated her teachers at Garnteg as her COVID superheroes:
'Mrs Lewis is still setting us work and helping us learn. I like Mrs Lewis because whenever I need help, I can tell her. She has a little girl called Lily and she joined us on the video call. On the video call, I showed her my dog Pippa and I told Mrs Lewis when Pippa's birthday was. She liked my dog. On one video call, Mrs Lewis read the class part of a story, and it was lovely to hear her voice.'
If I had time, I would read Florence's whole essay because it conveys far better than I ever could just why that personal contact with teachers really, really matters to children. But unfortunately, too few children have received high-quality contact with teachers in lockdown. Minister, I know that you are doing absolutely everything that you can to ensure that children get more time in school. When schools closed in March, it was an emergency. It's not an emergency now and it won't be in September. What more can we do to ensure that all children in Wales have high-quality personal contact with their teachers, going forward?