6. What assessment has the First Minister made of the effect of lockdown on educational attainment in North Wales? OQ55364

Llywydd, no research of which I am aware suggests that the effect of lockdown on education attainment has varied by geography. Our focus has been on vulnerable or disadvantaged learners, wherever they live in Wales. 

Thank you. First Minister, a major study of home schooling during lockdown by University College London's Institute of Education has highlighted some worrying findings about how children's education in Wales may be suffering. They suggest that, on your watch, children in Wales are doing less schoolwork and receiving less online education than their peers across the rest of the UK while schools have been shut down. Will your Government commission an inquiry to look at why and how children in Wales appear to have been let down so badly by those entrusted with their education?

Well, Llywydd, I certainly wouldn't be prepared to do that on the back of one study that I've not myself had any opportunity to look at. I think that there have been some outstanding examples in schools across Wales of the way in which teachers have been able to respond to the challenges of coronavirus and providing an education in the context that it has created. What we are now determined to do is to create a set of national expectations that mean that all schools in Wales in the autumn are able to draw on the experience of the very best to make sure that there are minimum attendance standards in school, that there are standards for frequency of contact when not in school and that quality of work assessment, marking and feedback standards are common across the whole of Wales.

We will deploy Estyn inspectors from September to make sure that good practice is spread throughout the educational system in Wales, to make sure that the very best, which has been, I think, outstanding where it has been on offer, is on offer more broadly to all children in Wales. 

Thank you, First Minister.