6. Statement by the Minister for Education: The Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:53 pm on 8 July 2020.

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Photo of Lynne Neagle Lynne Neagle Labour 3:53, 8 July 2020

Thank you, and thank you, Minister, for your statement. As you're aware, the committee has done a great deal of work in this Senedd scrutinising the progress on the development of the curriculum to date, and I'm certainly looking forward to the committee undertaking the Stage 1 scrutiny of this Bill.

I do want to give a very, very warm welcome to the publication of the guidance on a whole-school approach to mental health, which was published today. As the Minister knows, I've been very involved in the development of that guidance through the ministerial task and finish group and the stakeholder group, and I'd like to thank everybody that's been involved in it and encourage all Members to read it. I've read lots of Welsh Government documents over the years, but I've never read one that has filled me with such hope on this issue. I'd also like to thank the Minister for listening to representations from myself and from third sector organisations like Samaritans Cymru and Mind, and placing this on a statutory footing, because our children's mental health is too precious to be left to chance.

So, with that in mind, I'm sure that the Minister knows me well enough by now to know that I will still want to scrutinise very carefully the arrangements within the Bill to deliver the mental health aspects of the health and well-being area of learning experience, and I would just like to ask the Minister to say a little bit more about how she believes the whole-school approach guidance will fit in with the attempts in the curriculum to deliver that very important area for our children and young people's mental health.