Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 21 October 2020.
Well, Minister, the news has been full of the negotiation between the Prime Minister and city region mayors, and the different deals on whether gyms, for example, should be kept open. But when the Welsh Local Government Association leaders speak as one, with one voice, on something as important as our schools, it seems that Welsh Government is perfectly content to instruct and not to listen. And I hope that the implication isn't that those leaders haven't given due consideration to the technical advice group advice, and I hope that some of the accusations levelled at Welsh Conservatives yesterday, simply for taking a different view from Welsh Government, don't attach to those leaders for also having a different view.
Minister, we all know what the children's commissioner has had to say about further reducing children and young people's access to an experience of education that they have a right to expect, with particularly serious consequences for poorer children and those in care. The age of those children isn't necessarily the determinant of how well they can learn at home. We know what some parents and young people are saying about the quality of some of the blended learning, and the work that they get sent home, and the existence of Google classrooms doesn't necessarily mean anyone attending is learning what they need do. We also know that secondary schools are now geared up to teach mainly in school, not to find out from leaked letters that expectations are going to change without any decent lead-in time. What we don't know, with all this chopping and changing, is how Welsh Government is supporting the rapidly deteriorating mental health of our teachers and lecturers. Can you tell us, please?