Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:57 pm on 13 January 2021.
Thank you, Llyr. I have to say, I do not know whether additional guidance is what we need. Often we hear from practitioners that Welsh Government is producing far too much guidance and it becomes a burden in itself in trying to keep up with it all. We published our distance learning plans in July. They have been kept updated. There is further guidance, as I said that, will be published today with a focus on our older learners. I think it's really important to recognise the huge strides the Welsh education system has taken at this time, and that's not just me saying that; Estyn, our school inspector, were involved in a number—. Well, actually, they visited all educational authorities during the autumn term. Again, sometimes that was not welcomed by our LEAs because they felt they had enough to do doing their day-to-day job without being answerable to Estyn, but Estyn have been able to provide individual support and recommendations to each of our LEAs, and say that there has been a step change.
While we're on the issue of commissioners, the Children's Commissioner for Wales carried out a listening day back in November, and the unanimous verdict of every young person who took part in the online service said that the online offering of schools had improved markedly from the first lockdown. Now, clearly, we need to continue to identify those schools that find this a challenge and to support those schools to understand the barriers that they have. There is advice and guidance available on Hwb, as well as an opportunity for peers to support one another and to learn from and another. And I have to commend GwE, the regional consortia in the north, who I understand, from speaking to headteachers in the north, have made tremendous efforts during the autumn term to provide professional learning opportunities for practitioners to improve their skills in this area, and we continue to work with LEAs to ensure that the offer is consistent and high quality.