There is one remaining item of business, and that is the short debate, and I call on Suzy Davies to speak on the topic she's chosen.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Thank you very much. I'd like to give a minute each to Mike Hedges and Laura Jones.

Two weeks ago, I was eager to join the Minister and others at the Universities Wales civic mission showcase, and I'm pretty sure, Minister, in your response, you'll agree that it was a little oasis of nourishment and positivity when so many of us have been bound up in the challenges of COVID. And the highlight for me was hearing about two mentoring projects: one was the physics mentoring project, which places trained undergraduate and postgraduate students into secondary schools across Wales, to mentor year 10 and 11 students, promote physics qualifications and inspire future physicists; but the other was an established successful award-winning modern foreign languages mentoring scheme, which is also a collaboration between a number of our universities, and it's that I want to draw to Members' attention today.

Now, some of you will know that the Welsh Conservatives have had a long-standing commitment to creating a trilingual Wales, introducing a third language to children in primary school alongside our two national languages. And the scheme that I'll be talking about this afternoon supports the ambition of what we had in mind, but it's really helped me better understand how that might be better achieved. It also supports the new curriculum in its ambition of capturing children's attention and drawing them into the world of wonders that is the world of languages, and I'm very interested to see how this is going to play out. Because there's no doubt in my mind that living in an anglophone country has virtually extinguished curiosity in that world of wonders over the years, and it leaves us all the poorer for it. And, yes, you'll say, 'We're lucky, we're not just anglophone, we live in a part of the UK where more and more of our children are lucky enough to have two languages—two national languages'. Some of our citizens, of course, have more than two.

We are told often enough that being bilingual makes you better at other languages, and I'm going to be controversial and I'm going to dispute that. And I'll dispute it because my own bilingual children never bonded with their French lessons in school. It may well be a more accurate observation if we actively learned our other national language, but there's no great uptake of international languages in Welsh-medium schools, which may include, of course, many learners from non-Welsh-speaking backgrounds also. And I'll dispute it because we no longer explore and learn how our mother tongues work, and it strikes me that we acquire other languages in different ways, depending on our individual preferences for learning, and I guess it's a mixture of approaches for us all.

Welsh is my second language, and it's far from perfect, but I've learnt it by being exposed to it quite frequently, not least, actually, by being in this Senedd. However, I think I've been able to learn it like that, in a sort of low-level immersion way, because I've been versed in an old style of grammar rules and structures, that kind of learning, not just to three other languages at school but my first language as well. And I know that sounds a bit grim, but, actually, we didn't just sit at our desks being grilled in conjugations and declensions. I can still sing you that Latin pop song we composed, if you want me to. Or, I can enthrall you with the magic realism of my story of Mozart the hippopotamus, thrown together because I had all the vocabulary for a zoo but none for the life of the famous composer.

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

Now, what talking to Lucy Jenkins, the force of nature who leads the MFL student mentoring project, has done is made me better understand what my own experience actually was all those years ago. And those two examples show what that was, and that was being given the facility to play with languages, to see the connections and to be able to guess what something means, to take some risks and make as many mistakes as you like. And unlike maths, where the certainties are what makes it so satisfying, it's the anomalies with language that are the joyful surprises. And I'm sure that my WJEC examiner had an absolute ball reading my short piece on hunting, when I repeatedly confused the German for 'to shoot' with the German for 'to defecate'. And, okay, with me, it's just happy flirting with Italic and Germanic languages, but I can indulge in that because of my school experience. Today's learners have to try and replicate this creativity and exploration through semi-immersion techniques in lessons once a week, or maybe even once a fortnight, in schools that, by and large, have been trying to raise their science base for the last two decades. So, can we actually say hand on heart that we have a national narrative that says that we value international languages? Can we do that? And I suppose I would add here, if I should, that, if anything, much of the underlying mood music of our recent relationship with the EU has actually contributed to us valuing them less. 

And while we do tend to talk about a lack of physics teachers—you know, they're in single figures—how often do we lament the lack of our modern foreign languages teachers? I mean, they're pretty much in single figures too. And what have we done to introduce other globally important languages? Adoro l’italiano ma forse dovrei pensare di piú a imparare l'arabo o il mandarino. And this is another reason for my enthusiasm about this mentoring project: they talk about languages that we aren't learning too.

Now, working across Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff and Swansea universities, this project, funded through Global Futures, focuses on changing attitudes and perceptions of languages by training students to mentor years eight and nine—those learners in secondary school—to appreciate the value and benefits of language learning. And it's not just in Wales—this team has delivered this initiative, or a very similar initiative, created in England, a blended mentoring project, which they ran in Yorkshire for two years, following funding awarded by the Department for Education. And the most fully trialled model is a once a week face-to-face mentoring system over a six-week period, followed by an award ceremony at the host university. However, they've also got a blended version and a fully digital pilot being delivered through Hwb, which, of course, is very timely.

The group has also devised an online post-16 recovery programme to help overcome the effects of COVID. And the primary key performance indicator of the project has been to get more learners to choose to study a modern foreign language at GCSE, and its target learners are the 'probably not's and the 'no's, the learners who are pretty sure that this is not for them. This is not about the low-hanging fruit. And its success—well, I am summarising a lot of evidence when I say this, but it's effectively doubled the uptake of modern foreign languages in those schools where the scheme operates. So, in just those six weeks, it's converted some of the least interested into GCSE language students, as well as lighting the fire for those who really weren't sure at all. And while this does wonders for the morale of the language teachers in these schools, guess what? Above all, it has been the learners from economically disadvantaged areas who have benefitted the most from this direct personal contact with university students who've had a recent experience of living in a foreign country and, I suppose, who embody a wider range of experiences and options.

Now, Minister, I'm sure you'll want to talk about Erasmus+ in your response to this debate, but I really want you to talk about this scheme, which is every bit as compatible with Turing as it is with Erasmus+, and that really plays to that primary goal of Turing, which is about reaching the most economically disadvantaged areas. Can we please do Erasmus versus Turing another day, and today relish the success of the mentoring project, accepting that one of the main reasons this scheme is so successful is that connection between our year eight and nines and our domestic university students who have that recent experience of living abroad, which I'm sure we both still want to happen?

But the great news is there's no shortage of students wanting to be mentors. More apply than are taken on. There are 100 new mentors this year, chosen after a rigorous recruitment process, working with eight pupils, and, actually, it's a bit more than that, when it's offering the work online. Part of their work is overcoming the challenges we know about and that we've heard from the British Council often enough: 'These languages are hard'; 'It's boring'; 'Learners start too late compared to other subjects'; 'There's too little space on the timetable'; 'Parental attitudes'; and, I would say, this lack of national celebration. And they focus on what I started to talk about a little earlier, and that's the philosophy of languages, how do we communicate, language as being key to being curious, feeling comfortable playing with and experiencing other languages, and the safe space to get it wrong. And while I still say there's a place for using languages to sell careers and sell Wales, Wales, of course, is a part of the UK where we can demonstrate that we are not afraid of languages that aren't English.

I think this project does something very interesting. It asks our young people to—it asks them to think about who and what they are. So, are they kind? Do they want to make people feel welcome by offering them the chance to use their own language, to feel less vulnerable when trying to communicate with each other? Just think of the way we all feel when we're abroad and someone is kind enough to speak English to us. Language and how we use it is very personal and it's very exposing, and helping learners function in a world that's much bigger than the world they live in is one of the wonders of language. But another is the ability of languages to form intimate connections—small and human, yet vast and expansive at the same time. So, Minister, I hope, when we've both left this place, that the future of this project is confirmed as a permanent feature of our education offer.

Before I go, I'd like to just mention two things: first, is to recommend a Facebook page to you. Please, please, please look up Steve the vagabond and silly linguist—he's got a website too. But if you want to rediscover playing with languages, then I'd pay him a visit. And then, secondly, and for another day—this is one for the sixth Senedd and another Government altogether, including the UK Government—I wonder why we seem to be unable to deliver even one foreign language channel through Freeview. Grazie.

Can I thank Suzy Davies for giving me a minute in this debate and also for the enthralling way that she's led this debate, which I certainly enjoyed, and I'm sure other people did? In 2019, the BBC reported that foreign languages were being squeezed out of schools' timetables by core subjects like the Welsh baccalaureate. There's been a 29 per cent fall in language GCSE entries in Wales in five years—a steeper fall than in the rest of the United Kingdom. A GCSE pupil in a school in Wales will have a minimum of six and a maximum of eight mandatory subjects that they must take, with between two and four optional. For those options, as well as languages, they've got history, geography, ICT, drama, physical education, RE, and, as I've only got a minute, I can't read out the rest of them. But there's a whole range of options they've got, and they've got a maximum of four and a minimum of two. Is it any surprise that modern foreign languages are reducing? You're competing against some of the more popular subjects that are not themselves mandatory. Is there a solution to this? The solution is straightforward—I don't expect it to be done, but it's straightforward—if somebody wants to do two modern foreign languages, they only have to do the single science option, rather than a double science option. That would mean that pupils who don't like science—and I know what it's like, because I had a daughter who didn't like science at all, but who liked languages—give them the opportunity to do two languages. It's not going to happen otherwise. You've got two to four options—are you going to choose two languages out of those? Almost certainly not. If we want foreign languages to be used, it's really important that we don't make people do double science as well.

Thank you, Suzy, for letting me a have a minute in your debate. The learning of international languages I've always thought to be very important, and it's very regrettable that, in the current state system, we have a situation in Wales and the UK where our primary school education system merely pays lip service to them. I attended a Montessori school when I was two until four, a nursery, where I spoke French all the time. Everything was done in French. And I had no idea that that had happened until I got to comprehensive school and then, in my first French lesson, understood everything the teacher was saying and had no idea how I knew what she was talking about. The impact of learning languages at an early age is just phenomenal. That's when children are soaking in languages, and that's why I do French in the bath with my son now. It's just—. It's just—. Their brains are wanting to learn, learn, learn, so that's the time to learn the languages the very best, in my opinion. 

I've always been immensely proud to be Welsh and British most of the time, as we are world leaders in most things, but in languages we lag behind not only Europe but the rest of the world. Modern foreign languages like Spanish, Mandarin and so on—why we aren't learning them is beyond me, especially in an ever-changing world, particularly post Brexit, when we are naturally establishing an array of international partnerships now. It would be of great advantage to our future workforce if they were armed with a few languages. Welsh is great—all for it—but it is not much use on the international stage of business. Yes, English is one of the predominant languages in the world, but we shouldn't rely on everyone else speaking it just so we don't have to learn other languages. We should also be competitively using modern languages, not only for the obvious ever-increasing international networks that we're building now, but also because languages really teach people to engage more sensitively with other cultures and facilitate greater understanding of different heritages. 

I just—

Can you wind up? You've had more than a minute, sorry. 

Here's hoping the new curriculum will—[Inaudible.]

Thank you. Can I now ask the Minister for Education to reply to the debate? Kirsty Williams.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Well, I'm sure colleagues who have stayed to listen to the short debate this afternoon will agree with me that Suzy Davies's decision to retire from the Senedd is a real loss—it's a real loss to our work here, and I'd like to put on record my thanks to Suzy Davies for her service, not just to the people of South Wales West but the service to her nation. Suzy, your contribution, as I said, will be greatly missed. I'd also like to thank you for recognising the wonderful civic mission showcase that was recently hosted by Universities Wales. On coming into office, I challenged our higher education institutions to rediscover that sense of civic mission, and I'm so glad that they have embraced that challenge, and the project that you've talked about this afternoon is just one of the ways in which our higher education institutions are serving not only their students, but are serving us as a nation. 

Given that, potentially, this is the last short debate that Suzy Davies, or, indeed, I, will ever do in this virtual Chamber, just once, Suzy, I'll give in and I'll leave Turing to another day. But can I thank you most sincerely for bringing forward this debate to the Chamber? As Suzy says, learning languages doesn't just equip our young people with qualifications, it provides them with an opportunity to broaden their horizon, to deepen cultural understanding, and provides skills that they can use both here and across the globe. I have a very clear vision for all our learners to become multilingual, global citizens. And set within the world that we find ourselves in, it would be easy to dismiss the challenges that international languages face as insignificant in comparison to those that we're currently facing in our schools—that the decrease in the number of learners studying MFL and the narrowing of provision could be set aside as problems for another day. However, we will come through these incredibly challenging times, and I'm committed to continuing our support for learners to understand the wealth of opportunities that international languages bring. 

Our new curriculum for Wales offers the exciting opportunity to develop language-rich environments and provision across Wales, and it marks a change of culture from one of telling schools what to do and what to teach to one that gives the responsibility to those schools for developing a curriculum that works best for all of their learners, but within a national framework. And it will bring in the learning of international languages from a very early age, with clear expectations for learners' progress while at primary school. I've used this story before, I know, but it's such a delightful one, I'm going to use it again. A visit to a through-school in the community of Aberdare; I'm visiting their very youngest pupils, where the children were reading The Hungry Caterpillar, not just in English, and not just in Welsh, but learning the fruit and the items that the hungry caterpillar was munching through in Spanish as well. And just like Laura said, those children were oblivious to the fact that they were learning and improving their vocabulary in three different languages. For them, it was just the excitement of new words, new phrases, and the new sounds that they were listening to. And my goodness me, if we can roll that out across all of our foundation phase provision, my goodness me, what a wonderful, wonderful legacy we will be creating for those children. The removal of subject boundaries should empower schools to plan truly holistic language provision and schools should feel empowered to be creative and to develop meaningful learning opportunities.

Last year, as part of my ongoing commitment to international languages, I agreed a further funding round for the Global Futures programme. This funding has resulted in centres of excellence where schools work in partnership with universities and partners to improve the teaching and learning of modern foreign languages across our nation. It also provides funding for the regional consortia to enhance their support offers for modern foreign languages with a specific focus on supporting primary schools to deliver MFL. Global Futures funding supports our primary school teachers to take part in the Open University's TEachers Learning to Teach languages—the TELT programme—in primary schools, which offers beginners lessons in French, German, Spanish and Mandarin.

The programme also grants funds to Cardiff University's MFL student-mentoring project, which Suzy has focused on this afternoon. As she says, it places undergraduates from Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor and Aberystwyth universities into local schools in Wales to mentor year 8 and 9 pupils and to support them in their studies and encourage them to consider choosing modern foreign languages at GSCE level. Last year, recognising the need to adapt in how they deliver to schools, they very quickly developed a digital approach to support schools remotely across Wales at this challenging time. The project plays a key role in broadening the horizons and aspirations of learners. Over 115 secondary schools engaged in the project over the last five years, and that meant reaching 10,000 individual pupils. It has received, quite rightly, not just recognition this afternoon in the Chamber, but also as the recipient of the prestigious Threlford Cup in 2017, and has developed an excellent reputation both nationally and internationally. It is a real credit to the team at the respective universities, the student mentors who take part, and also the learners who are engaging in their programme.

And I have to say, having visited the project myself in a high school in Barry, and seen the mentor deliver a lesson, and talked to the children in receipt of that lesson, it goes so much beyond just learning and encouraging people to study for a foreign language. We came across individuals who had never considered a career in teaching, but had enjoyed their time so very much working with young people in schools, they now were looking to undertake PGCEs to become MFL teachers themselves. And for those young people, some of whom had never met anybody that had attended a university, the opportunity to work alongside a graduate and at the end to be able to visit a university themselves—sometimes an institution that they perhaps had driven past or travelled past on a bus, but had never thought, never, ever thought, of crossing the threshold—it gave them a new look and new outlook on what they could achieve and how university could well be a place that they could aspire to attend also. So, the benefits are manifest in many, many, many ways.

Universities, along with our Global Futures partners—who include regional education consortia, Estyn, language institutes, Qualifications Wales and Careers Wales—all provide expertise and support for language teaching and learning in our schools. And through my commitment to the civic mission of our universities, this approach is now also being funded and pursued in other subjects, and Suzy mentioned our physics mentoring project, which is also really, really successful and potentially gives us the opportunity to think about where else we can employ bright, sparky undergraduates studying at our universities to be real role models for students in our high schools.

As we continue to move forward, we will see developments to other areas of the education system designed to support learners. Qualifications for international languages will also change. As members of the Global Futures steering group, Qualifications Wales are engaging directly with the group's expertise as they look to develop language qualifications that meet the needs of our learners, and I think a focus on linguistic ability and the ability to speak a language, I'm sure, is a very important part of that work.

We're also introducing a new framework for school evaluation, improvement and accountability that requires the use of a wider range of information when considering schools' effectiveness. This approach will better capture the progress of all learners and their whole learning experience, as opposed to a narrow range of key stage 4 examination outcomes. Importantly, these new evaluation and improvement arrangements will support and align with the implementation of the Curriculum for Wales, as recommended by the OECD. By doing so, they will help to reduce the attainment gap and support the realisation of the four purposes of our new curriculum.

I am always encouraged by the excellent attainment of our MFL students, which is testament not only to the learners' hard work, but also to the excellent teaching that they have received. We will continue to work in collaboration with our Global Futures partners to support our schools through these difficult times. I want to once again place on record my thanks to all those involved in the delivery of our MFL mentoring project. It's one that, if Members are not familiar with it, as Suzy says, they really should take a look at. Thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. That bring today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 17:36.