8. How is the Welsh Government supporting schools to identify and assess special educational needs in early years settings across Bridgend? OQ58055

Our additional learning needs reforms promote collaborative assessment and planning to facilitate early identification and intervention. Early years ALN lead officers and ALN co-ordinators are helping to ensure that additional learning needs are met, and the child development fund and Flying Start are responding to increased demand for additional developmental support.

Thank you, Minister. It has been great to visit lots of early years settings across my constituency in Bridgend, which I know are pleased to be able to return to pre-COVID routines and activities to benefit the children in their care. For many parents and pupils, schools and early years settings can often be the start of the journey for additional learning needs assessment. As we know, having trained staff and support systems that can identify early signifiers of additional learning needs is key to providing the best support packages for those children to thrive as early as possible. For the last two years, the pandemic has seen periods where children have, unfortunately, not been in school, and this has undoubtedly impacted on the ability of children to be assessed for any additional learning needs. Minister, what is the Welsh Government doing to support schools to be able to catch up on these assessments and ensure that no child falls through the gaps in additional learning needs support due to the pandemic?

Thank you for that supplementary question. We are very aware of the impact that the pandemic has had on the capacity to assess and support the needs of learners with additional learning needs at all parts of their education journey.

Last year, we awarded a £10 million recovery package to local authorities, and the purpose of that was to fund the reintegration, if you like, of pupils with ALN back into the classroom following the pandemic. We have provided grants to local authorities—an implementation grant—to increase the capacity to move children from the SEN system to the ALN system, and to support staff to develop knowledge on how best to do that.

In addition to that, we have committed funding to each local authority in Wales for the next three years to support the provision of online individual development plans, to ensure that the information of pupils with ALN is captured and recorded, so that pupils with ALN are given suitable support. 

I thank the Minister.