Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 3:02 pm on 23 November 2022.
Thank you, Minister, for your response. Minister, a Youth Endowment Fund report highlighted some concerning statistics: over the past 12 months alone, some 54 per cent of children and young people in Wales had experienced or had seen some form of online violence on social media. This has had a profound effect on not only the mental health and well-being of these young people, but their education and wider lives too. In Wales, 57 per cent had changed their behaviour and a tenth had missed school because of online violence. These numbers also help to back up many of the observations made by the Children, Young People and Education Committee in their report on pupil absence from school, which said that learners' mental health is a key factor in them missing school. The new curriculum is a welcome step in helping young people to better understand some of these issues, and the health and well-being area of learning and experience has the potential to be an important vehicle to introduce such issues in education settings. Minister, how is the Government working with schools to ensure that teachers and other education professionals are equipped with the skills they need to effectively discuss these difficult but important topics with young people? Does the Government have plans to help schools to better engage with parents and guardians so that they too are able to support children to identify and protect themselves from online harm?