Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received apologies for absence from Siân Gwenllian, and I'm very pleased to welcome Helen Mary Jones, who is substituting for Siân today. Can I ask whether Members want to declare any interests, please? Can I just, then, place on record that I have got a son who was about to do A-levels, so is affected by the exam decision? We'll move on, then, to our substantive item today, which is an evidence session with the Welsh Government around the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Minister for Education; Steve Davies, who is director of the education directorate; Huw Morris, who is the group director, skills, higher education and lifelong learning; and Rob Orford, who is the chief scientific adviser for health. Thank you all for coming. We know that this is a really difficult and pressurised time for everyone, and we appreciate your attendance. Minister, I understand you wanted to make an opening statement today.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, if that's okay, Chair. As you know, it's not usually my practice to do that, but I think it is important today. COVID-19 coronavirus is one of the most significant issues that the Welsh Government and the people of Wales have dealt with in recent times. Dealing with the impacts of this pandemic is extremely challenging. Things are changing on an hourly basis, and we have to make decisions quickly to ensure public safety. But I would like to assure you that our aim, and my aim, and my main concern as the education Minister is to protect all staff and pupils in our schools and other educational settings. But we also have a duty to ensure continuing and continuity of education. Public health is clearly the priority here, but that does not change our belief that no child should miss out on any education, unless absolutely necessary. So, the decision to close all schools from tomorrow for statutory education provision was not taken lightly, but I believe it was necessary, given the advice and recommendations that we had received from a public health perspective and the situation that was developing on the ground. From next week, schools will have a new purpose. They will help support those most in need, including people involved in the immediate response to the coronavirus outbreak, and I'm working with my colleagues in the Cabinet, with Government officials and our partners in local government to develop and finalise these plans. The key areas that we're looking at are supporting and safeguarding the vulnerable and ensuring continuity of learning. This includes all of those who benefit from free school meals and children with additional learning needs. I can confirm that all maintained schools in Wales already have access to a range of digital tools that can support distance learning through the world-class Hwb digital learning platform, including virtual classrooms and video-conferencing facilities. A guide on what tools are available and how schools can use them has been developed and is being promoted widely. Yesterday, I announced that, whilst there are no easy choices, we have agreed that the best way forward is not to proceed with the summer exam series. Learners due to sit these exams will be awarded a fair grade to recognise their work, drawing on a range of information that is available, and I will announce further details shortly, but I felt it necessary to give early certainty to students and to staff. I would like to put on record my thanks to everyone working in education settings for the hard work that they have put in over the last few months in dealing with the virus and ensuring that pupils have been able to continue to learn. We need to continue to do this work together, as we face the continuing challenges posed by the coronavirus. Diolch yn fawr.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much, Minister, for that statement. We'll go to questions from Members now, and I've got some questions from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I thank you, Kirsty, for your statement and the really difficult decisions that you've been having to make? You've already indicated in your statement this morning that these decisions are not taken lightly, and we understand that that is the case across Government. So, thank you for what you've been doing. You've outlined a little bit further there in your statement to us this morning about the new purpose. I take from what you're saying that you haven't really developed that yet in terms of exactly what that is going to look like. You've talked about the children of key workers, free school meals, additional learning needs. Is there anything else you can tell us about that at the moment and how you might staff the schools in those particular areas?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Dawn. So, you're absolutely right, our priority now is to operationalise, with colleagues in local government and schools, a practical response. And I have to say, we're working to timescales that I would have hoped to have avoided, but given the fact that we're having to make these decisions quite quickly, I hope that you will understand that perhaps where we start on Monday might change when we have more time and more opportunities to develop programmes going forward. Steve will be able to give you more details of the practical work that has already been going on, but our expectation will be that schools will be playing an important part in providing safe and secure places for children of those on the front-line response to dealing with the coronavirus to attend, and work is already under way with local authorities and individual schools on what that will look like for the emergency situation on Monday. Our other priority is indeed free school meals, and, again, where we eventually end up might be a different place to where we are on Monday. Again, we're responding to the emergency situation that there will be families that were expecting a free school meal on Monday, and, again, individual schools and local authorities are developing those plans at pace to be able to provide an emergency response as we work out a longer term plan to deal with the situation. The same thing also goes for additional learning needs, and attending to the needs of that particular group of learners. So, those conversations began a few days ago. I had the opportunity to meet with the First Minister and Andrew Morgan, the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association, yesterday to talk about what local government could do, and what they were already doing. Those plans in some places are already quite developed, and are now working at pace, but I hope you will understand that where we start on Monday is the emergency response, and that work will develop as we go forward. But, Steve, perhaps you could—? Because Steve was the one making all those phone calls and doing the practical operational stuff, rather than me. Steve.
Steve Davies: In short, the new purpose is to meet the needs of particular groups of children and young people. In some cases, some of the response to supporting free school meals, in the short term in particular, we may use the schools as part of that, and I'm certain that will happen in some cases. The second area is looking at how we support the children of key workers. Now, there is still work to be done on identifying exactly the categories of key workers, but I think it's really encouraging that in my discussions yesterday—I spoke with all 22 directors of education, and the examples we're picking up in their work with schools is they're already ahead of the curve in working with schools. So, schools have identified the number of children with health workers. It will grow, and we will need to look at that range. Then, the third area is vulnerable children. They're vulnerable sometimes in terms of education other than at school, vulnerable in terms of mental health, and for those children, as well as having an experience that we want to be planned, some have compared it to a snow day, particularly on Monday, when you're putting something together in the short term, but it will not be a formal curriculum that those children would normally go through. So, the range of activities—some will be focused on educational activities, some will be cultural, some will be sporting, and that plan will be developed on the basis of the age range of children, which in some cases may go from extremely young children up to those at the age of 16 in our all-through schools, but there will be a planned set of activities to cater for those children. What we are doing currently—I have staff back at Cathays Park who are in touch and working with directors of education to ensure that schools over the next two days will have been able to identify, at least at the earlier stage, in terms of health workers, the type and numbers of people. There are already schools who have informed us, and local authorities, of their plans for these activities to be starting next week, which is quite amazing, actually, given where we are. But we are expecting, and we're writing to schools today, that during the course of next week, headteachers to be in schools, and with their staff, taking into consideration the health guidance as to which staff should or should not be in, and in that period from next Monday through the two-week period, to Easter, we expect staff to be both planning for delivery post Easter, but also, as I said, building on and reflecting the good practice that's already in place for schools that have engaged in activities, and I'm sure a number of them will be inviting and enabling those children to come in on Monday. So, Monday will be a challenge for some, and not all will be delivering it, but we will be working so that we can get as much as possible delivered for those groups over the next two weeks, and particularly to have resilient programmes post Easter for the groups of children in those three categories that I said.
Dawn Bowden AM: Those that have been identified. Can I just clarify one thing? One of the identified vulnerable groups would clearly be children on the at-risk register. They would be included.
Steve Davies: Yes, definitely. Vulnerable children, yes.
Kirsty Williams AM: In our discussions, we have asked local government to be working with the social services departments and individual schools to identify those children who may be in that situation. We know that, for some children, being at school is part of their safeguarding arrangements, and obviously we will need to be able to respond to those needs.
Steve Davies: I wrote specifically yesterday to all directors of education to be assured that, for those children, the register is up to date and the plans are in place. I'm working with Albert Heaney my colleague, the director for social services, who is meeting with the 22 directors of social services today to look to ensure that we are joined up in ensuring none of these children fall through the gap.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a supplementary from Hefin, and then Suzy.
Hefin David AM: A very quick and simple question: how are you going to communicate this to parents? There's a bigger picture and it's changing all the time, as you said. The Welsh Government have a route to communication. The most helpful thing I've seen is that Public Health Wales have a single website with information regarding the wider issue of the virus. How will this then be cascaded to schools, because there's obviously a time lag? So, have you considered how this is going to be communicated directly to parents?
Kirsty Williams AM: We're using all of our platforms of communication to get these messages across. So, we're using the more informal methods of communication, but are relying on a systematic approach via individual directors and through to individual schools. Welsh Government already has a dedicated website page with all of the relevant information about coronavirus. We're looking, as quickly as we can, to have a frequently asked education questions page that we can update. Understandably, people are communicating to us on Twitter asking questions. It is impossible for the communications team here to be able to respond individually to every single person that is sending Facebook messages and sending tweets, so the best way we can do that is to collate the types of questions people are asking and then to be able to have a frequently updated question and answer page to try to respond to that. With regard to parents, for instance, we're aware of schools that have already sent a questionnaire out last night to parents saying, 'Do you consider yourself to be a key worker? Do you work in the NHS? Please let us know by tomorrow so we can put arrangements in place for your children.' So, schools are already taking the initiative and having those conversations with parents about what their needs will be. And, as I said, Hefin, will it be perfect on Monday? No. It won't be perfect by Monday, because we're working to such constrained timescales. But we will continue to build that resilience. We also have to think about systems that look at what might the epidemic do and have systems of resilience that may work next week, given the situation we find ourselves in with public health advice at the moment. But that public health advice may change. Therefore, have we got a system that will be resilient in those circumstances? These are some of the challenges that we're having to grapple with. So, as I said, what happens on Monday might look very different to where we are if schools are still off in May. So, I hope people will understand that we are working in those kinds of scenarios.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just on this question of vulnerable children, I'm just wondering how much discretion teachers are going to have in including individual children who may not be obviously under social services' care or on a risk register or whatever. Teachers know their pupils and, very sensitively, they could include people who may not be obviously in need.
Kirsty Williams AM: We would absolutely respect the professional judgment of individual headteachers to be able to have those conversations with their directors. As you said, quite rightly, they are the individuals who know their children best and know which children, perhaps, will need this extra support. We will put no constraints on those teachers trying to do that work.