Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders, and also from Dawn Bowden, and I'd like to welcome Huw Irranca-Davies, who is substituting for Dawn Bowden. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to our evidence session for our inquiry on school improvement and raising standards. I'd like to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Steve Davies, director of education. Thank you both for attending and for your detailed paper in advance of the meeting. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so we'll go straight into questions, if that's okay. If I can just start by asking you: to what extent is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development still involved in the Welsh Government's school improvement journey?
Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, can I thank the committee for their invitation this morning, and their interest in this particular area? As you will be aware, on coming into office, the director and I agreed to ask the OECD to do a rapid review of the state of Welsh education at the beginning of this Assembly term. They did that, and the feedback from that work informed the publication and content of the national mission. I was very clear in the national mission that I would invite the OECD back to review our progress against that mission, and that has happened in the tail end of last year, and the OECD will publish their latest report on Welsh education next month now, in March. So, the expectation is that the report will be published on 23 March, and my intention is to make a statement to the Chamber on 24 March. The nature of that review is part of our ongoing development of self-evaluation. So, we talk a lot about self-evaluation in the school system. Actually, the continuing relationship with OECD is about self-evaluation of the entirety of the system and Welsh Government. We don't want to accept our own orthodoxy and just be in a bubble where we are constantly listening to ourselves and those people who might want to agree with us or tell us what we want to hear. So, the OECD is our best attempt of having some external verification of where we are. That's a risk for Ministers and for Government, because we want them to give an honest evaluation of where we are, but that's a really important tool for me, to ensure that we're constantly testing ourselves. The nature of that review is that the OECD were able to talk to whoever they felt it was important to talk to, so that included practitioners on the ground, elements of the middle tier, as well as Welsh Government. And I know, Chair—I hope you'll be pleased to hear this—that the reports of this committee have formed parts of their review, looking at how the Senedd itself has contributed to and has held the Government to account. So, as I said, we expect our report to be published towards the end of March.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, Minister. Can I ask about the powers under the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, to ask you to tell us about the use of those powers either by Welsh Government or by local authorities, and how effective you feel that legislation has been?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, as you'll be aware, local authorities have quite extensive powers of intervention in schools if they feel that is necessary. If I'm honest, I think there's a mixed picture, with some local authorities using those powers not on a regular basis, but obviously demonstrating a willingness to use those powers. There are other local authorities who don't seem to have used them. Since that legislation came into being, there have been a number of reasons, because of course a local authority has to give a reason for using those powers of intervention. They usually focus on standards, but sometimes they focus on a breakdown in governance arrangements, perhaps, or a failure or a breakdown in financial management. So, sometimes the budgetary issues trigger an intervention power. And the types of interventions that have been used have included, in some cases, appointing additional governors to governing bodies, or suspending a school's delegated budget so the local authority takes on, then, financial control of that particular school, or sometimes applying to the Welsh Government to entirely replace a governing body and establish an intervention board. So, if I can give you an example of where that's been used and has been successful, in Flintshire. They applied to Welsh Government for two interim executive boards, in Sir Richard Gwyn Catholic High School and in Ysgol Trefonnen. They applied to us. Those governing bodies were dissolved. The IEBs were put in place and both of those schools, which had been in special measures, moved quite rapidly, actually, out of special measures. Perhaps the most recent example of this is one that the Chair will know very well in her own constituency of Torfaen, in Cwmbran High School, where Torfaen has intervened in that case. The Welsh Government has not used those powers to date. My expectation always is that local authorities should be the first port of call, and I would encourage—and we always encourage—local authorities to take a proactive approach to intervention and to use those powers. But it's my belief that it is they who are best placed initially to do that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Minister. Can I ask, then, about the national evaluation and improvement resource and how significant a role that will play in the raising of school standards, and how you feel it's evolved since it was first conceived?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, this brings us back to the principle of self-evaluation and something, if we're honest, we've not been very good at. If you look at a number of chief inspectors' reports into the Welsh education system, self-evaluation has always been identified as something that is missing or underdeveloped in our system to date, hence, then, the work to establish not a new approach, but a more robust approach to self-evaluation. We've done that in conjunction, again, with the OECD, middle tier and practitioners. It's really important, throughout the entirety of our reform journey that that's done in co-construction, because we want this resource to be usable in schools. So, it's all very well having a conceptual idea and people outside the classroom working on it, but if it's of no practical use to a school leadership team, then we won't see the impact. So, it's—. We're in phase 2 at the moment, where we're doing—. So, the initial resource has been developed by the OECD, middle tier and practitioners. We're in the testing phase at the moment and having it evaluated itself, with a view to introducing that resource across the system at the start of the new academic year, in September 2020. I truly believe that, if we're to make progress in Welsh education, we have to develop the skills within our system to have robust self-evaluation. This resource gives us continuity of approach right the way across Wales. So, it's not left to an individual school to come up with a system; it's right the way across the system. My hope would be that those principles could then be applied to local education authorities, to regional school improvement services and Welsh Government as part of a whole-system approach to self-evaluation. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add, Steve.
Steve Davies: Just to add that the other critical partners are Estyn themselves.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, yes, sorry.
Steve Davies: So, they have played a critical role and, as we know, as the Minister has said in the past, she may introduce policy and practice, but if Estyn are part of it then schools, usually, because they recognise that it will be part of the inspection process—it gives it greater push and support around it. So, they've been key players within it.
Kirsty Williams AM: And I think, if I just say as well, that the external perception of what that's about is really important. It's not a test of school readiness for reform, it is a genuine attempt for a school to evaluate their strengths, their weaknesses and where they need to go next. It's not an Estyn checklist. And because of the word 'toolkit'—the feedback was that it gave the impression of a checklist, 'Just do this and check list'. So, we're actually going to change the name of that resource. So, it'll be called the national evaluation and improvement resource, rather than the toolkit, because, as I said, the feedback was that 'toolkit' gave the impression of a checklist exercise, and it's got to be about more than that if it's going to be meaningful. So, it'll be changed to an 'improvement resource'.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Before I bring Suzy in, can I just welcome Siân Gwenllian, who is joining us via video-conference in north Wales? Morning, Siân.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Can you hear me?
Lynne Neagle AM: We can, yes. We can hear you very nicely, thank you.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Only a very quick one. It's about the development of the—
Kirsty Williams AM: The resource.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, the resource, thank you—about whether there were any conflicting ideas in the process of development that made it quite difficult to zone in on something that school leadership teams, in particular, could rely on. Were there differences of opinion on what this should look like?
Kirsty Williams AM: Not that I'm aware of from the practitioners that I've spoken to who have been part of that. So, for instance, Suzy, you will know the very small school of Gladestry. The head of Gladestry has been involved in this process, and she said that she'd really enjoyed the process of working alongside Estyn and the OECD as a school leader to be able to shape it. But I'm not aware that there's been conflict in that process.
Suzy Davies AM: I'm not suggesting that there has been; I'm just interested as to how it had worked, that's all.
Steve Davies: Chair, I think, inevitably, when you bring stakeholders together, they're not going to be in total agreement as to how it's going to work, and I think initially one of the challenges was having Estyn there as part of the facilitation group. There are always some concerns that, actually, it's coming from a to inspect, oral, judgmental tick box. So, we had some early day challenges where we had to convince—and, ultimately, Estyn convinced them—that they were there to help and support as opposed to to inspect, and that the model that was developed, as the Minister said, was not going to be a tick box, 'You are good at this part of self-evaluation', it was to build the skillsets up.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. So, it's got their full confidence.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and I think again, also, what—. You know, four years into the job, what I've reflected on as well is there is this sometimes a feeling out there that the Minister says all the right stuff, but you're not actually going to do it, so, when you talk about a new approach to doing things, you're not actually serious about it. So, trying to build that confidence that we are serious about developing a new system around self-improvement, which is different from accountability—sometimes, the practitioners are like, 'Oh, yes, we've heard it all before but it never actually happens.' And I think that's been a part of the constant—not pressure, but the responsibility on Welsh Government is in following through. So, we said that we were going to do this in the national mission, and we are going to do it. I'm really proud that there or thereabouts, a few months either way, we've actually kept to the timetable as outlined in the national mission, and that helps build confidence within the sector that we are committed to that programme and we're going to do what we say we're going to do.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: And a final question from me: how effective do you think the investment in school standards has been in this Assembly term, as opposed to the approach taken in the last Assembly term, where there was the protection put in place for core school budgets?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think, first of all, it's important that, whilst this additional resource is specifically targeted at school standards, that is only a part of a much wider education budget, a budget that—you know—is incredibly complex. And so it is really challenging to be able to draw straight lines—you know, 'We did this and it's resulted in that'—given that we're looking at the entirety of school funding here. What's been really important is that, if you drill down into what that money has been spent on, 50 per cent of it has been directed towards professional learning in one form or another to support our teaching professionals. And that's been really important to me. I've said it time and time again: an education system cannot exceed the quality of the people who stand in front of our children day in, day out to work with them and teach them. Therefore, that investment in staff and investment in the professional learning of our staff and support for them I think is making a difference already but, importantly, will continue to make a difference. But I think it is really challenging to be able to say, 'Well, we spent this bit of money and it definitely led to that', because it's such a complex picture. But that money, the way it's been spent, has been driven by evidence. And, again, what we do know from international best practice, what do we know that works in driving up standards, and then how can we align the money that we've got to supporting that? And, as I said, 50 per cent of that money has gone directly to simply supporting the professional learning of those who work with our children.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We're going to talk now a bit about schools causing concern with questions from Huw Irranca-Davies.