Part of the debate – Senedd Cymru am 4:36 pm ar 28 Mawrth 2023.
I think the Member is absolutely right to mention the importance of food as part of the summer food and fun programme—it's sometimes called 'food and fun', in some parts of Wales. I share with her her passion for making sure that schools teach young people about the whole range of purposes of food, so nutrition, obviously, but eating together. You could also teach large parts of the curriculum through food, and I most recently had an opportunity of visiting a school in the constituency of the Member for Wrexham, my friend Lesley Griffiths, and saw there young people being taught to cook things and taking recipes home, so that they could cook them again at home, and I just thought that was a very powerful example of the sort of thing that the Member is talking about. We are working—. Julie Morgan and I are working at the moment on aligning the various programmes that the Government funds over the summer holiday, to make sure that we obviously ensure as much coverage as possible, but also to look at making sure that the kinds of opportunities that the Member is referring to are more widely available. She will know that nutrition is already an important part of that summer holiday provision, and that often takes the form of cooking with young people, but what can we do to make sure that's a more universal experience?
On the second question, 'What are we hearing from attainment champions?', they have two roles. One is to work with particular schools. It's currently still a pilot programme, a six-month pilot programme, working with particular schools on particular approaches based on their own experiences. But the question she's asking is on the other part of their role, which is: how are they informing system-wide development and policy development? There are some pretty clear themes, I think, about the importance and strategies for developing pupil voice, which evidence suggests is particularly important in the context of re-engaging some young people who might find it more challenging. But also we heard about the importance of mixed-attainment teaching and good usage of the PDG. That's why increasing that, as I mentioned to Janet Finch-Saunders, is so important.
I mentioned, essentially, how at the very heart of this is high-quality teaching and learning, but what are the strategies that enable that to reach children and young people who might need a different kind of approach? Links with parents, links with carers, and also the importance of leadership at a school level in relation to this. I spoke to them and was teasing out what it is that distinguishes schools that have been successful in this and those that maybe have had a little bit more of a challenge. One of them said to me, 'Well, some heads who had really committed to this have lost the sense that they might be able to do anything meaningful about it,' if you like, because it's such a big challenge. There isn't an absence of commitment. There is not a single head in Wales who isn't completely committed to this, but sometimes it's a challenge to see how you can make that difference, and that's why this is so important, because we can share that best practice across the system and make sure that heads have ready access to things that are working well elsewhere, so all those strategies can be brought into play.