National Assembly for Wales

I would like to welcome Members to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We have received apologies from Hefin David MS, and Alun Davies MS will be attending as a substitute from 10.30 a.m. onwards. The public items of this meeting are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv; a Record of Proceedings will be published as usual. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. There are no apologies. Are there any declarations of interest from Members?

Thank you. 

We will now move on to agenda item 2. Please can the witnesses introduce themselves, and also outline briefly what, if any, involvement they've had in the development of the Bill.

Chris Parry, headteacher at Lewis School Pengam and president of the National Association of Headteachers Cymru. 

I'm Laura Doel. I'm the national secretary of NAHT Cymru. I've had some involvement in some of the working groups to discuss elements of the Bill.

Hello, I'm Claire Armitstead, and I'm the director of the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru. We have been involved just in replying on the consultation.

My name is Julian Kennedy. I'm the headteacher of Olchfa School in Swansea. I also sit on the ASCL council, and the executive, and I'm here with a practitioner's perspective.

Thank you. Thank you for joining us this morning. Members have a series of questions, and I'll begin. Could you outline your initial thoughts on the Bill, and whether you believe it should be a priority, at the current time, including whether it should be a priority within education specifically?

I'm happy to start.

Yes, if you don't mind.

NAHT's position is absolutely that we agree with all aspirations of the Bill, and we believe that, as education practitioners, we have a significant role to play in the promotion and the protection of the Welsh language. Where we have concern with the Bill is around the implementation and delivery, and the expectations placed on schools to be able to meet the requirements within the legislation. We are bitterly disappointed that there is no workforce impact assessment within the Bill, so that we know exactly what the expectations are for the workforce, what it would mean for them, what it would mean for schools, and I think that is something that we are—. It's one of the main reasons why we are unable to support the Bill as it stands, because we simply do not know what it would look like for our members.

Okay. Thank you. Anybody else?

Yes, please. As ASCL Cymru, we fully support the aims of the Bill, but we don't support its implementation at this time. We believe there are significant issues with the statutory nature of the Bill, and also the educational system's capacity to deliver on its expectations. We have to think about the significant challenges we're still facing with school funding, the workload, recruitment and retention crisis, and our ongoing workload demands. We believe, and our members have made it clear, that the education system is in crisis, and we feel strongly this is not the right time to introduce this Bill, and we risk unintended consequences by doing so.

Okay. Anybody else?

Yes, if I could echo that from a philosophical point of view as well. Personally, and in terms of my colleagues as well, we are all philosophically behind the approach behind the Bill, and the promotion of the Welsh language within schools. I have very significant practical concerns around the recruitment of Welsh-speaking teachers, in particular those who can teach Welsh, and also those who add Welshness to the staff. There is a real crisis of recruitment within that sector at the moment, and I have concerns that, first of all, we would be unable to meet targets, even if we would be willing to, but, additionally, that we could see a transfer of resources within the state sector where we see Welsh-speaking teachers moving to particular schools, or whatever it might be, particularly if there are any financial incentives to do so. And that, inevitably, is going to lead to some schools having very significant shortages and not being able to meet and deliver what they need to within Welsh language areas.

Okay, thank you. The Bill requires the Welsh Government to include statutory targets in its Welsh language strategy to increase the provision of Welsh language education and increase the number of people who are learning Welsh. How will this affect schools and your members, and do you agree with the role the Bill gives to the education system in reaching the 'Cymraeg 2050' target of 1 million Welsh speakers?

I'm happy to come in there. I think, echoing some of the points earlier, the profession is committed to the Welsh language. We all want to work in schools where we work in a culturally rich environment and a linguistically rich environment, and we would support any efforts that are being made to achieve a million Welsh speakers by 2050. I think, again, to go back to some of the points that we've made, the concerns are around the practical implementation of the Bill and what we would see in school. I think we've touched on some of these, but for me, particularly, there are some of those challenges around curriculum change, where we're already in a situation where we are engaging with the new Curriculum for Wales. That has provided us with some capacity, and a welcome capacity, in terms of broadening the curriculum and allowing us to look at certain areas and the authenticity of learning experience.

I would be concerned about an increase in the Welsh language then narrowing the curriculum in terms of what we need to offer, or that we would have to offer existing provision through the medium of Welsh. And that leads into the second point, which has already been touched on, around recruitment and retention. We would need to train up staff or recruit staff for that, and I foresee many challenges in doing that.

One thing that I would add to what Chris has just said is we recognise there needs to be some ambition within the Bill and some kind of target, but I think, again, Claire has already mentioned the unexpected—unintended, rather—consequences of this Bill. What we don't want to do and what we don't want is a position that schools feel under significant pressure to be able to deliver when they may well not have the resources to be able to do that through no fault of their own. And I think we need to think, when we talk about targets, that they need to be realistic. And, obviously, you will have heard evidence from others, and will know yourselves from your own constituencies, that the level of Welsh language used in everyday life is very different in different parts of Wales. And so we need to be mindful of putting too much pressure on schools to be able to deliver that if we don't have the resources to do that. And because we don't have a workload impact assessment, we're not really in a position to be able to give any more evidence around that.

I think, for ASCL Cymru, we agree with exactly what Laura's just said. This isn't a lack of want, this is just a lack of ability. You know, we're used to targets in schools. We've had them for every aspect of our working life. It's what we do. But a target that we cannot meet by no fault of our own is just going to create a level of stress and anxiety in the workforce that they can't act on. The simplest way to put this is we simply cannot recruit, and we need to recruit significantly to make this happen.

I'd echo the same thing. You know, I don't know any schoolteachers who shy away from targets. I don't know any school leaders who are not aspirational for their school. There's a difference between sharpening practice in areas where you can improve practice and where you simply don't have the resources to be able to do so. And I'd contrast it, for example, if we go back to pre-COVID days, with the days of attendance targets—I think that did have the effect of sharpening practice within schools, and it did have an impact. But that's where there was headroom to grow into. And I'm just truly concerned that we don't have a pool of Welsh teachers to be able to draw upon to increase curriculum demand, for example, or curriculum supply, rather, and also in order to accelerate the process and meet mandatory targets. I think aspirational targets are fine, but when they become mandatory, I think that's a very different kettle of fish.

Okay, thank you. I think you've answered my final question, but I'd like to bring Cefin in here, if I could, please.

Thank you very much. I've just got two questions as additional questions. The first I'll ask in English, the second I'll ask in Welsh. I'm mindful of the position that you've set in terms of the pressures on the workforce. I think, ASCL—and I'm quoting here from your evidence—you say that you don't believe the aspirations of the Bill should be placed in law in a statutory setting. If it does become statutory, it will place school leaders, and I'm quoting, under pressure to divert resources to the detriment of other education priorities. So, are you saying that increasing the number of Welsh speakers in line with the Senedd's ambition of creating 1 million Welsh speakers is not a priority, and are you presenting this as a binary choice?

No and no. So, what we're actually saying is, at the moment, there is not enough money in the educational system, and schools are under increasing pressures to deliver on a variety of priorities. The massive difference we have here is not that we don't think this is a priority, but we can't deliver it. When Julian was talking, for the other targets that we may face, there is a pool of people we can recruit from to maintain those targets. In this case, we can't, and therefore we would have to divert significant resource, significant time to train or to find or identify where these people could come from, and we still wouldn't be secure that we could find them.

I agree that we need to think in a different way on how we promote the Welsh language. I think we're in a little bit of danger here, and it seems to be a little bit of an ongoing theme, certainly, with some Welsh Government policy, that if it's to do with children, it must be the responsibility of schools to fix this problem. And I think what we are concerned about is that this is another responsibility on schools to fix this because the promotion, the policy beforehand, hasn't worked.

Now, schools have a significant role to play—of course, they do, we're talking about education, so absolutely they have a role to play—but when speaking to our members who have a significant proportion of learners in their school who are very well-versed in the Welsh language, they don't use it in the communities that they live in, they don't use it in their everyday life. They might well use it in school and they might well use it with peers in the playground, but they don't use it in the towns and the villages that they spend their time, they don't use it at football and rugby clubs on the weekend. Therefore, there is a limit to what schools can do, and I think we need to be mindful that, although schools have a role, they can't be the only place in which to do this. And what we would like to see is the resources put into schools so that they can fulfil what they would like to do, because the ambition in schools is already there, regardless of any legislation, but they simply don't have the resources to do that. And I think we need to work better on how we deliver that.

I think what you said was really interesting, that we've been given these aspirational targets, and it's only put so many children into studying at A-level, but they're our deliverers and our teachers coming forward. In order for schools to really grab on to statutory targets, we need the workforce. Everything that we could do to build the workforce to then allow schools to recruit from it, that's the system that we would consider appropriate from ASCL Cymru. This isn't a lack of want, this is a lack of people to deliver in the schools. So, particularly in English-medium schools, we could go out four, five, six times for a Welsh specialist, we could still not short list and we could still not recruit. But it's almost like a vicious circle: we can't get more children in to be teaching Welsh until we get more children learning through Welsh.

And just to come in on a really practical point about that A-level issue that you've described there, and the comparatively small numbers of pupils who end up learning at A-level, you can link that directly back to the way that sixth-forms are currently funded, in terms of the amount of money you receive per course. To make a course viable and to ensure that the teachers delivering that course are doing the job in the most efficient way possible, you need, probably, around 15 to 20 pupils, but in our school, we will run A-levels at 10. So, if you haven't got the teachers within your setting to be able to deliver that course, and you haven't got the number of pupils who are then coming through and sitting that A-level—. Even if I've got six, seven, eight pupils within school who would want to undertake that A-level, it's incredibly difficult to offer it, because, effectively, you're offering that course at a loss. And that's the reality of schools at the minute: our budgets are so tight, there is no wriggle room, and it is incredibly difficult to put that extra bit of resource into those areas where you would wish to do that.

I think we have seen examples—and I would stress this—where, in schools across Wales that have been very, very successful in developing a culture of Welsh language, and pushing more pupils through to A-level—. Buffy will know this. I live in Treorchy, it's an area in the Valleys, and the Valleys are not traditionally Welsh speaking, but it's got a really rich linguistic heritage, and it's an area where I hear Welsh being spoken on a daily basis. And I know that in the comprehensive school that my children went to, the language was a very important part of what they did. They were able to push several pupils through to A-level, including my daughter, in an area that was also challenged in terms of finance. But they were able to do that with an investment in the workforce, from the initial stages of their planning and when they had the workforce in place.

Now, for me, having a teacher that is bilingual is nothing but a gift; it's a fantastic thing to have in school, and I would love if every single one of my members of staff could deliver subjects bilingually, because I think it creates that environment that we want to see. I feel, with this Bill, in some way we may be putting the cart before the horse. If we invest in the workforce first, make sure that we've got staff inside school that can do this, then we can begin to look at how we can use that workforce to implement these targets, and I think that's where the challenge is currently.

Listen, I fully agree with your concerns about of a lack of a bilingual workforce, and it has to be a priority for Welsh Government moving forward. I think we've got to be careful as well that we don't separate—Laura, with respect—language acquisition, which is outside the home, the responsibility of schools, and language usage; they are two different sets of priorities that need two different strategies. But the language usage is for somebody else to look after—those like the Urdd and mentrau iaith, who provide that support in the community.

I'll bring Vaughan in here now, please.

Yes. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, thanks for coming. I just want to be clear, to understand the clarity of the message you're giving: support for the aims and ambitions of the Bill, and want to be part of creating more confident Welsh speakers in school and out, but it's the practical delivery that your concern is. And just so that I'm really clear about this, every public service that comes before any committee will say, 'We have very real financial problems', so I don't think you're in a different position, but I recognise it's a really challenging one for school leaders, and I know that in my own constituency as well. But, just so I understand, the point you're making isn't really about money when it comes to workforce, it's about the availability of the workforce. So, even if we gave you a big uplift in the budget—and I'm sure Lynne Neagle will argue for it—even if that were possible, just so I'm clear, what I think you're saying is, you can't recruit that workforce anyway, and I just want to be clear about the fact that you organise in both the Welsh-medium and English-medium sectors.

Yes.

So, it's a message from school leaders in both our current sectors that the workforce isn't there. So, I just want to be clear—I know you've had some engagement around the Bill—about what the engagement was with Welsh Government, because I assume that these concerns are not ones that have just come from the last couple of weeks, and what the response was about getting a workforce that can deliver against the shared aims and ambitions.

So, I've been involved in discussions for quite some time around this and, obviously, from—I'm a trade unionists—from my perspective, I'm always going to be looking at what that means for our workforce. I think one of the concerns that we raised early on, and it's with this piece of legislation, but we also raised it with other pieces of legislation as well, like the ALN legislation, for example, is that nobody thinks of the practical implications of what you want to do. The ambitions are great, but you need to speak to practitioners to find out what that would look like when you translate it from legislation to part of every-day school life. We have raised this time and time again. There have been many discussions around this. We have had a positive response, and our views are taken on board, yet this legislation has arrived without a workforce impact assessment. And if you're asking unions to say, 'Do you support the implementation of this Bill as it stands?', well, how can we, because we don't know what that's going to look like for the workforce? And that is a real frustration for us.

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm trying to understand whether you've had a discussion, you've been told, 'It'll be fine', and this is like a field-of-dreams approach, of pass the Bill and the teachers will come, or is it that there is work that the Government is saying they'll do with you to try to get more people in? We regularly talk about teacher incentives for different subjects, but we regularly hear, in any part of Wales, about challenges with recruitment, so I'm trying to understand whether it's something where you don't think you've had a completed discussion, or whether you think that actually you just disagree with the view of the Government.

I don’t think it's accepted that we cannot recruit.

Okay.

So, I think we talk about shortage subjects. So, if you can imagine going out to get a physicist who speaks Welsh, it's like hen's teeth—they don't exist. So, when we have raised the recruitment and retention crisis, it's listened to, but nothing changes. And I think when you look at the numbers entering initial teacher training who wish work through the medium of Welsh or are Welsh speakers, it's not growing. So, we're not getting the increased pool of recruits that we need to facilitate this Bill. And I think we all want to. We all want to make our schools where our language flourishes, but we can't because we don't have the skills and we don't have the people to do that.

I think what you said as well was really interesting. Another area that I think has been missed is skilling the workforce that are there at present. There isn't the capacity in the system to do that. So, we have these people who already want to teach, but they can't speak Welsh. Now, are we missing a trick there to enable those people to learn and to become bilingual themselves and take that into their already workplaces?

Okay. So, I want to move on because I can almost feel the Chair looking at me and the clock.

But the next area of questions is about the framework used to try to measure and understand progress. So, the Bill proposed the common European framework of reference for languages. Let's call it 'CEFR'; it’ll be easier than saying that long title all the time. And the question is whether you think it can be applied effectively in the context the Bill proposes, bearing in mind what you've already said about the fit with the curriculum, which is a significant reform in itself. So, I want to try and understand: do you think that framework and what is proposed in the Bill is appropriate, and how could you practically deliver it?

I'm happy to come in. I'm not an expert on language frameworks, and I know, in particular, this framework is not specifically designed to look at Welsh, but it's a pan-European approach. When I've looked into this, I feel it's appropriate, in terms of the way that the approach categorises use of language, I would say, within the non-statutory framework that already exists, as there's already a requirement for us to look at the level of fluency of pupils inside school. So, I think that's probably an encouraging part of this process, that we've identified at least a mechanism by which we can begin to look at the acquisition of language in school and what we can do around it.

It'll sound like we're a broken record and we're going back to things, but I just think that, in terms of its use, we go back to practical considerations. I think this may come up again, just in terms of the pupils that would attend. In my school, for example, there are going to be many pupils who are struggling just with the acquisition of English as a language, and they would not particularly be identified within this framework. They would be 'no Welsh speaking skills at all'. We would also have very, very able pupils that, as we get towards the end of A-level, may be beyond some of the areas they're looking at because they're looking to move into degree subjects. So, I don't think it's particularly designed for schools, in terms of breaking things down to that level, but I think it is a welcome step forward in terms of providing a mechanism by which we can look at what's actually happening in school.

So, that's quite interesting. That comes into some of the other follow-up questions. In line with what we heard last week, Cymdeithas yr Iaith were very clear that they thought that the framework itself wasn't appropriate. That was partly because their view is that people should be Welsh speakers and you should think about frameworks for people who are learning Welsh from a Welsh-speaking perspective, as opposed to people learning Welsh and acquiring it as an additional language, and there is some sense in that. But I guess I'm trying to understand whether you think it's appropriate to have a single framework that you can understand across schools, because Cymdeithas's perspective was that it wasn't appropriate. I just want to be clear—I'm not putting words into your mouth—that having an already used framework is appropriate, so you don't have to reimagine something different, but it is then about how you use that to understand the differing levels of ability within each cohort. Is that fair?

Yes. I think the issue is that there are going to be people who provide evidence in terms of acquisition of language who are going to know a lot more about it than me. From my point of view, as a practitioner in school and a school leader, our pupils are not Welsh speakers, and we would be looking at ways that we can ascertain how we can move people through those journeys. I would go back to the earlier point, however, that once you start to build into that framework that there are mandatory targets, data collection and targets for pupils who are moving from A1s and B1s to C1s, then that creates a workload issue in schools and an extra level of bureaucracy that would cause me concern. But I think as a mechanism itself, and I've seen no others, I can see the logic in it.

Okay. So, can I just stick with the question about that, because I know you organise in the Welsh-medium sector as well? So, when you have pupils coming through the Welsh-medium sector, whether you think this framework is still appropriate, and the levels it has for 'basic', 'independent' and 'proficient' users, and whether that's a helpful yardstick, as it were—we're now talking in imperial measurements—a yardstick for acquisition and proficiency in the language in the Welsh-medium sector as opposed to the English. I understand what you're saying about the English-medium sector, and I'll come back to that.

I think there's a risk. We have a Curriculum for Wales that we have invested in, that we have worked as a profession to create together. Within that, within this—I won't be able to remember the letters—the CEFR was thought of within that, when the principles of progression and the development of learning progression was done within Curriculum for Wales. So, we would believe that it would add a level of complexity, and it would almost detract from what we spent the last 10 years creating, which is about our curriculum in Wales delivering the progression we want. We would like to see them combined. We would like it not to stand outside Curriculum for Wales. We would like to see them within Curriculum for Wales. Is that right, Julian?

Yes, I would agree. Schools operate to already established steps—whatever you want to call them—like the progression steps in the Curriculum for Wales. You've got externally verified standards for GCSE and A-Level, and I personally think there is more mileage in a linguist, and I'm certainly not a linguist, but a linguist mapping the CEFR against the existing standards and seeing if you meet a certain standard what criteria they think that hits, because if you put a third layer into schools, you're just going to generate confusion. We have progression steps and we have GCSE and A-Level standards to reach, so they can exist, and somebody else can see whether they believe that is generating the level of speakers that they want. That would be my view on it.

I guess it's just a point that comes back to the differing levels of proficiency and ability. So, we have this difficult question about what is a Welsh speaker. Is a basic user a Welsh speaker or do you need to be a proficient user? I'm interested in your perspective. I have a particular view, but I'm not going to try to tell you what mine is and say, 'Now, do you agree with me?' But I'm interested, given that you're practitioners and leaders, about what you think the threshold for a Welsh speaker should be or could be, because in all of this you're going to be measured, aren't you? So, wanting to reach a particular level and what that means for the acquisition at the end of a school period of time, whether it's at GCSE or A-Level, and where you think this threshold for a Welsh speaker is. It goes back a bit to our other work of when do we reach 1 million and how do we understand that. I mean, if you don't have a view, you don't have a view. You don't have to—.

No, I have a view, yes. I mean, I'm a headteacher. [Laughter.]

We haven't had many heads who don't have a view, as I regularly find out in private meetings in their schools.

Do you want to go?

You go first and then I'll follow up.

So, I think I would have a view. I'll start with this. So, I think that when we talk about the use of language and where we want people to get to, we don't want this to be about the symbolic acquisition of language, that we know x amount of words, that we've got our vocabulary, that we can do our days of the week or anything else. Part of my job in my school, my mission statement, is to prepare pupils for the world of work. Some of that work that they go into may be in a bilingual setting. So, what you want to do is you need to have a level of proficiency that allows people to be comfortable around the use of language, both listening to language and understanding what is being said to them and speaking that language as well. 

I think within the CEFR framework, a B1 is about your practical and functional level of language that can contribute to the goal—I'm quoting this now—of creating a bilingual Wales. That seems to be a level that, in terms of reading, you may talk about, but for me it's more of a 'Does it meet the eye test?' Are these pupils who are going into the workplace or going into a place where Welsh is being spoken comfortable to be around that language and feel that they can contribute? That's the way I would look at it.

Everybody is different, every pupil is different, and every person's experience is different, but broadly speaking, I think, if I was recruiting, for example, somebody who I was looking to to bring in a degree of bilingualism, I would be really looking to see if they were coming out of the Welsh sector first in terms of their own education, or if they'd come out of the English sector, I'd really be looking at A-level, rather than GCSE, as the benchmark of thinking that this is somebody with a degree of Welsh that could become a good level of professional proficiency. In the same way, for example, if I was looking for somebody to teach geography who wasn't a geography teacher, I would typically be looking to see if they had that at A-level to give them that baseline of knowledge and skills that they need to use. It's more the A-level than the GCSE I'd use as a baseline there, but each child is different.

I think you've answered the last question, which is about CEFR not providing a description of people with no level of Welsh ability, so I don't think I need to ask that question. There are others that we could follow up in writing, Chair. 

Thank you. We'll now take some questions from Tom Giffard. 

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for coming in. Following on, I guess, from the point that Vaughan was making, focusing on the English language or English-medium sector, the Bill mentions, in schools in that sector, all pupils becoming essentially basic users by the time they finish compulsory education. How practical do you think that is in that sector? 

I'll kick off on that one. Without being funny, it comes back down again to your level of what a basic user is. If you regard a basic user as somebody who has completed GCSE, then virtually everyone who comes out of the English sector will have done a GCSE in Welsh by the end of year 11. There are exceptions based upon the particular criteria in the law, as you know, but typically everybody who is coming out of the English sector will study Welsh through to the age of 16, and typically would complete the GCSE in it or a similar qualification. It then comes down to other people determining whether that gives them a level of basic Welsh speaking, or not. And I think that really needs to come from people who are professionals in that field and in linguistics, et cetera. But that's the benchmark that we operate to at the moment. And then obviously the same thing applies, but at a higher level, in the Welsh sector. I keep pointing because we would have had a colleague from the Welsh sector with us today, but Estyn have called. 

I understand that. 

Just to echo again, I think we cannot ignore the availability of the workforce. So, the practical issues we face are very related to our ability to recruit and to retain staff. 

I would like to say as well that we need to be fair to other colleagues and to the Welsh Government that there are creative initiatives going on. If I look at my own school, and this is picking up my experience when I was head of Ysgol Dyffryn Taf in Whitland in Carmarthenshire previously, we worked with e-sgol at A-level. So, we were offering Welsh at A-level, being delivered in school with us and in collaboration with other schools in the area, and we managed to double the numbers of people who have come in studying Welsh in that way.

However, I would stress as well, to pick up on the points we made earlier, we are still operating the class numbers at a lower level than we would do for other subjects at A-level because we've made a personal commitment to it and because we recognise the national mission and so on, and that this is the right thing to be doing. But that level of innovation, and so on, does need additional funding. To be fair, we have a small amount of additional funding that has come in from e-sgol. I think there is a lot of innovative practice out there, but it doesn't overcome the practical problems that we've talked about. 

If we go back to recruitment, for example, to recruit a Welsh teacher to teach Welsh in the English sector who is not already in a school teaching Welsh would be unbelievably rare. It would be the newly qualified teachers coming out of the system, of which there are not many. So, systemically, whilst I might be able to recruit to my school, I'm then generating a hole for another school down the line, and so on. Systemically, it remains a problem. There is no net gain there.

Thank you. Given that these primarily English schools are being required to provide 10 per cent Welsh language education, and that can include the teaching of Welsh as a subject, how much of an increase does that actually entail, and what kind of proportion do English-medium schools provide at present? I know in your written evidence, both unions have said there'd be a considerable increase in the amount of Welsh language education many schools provide, so I'm just keen to get a kind of acid test, really, on where we are and where this Bill will take us.

I think that the majority of schools at key stage 4 are very close to the 10 per cent. When you look at key stage 3, I would say it's less so, but you need to remember the impact even a small increase could have. If you had one additional hour every two weeks, for a child in a 1,200-pupil school, which is quite normal, you're looking at another half teacher that would be required to deliver that. And then when you add in key stage 3, which may need double that or triple that, you're going to be looking for two permanent Welsh teachers. Again, I completely agree that 10 per cent is appropriate. However, we need the people in the classrooms able to deliver it.

If I could just add on that, quickly, a reflection on the primary school situation. Again, it's very different. You could line up 10 primary schools and they'd all have different percentages in terms of teaching. Again, a lot of it would come down to capacity, where they are, which part of Wales they're in, and I think that needs to be taken into consideration as well.

Is that covered—? Sorry, I know Cefin's going to ask later about the exemption criteria, but is that covered in that, do you think, sufficiently?

Probably not sufficiently. Again, I think we would ask that further conversations be had with primary schools in particular around this, because of course secondary will have dedicated Welsh language teachers, which primary schools won't have, and that needs to be taken into consideration, I would say.

Just to put a bit of detail on it, in my school, we'd be up close to the 10 per cent at key stage 4, so GCSE and above. At key stage 3 it's about 6 per cent. Then, you will be looking at a significant increase in terms of periods that you're going to put in, and then there are workforce issues. I think the point that I would make around that as well is it's not just around the workforce. If you make that additional commitment in an already crowded curriculum, then you're going to put an extra 4 per cent or 5 per cent of time into it, then something's got to not be taught, and then identifying what is not going to be taught would be a challenge for schools. Are we not going to teach creative arts, are we not going to teach numeracy or literacy skills, or are we not going to teach sport or physical education? We teach all of those things because they're really important. We try to walk a really fine line to identify where the priorities are, but I think when you start talking about statutory implementation of a percentage of lessons that need to be delivered in that way, it creates a challenge. And then just to echo what Laura was saying, particularly in small or rural primary schools, where you are literally bound by the skill set of a very small number of teachers who are delivering on a particular issue, it's even more of a challenge.

Do you mind answering your own question? What does get missed out?

I would really struggle with that.

Could I just add in about teaching assistants as well? For all children to have the opportunity to develop their language skills, all of them have to have the support that they are entitled to to do that. However difficult it is to recruit Welsh-speaking teachers, it's harder to recruit Welsh-speaking support staff, and I think there is a lot of work that is needed there.

Finally from me, what are your views on the requirement for all schools to have a Welsh language education delivery plan? How much of a change do you anticipate that would mean for schools in practice?

I'll come in on that. Obviously, there needs to be some kind of plan of how to do this. Again, we need to come back to the workload issue, because what we don't want is a plan for a plan's sake and a document for the sake of it. What we would be looking for is something that already sits within the school's existing frameworks, like the school development plan, so that we're not creating more work. I think we also need to be mindful that although this legislation will obviously have an impact on schools, there are a number of different areas, a number of priorities that schools are dealing with at the moment, not least numeracy and literacy, which the Welsh Government has been very clear is a priority for schools at the moment. I think what we need to be careful of is that we don't overburden the system with plans; what we want is action and support to be able to do that.

I think with the plans as well, if you're going to be truly strategic to do this, you need to be looking at three, five, seven-year plans. At the moment, school leaders will be lucky to have a one-year financial plan. So, if you haven't got that long-term financial stability, it makes planning superficial, and it can mean that you can't achieve what you're trying to achieve. I do think 90 per cent of schools do have a Welsh language plan within their normal school development plan. However, it's unlikely to get where we need to get without the extra funding.

On a similar note, one of the reservations you always have is planning for things that you can't fulfil. Curriculum change takes a bit of time, you have to plan it in advance in order to deliver it down the line, and if you start planning curriculum changes that you can't then easily shift once you've timetabled and so on, knowing that you won't be able to recruit, you are planning for failure, I'm afraid, on that front, because if you build in additional capacity and then cannot recruit for it, that means that you are doing a disservice to the study of Welsh, to be frank, if you can't put Welsh speakers in front of people who are learning Welsh. I know that sounds blindingly obvious, but that's the truth of it, and so it's all back down to the same thing. It's not a reluctance on our part to plan, it's an unwillingness to plan when we know that we're not going to have the staff to be able to deliver what we want to deliver.

Thank you, Tom. Now we have questions from Cefin Campbell, please.

I'll come in on that. Yes, I suppose our view does contradict the view of the Welsh Government, for numerous reasons that we've already set out. I think what we are concerned about, and we're coming back to the same theme here, is schools' ability to be able to deliver. Our members work in a very demanding education space with lots of pressure on schools to deliver in a whole host of areas. Our concern is that if we are not listening to the demands of that community and we are putting something out there that perhaps isn't what they want, where is the focus for education?

We are worried about the fact that schools are having so many things put on them, that if we start to put out policy positions, like the Welsh Government have on the promotion of the language—again, we're not against the promotion of Welsh, and I feel like a broken record saying that, but I think it's important to say that—I think we start to go down a route—. 'Where does it end?' I suppose is our point. So, if the Welsh Government decided that something else that they would like to promote should be a priority, okay, that's fine, but I think we need to look at what schools are able to deliver.

Again, we're coming back down to that capacity issue and prioritisation. We are not saying that the promotion of the Welsh language shouldn't be a priority. What we are saying is that in a crowded education space where everything is a priority, what are schools suppose to focus on? Again, that comes back down to those discussions we're having with the Government about what is it that you want us to deliver with this workforce, because this is the limited resource that we have, this is the capacity that we have. Where is the priority? At the moment, it feels very cluttered.

In terms of the—and I quote again—'bureaucratic burdens' that you feel that are already placed on teachers, do you think that this is a different kind of burden, as opposed to all the other education strategies that are put on schools?

I wouldn't call it a burden, because I think a burden is negative. I think what I would say—to put it into a better context—is that it is another demand placed on schools, and I think we need to be very careful that we don't put too much pressure and then we end up with the unintended consequences. We've all spoken about the recruitment and retention issues that we have that already exist in schools, outside of talking about this piece of legislation. We need to do better at recruiting and retaining those people to work in the whole profession so that there is that greater capacity.

I think it delays the issue. I think the exemption does nothing to remove the issue; it just mitigates for it. And, with two lots of exemption, does that suddenly mean that the workforce will appear? So, rather than thinking about exemption, for ASCL Cymru, we would be thinking about making sure that there are the resources and facilities available so that the exemption isn't needed.

I think we are running the risk a little of putting the horse before the cart. I think, at the point at which mandatory targets are introduced, we need to ensure that the workforce is there and that schools are perfectly capable of meeting those targets, because, at the minute, as I say, it's not about willingness, it is about capacity and I think we need to build that capacity first and then, from that point, it's perfectly reasonable, if the capacity is there, to say, 'There's your target. Do your best to meet it'. I don’t think that's a reasonable position at all when the capacity is not there.

It feels like the exemption is half of the equation. So, we would be aware of the length of time that we could introduce the exemption for. We know that we want a million Welsh speakers by 2050, but say, by 2035, what's the target for the number of Welsh language speaking teachers within the system? I think if we knew that that target was being set and would be met, then you could begin to plan for when you would be in a position to implement some of the provisions here.

Could I bring Tom in quickly here, please?

Yes. Sorry, just quickly. You sort of answered the question I was going to ask at the end there. But, Claire, you mentioned that the exemptions in particular delay the issue, and I forget who, but one of you said that this was not the right time to bring this Bill in. I'm curious as to whether, based on how you see the sector today and projected into the near future, there is a point in time when you have confidence that this Bill would be deliverable, because you've mentioned recruitment as being the golden thread that goes through everything that we've said. Based on your assessment, is there a point at which you'd feel confident that this stuff could be delivered?

I think it could be very much driven by the numbers entering initial teacher training. So, it has flatlined since 2020; there's no big increase. If we can get the people in for ITT, that will allow us then to start to recruit. So, if we allow that to be the identifier—

But that's not happening at the moment—

At the moment, it has flatlined.

—so, in your assessment, if that continues in that way, this can't be delivered.

Yes, because there won't be the people there to do it and that would be a real shame. What I think we need to do is really focus on ITT and use that to identify where the system is in its capacity to implement the Bill.

Okay.

Thank you. We now have some questions from Gareth Davies, please.

Thank you very much, Chair. I think, for me to fully understand, obviously, the origins of the Bill, we've got to strip it right back to why the Bill was even coming into place from the Welsh Government. Obviously, we've got the target of a million Welsh speakers, 'Cymraeg 2050', and I think the principle of that is to embed it within young people and the education system in order to try and achieve that. But then I think, 'Why has that Bill come into place?' Is it because that's a question of the existing systems that are in place, which are not serving their purpose? We've got the Welsh Language Act of 1993, so it's 31 years old. So, what do you think the education and the public sectors have been doing so fundamentally wrong within those 31 years to not make any progress, from the evidence that you've given this committee this morning, in regard to that? Because if you strip that right back, you take that to a micro level, you’ve got clusters within local authorities, Welsh language clusters, that could migrate, potentially, with English language-speaking schools, for example. So, what has fundamentally gone wrong, in your professional opinion, within those public services and education systems over the past 31 years, and potentially since devolution?

I don't actually think that's the right question, sorry. If we look at what’s gone wrong in the past, where we can’t capture now why we haven’t got enough people in the profession, I’m not sure we can ever capture what’s gone wrong. I think there is a system where the Welsh language has been tracked through the census, and it showed in 2021 that it’s at the lowest level that it’s ever been at, but I can’t answer the why. I can’t say what’s caused that issue. For me, there are simply not enough people in the system to deliver the Bill.

I know, for example, that you were the previous head of Rhyl High School in my constituency. So, what stopped you from working with the likes of Ysgol Dewi Sant, the likes of Ysgol Glan Clwyd?

Nothing.

So, why couldn’t Rhyl High School, for example, as an English-language school, benefit from the Welsh language provision that was just a few miles down the road, and that we could perhaps migrate those systems together?

Because there wasn't the capacity in that system. If we took capacity out of Glan Clwyd, who backfills that gap? There aren’t big pockets of capacity that allow those schools to come in to other schools. Also, the skill is very different to teach second language Welsh. I’ll talk about Rhyl, which I would not have done, but I will talk about Rhyl because that’s where I was a headteacher, where over 50 per cent of the population do not see themselves as Welsh. It’s a very different skill set. So, I think to try and say that it is the role and responsibility of the Welsh-medium sector, which have their own key priorities to deliver, to then support a much bigger English-medium sector around them, I don’t think there’s the capacity in the system to do that.

Right, okay. So, in terms of going back to the original question of what we’re trying to achieve here being a target of 2050, do you think that’s achievable within the parameters that we’re talking about in this session this morning?

It depends on the workforce—truly and honestly, that's the thing that will make it work or not. If we have the workforce in place, you have the want of the education system to make this happen, but it will be driven by who's there to deliver it.

How do we get over those barriers, then? How do we solve the problem? Obviously, we talk about issues that have happened in the past, and that’s all we can discuss, obviously, but in terms of what solutions we find for the future, what do you think we can do better in order to try and achieve those goals?

I'm not sure that I'm skilled to say that. I know what education do, I've seen how education embrace the Welsh language, and I've also seen the stresses that are creased by trying to give more than the system can give. But this, to me, is a cultural issue. This is an issue that's based on community. It's bigger than education. I'm not actually sure how that happens, but I know education will want to take its role in making it happen.

Essentially, in that regard, is the system flawed, then, in that it can't achieve what—? So, you've got the education sector here, and you've got the Welsh Government wanting to achieve something on the other side. If the two don't marry up, is the system flawed in that sense, then?

I think it's probably a bit unfair to expect the leadership unions to decide whether or not the Welsh Government’s 2050 policy is unfair. That’s probably outside of our remit. All we can talk about is education. From a workforce perspective, again, kind of irrespective of if we’re talking about the Welsh language, we’re talking about recruitment and retention of great teachers and leaders and teaching assistants. We are not doing that. There is a variety of reasons why we believe we’re not getting those people coming into the profession. We can talk at length about our concerns around workload of teachers and leaders, around the intolerable pressure put on schools that is basically driven by a lack of funding because schools’ capacity has reduced dramatically. If you’ve got fewer members of staff having to deliver at least the same, or more demands placed on schools to deliver more, then, of course, that's going to have a negative impact on how the profession feel and how they're viewed from outside.

We know that, in the last five years—the data tells us—50 per cent of people that come into initial teacher training leave within the first five years. Well, that's a damning indictment of the system. What we need to do is make sure that we promote being a teacher as the best career possible. There is nobody who works in education that comes into it for the money and the delight of being a teacher; they come into it because they want to serve their communities, they want to give something back to the children and young people at their school. We need to make sure that we create the conditions of service where teachers and leaders can thrive, where it is a positive experience, where they're allowed to focus on what they went into it for, which is teaching and learning, and not a box-ticking exercise of assessment and accountability. Of course, there must be accountability—we're talking about education—but not overburdensome accountability. If we create the conditions of service, and we do that right, and we start to see an increase in people coming into the profession, that will help, and that's all we can talk about.

Sorry, Gareth, can I bring Vaughan in quickly here?

Just in terms of the discussion we're having now, it seems like it's not a lot to do with the Bill. There's a broader discussion about why people do not want to be teachers, and there are pressures outside what the Government does and about what people face at school gates and others. So, I'm trying to understand, with this discussion, whether we're really going back to the point Cefin was making about acquisition in a school in terms of how schools could and should be fairly judged, and what takes place in the school, and the different issue of language use. And just correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems we're confusing 2050 and a million Welsh speakers with what the Bill is trying to do, which will contribute towards that, but it's fundamentally about what we can do to improve the teaching of Welsh, the acquisition of Welsh in the sector, and how to grow that within schools, and there's a different challenge about how we persuade people to use the Welsh they have got, if that's fair to say. It just seemed we got a bit lost in not talking about the Bill.

Do you mind if I respond on that? And forgive me if I've got this wrong, but the premise of your question appeared to be that there was a failure on the part of the public sector. We've had compulsory Welsh within schools for over 30 years. We've delivered on all our obligations on that front. The Welsh sector is bigger than it's ever been. Primary schools are far more Welsh than they were when I started teaching in terms of the Welshness that you will encounter, the use of the Welsh language, and this is anecdotal, but that is also my experience of secondary schools as well—considerably more spoken Welsh being heard around and about in the English sector than there would have been when I started teaching in 1993. So, I think the premise of the question that the public sector has failed is wrong. What we can't do is force people to self-identify as Welsh speakers subsequently when they leave school.

I don't think that's a fair assessment of my comments, that it's a failure of the public sector—

Okay, forgive me, then. That's how I understood it.

It's more for argument's sake. It's because, obviously, we have had legislation embedded within Welsh society for over 30 years, but, based on the evidence that you've given prior to my line of questioning, that's why it led to the question of—. If those systems had been in place for over three decades, then the comments that you've made so far don't allude to the fact that we've made any progress within that time in terms of that. But it's quite refreshing to hear that now—you believe that there is some progress in that regard.

Yes, there is, definitely. I'll pick up Mr Gething's point there, as well, that it's about culture subsequently. Doing Welsh in school and self-identifying as a Welsh speaker are not the same thing. It's probably not the time, with this Bill, to be trying to join those two things together.

Well, I certainly hear more Welsh in schools compared to when I first got elected. As a local Member, going around, I definitely hear more Welsh in primary and secondary schools now, compared to 2011. That is absolutely my experience. But that's a different question we're trying to answer with the Bill, I think. Sorry, Chair.

That's okay. Thank you. I'll finish off with the final question, then. To what extent do you agree with the creation of a National Institute for Learning Welsh, and the role that the Bill sets out for it? And how much of a role do you believe it should have in terms of statutory education, and how would you like to see it working with existing organisations, such as schools?

I'm happy to come in on that. I think there would need to be more information about the way that that body would be constituted. I think one of the things that we suffer from in Wales is particularly around academic research into whole different areas of our business. If there was a body that was created that was producing information for schools about language acquisition, clear academic research on different strategies that can be implemented and work, promoting the language, and you're still talking about increasing the richness of culture around schools, I think that's only to be welcomed. I think that the challenge comes when institutions then begin to create demand or begin to statutorily impact on schools in terms of expectations of what needs to be done.

Okay. Anybody else?

I think it's hugely important that it's a partnership, that this organisation would work in partnership with local authorities and schools. I think it's also really important that they work outside three to 16, so school leaders keep the autonomy of Welsh language development within their schools.

I don't want to sound like I'm stating the obvious as well, but if they start recruiting teachers out of the Welsh sector or the English sector, we're going to have another problem there as well. Joking aside—although I wasn’t actually joking, to be honest—there's also a practical consideration of the point at which they train staff, because presumably they're going to be coming into schools et cetera, and we would fully welcome that. But obviously you don't want to do that to the detriment of the existing teaching that's taking place. And there also needs to be recognition that the time to do that might vary between the secondary and the primary sectors. For example, in what is known as gained time in the secondary sector, where you have exam classes that are no longer with us, and you use that time for particular, targeted training, that would be a lovely time in the secondary sector to focus on Welsh language acquisition et cetera. But I'm very conscious that my primary colleagues don't get that gained time and, quite rightly, would say, ‘Well, what about us?’ And they would have a point.

Thank you. Thank you so much for your time this morning. We really appreciate it. You'll be sent a transcript for checking in due course. Thank you so much.

Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will now take a short break until 10:40.

Welcome back. We'll move on now to agenda item 3. Please can the witnesses introduce themselves and also outline briefly what, if any, involvement they've had in the development of the Bill? If we can start here, please. 

Hello. Bore da, everybody. Good morning. Nice to be here, nice to see you. My name is Urtha Felda. I am officer with the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, the teachers union. Apart from the response I've sent to you, I've actually had no engagement at all with the development of this Bill. 

Bore da. Good morning. I'm Nicola Fitzpatrick. I am the interim Wales secretary for the National Education Union, and, similar to Urtha, apart from the written submissions we've put in, I've not had any involvement to date with that. 

Bore da. Mairead Canavan. I'm an executive member for the NEU, and, apart from having discussions, I haven't had any involvement with the Bill. 

Okay. Thank you. Members have a series of questions to ask you this morning, and I'll begin. Could you outline your initial thoughts on the Bill and whether you believe it should be a priority at the current time, including whether it should be a priority within education specifically? 

Okay, I'll start, sorry. 

So, my initial thoughts: I really support the development of the Welsh language. I have learnt and I ensured my children learnt. In terms of priorities at this time, obviously, it is a priority for education specifically from the get-go, from three years old. My grandchildren have just started meithrinfa—really, really important. Tomos is coming home using Welsh now. That's key as it goes through. So, absolutely crucial for education. 

I think, for me, though, in terms of priorities, just to keep it short, there are two main issues. One is I'm aware there's no slack in schools at the moment for more changes, and there are lots of arguments I could put forward here—all of which I'm sure you're really familiar with—but the stress around the introduction of the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018, I know that teachers are struggling with that 20 per cent drop-off and how they manage that diversity in their classroom. Then there's also the Curriculum for Wales that people are still working to. So, there is no slack in the system at the moment. 

I think my second point on my initial response is to consider how we encourage and entice people to want to learn Welsh. I still hear comments that are negative, which is really sad to hear, but I do still hear it. And I think, without that backing up any changes, it's going to be really, really difficult to succeed. I also wonder, having been aware of the group of indigenous minority languages in Europe under the European Union, how they have gone about increasing the numbers of people that speak their minority language, as well as increasing the standard. That maybe would be very appropriate for us going forward here. So, in general, I absolutely support developments; I'm just aware that there is no slack, worried about staff and parents having a panic. I'm sure we'll go further into it as we go on. Thank you.

Thank you. Ioan.

Thank you. Anybody else?

So, the NEU supports 'Cymraeg 2050' as a long-term strategy and ambition, and I would agree with many of the points that Urtha made too, so I won't repeat them. But, from our point of view, there needs to be a commitment to significant resource funding and training, and the fact that it needs to be done with the profession and not to them. I think that some of the other concerns that we've got will come up in different parts of the conversation. So, in principle, yes, we support the Bill, but there are questions around training and funding and the impact that that's going to have on the workforce, which I think we'll come to later. Thank you.

Can I just add, as the only in-service teacher on the panel, that I have a lot of worries about workload, about teachers being expected to do training outside of their work day, because that is already expected in some areas. And the funding is needed to ensure that they're going to have time out of school to retrain, train for the necessary skills.

Okay. Thank you. The Bill requires the Welsh Government to include statutory targets in its Welsh language strategy to increase the provision of Welsh language education and increase the number of people who are learning Welsh. How will this affect schools and your members, and do you agree with the role the Bill gives to the education system in reaching the 'Cymraeg 2050' target of 1 million Welsh speakers? I know you've just touched on that, but—.

It will affect teachers, and we already touched on the different ways that it will affect teachers, but the way to prevent it affecting teachers badly is to put the resources in place. That's such an obvious place to start. I think, before that, there is going to be a need to address the fear that teachers will have. I was supporting a school that were going through a Welsh in education strategic plan process, and despite reassurances about the support that would be given to them on learning Welsh and support to learn how to deliver lessons through the Welsh language, they were really scared, and many of them just wanted to leave. At that school, it didn't happen at that time, but that is almost a panic button, in a way—it may not match reality, it's just that's how people feel. So, it's okay to say, 'Yes, we support it', and, of course, schools have a really significant role, it wouldn't happen without schools, but you still need to be addressing the barriers. It's not just saying, 'Yes, it's great', you have to make sure that the barriers are looked at.

Obviously, those fears of teachers are one of them, there are other staff in the school that are affected, parents—. I would really need to see an intense education programme on really understanding the benefits of learning a second language generally for the development of a young person's brain and capability in going forward in whatever path they want to take. So, a lot of education around that, and somehow addressing the arguments that, 'We don't need a Welsh school here, no-one speaks Welsh here.' If you're not physically placed near a school, how do you address those barriers?

So, I absolutely support the aim of this Bill, it's just it needs a lot more detail, a lot more thinking, a lot more planning, a lot more on how we bring people along with us. An English school in that sector, that primarily English sector, I know the Estyn report has made reference to the fact about the really poor planning in terms of developing Welsh, but if they're not achieving, they're going to be very disheartened. So, it's really important that there's a whole 360 promotion taken around how this is actually going to become embedded as a valid and really important focus for Cymru going forward. Thank you.

So, not to repeat any of the points that have already been made, I think our members do have worries, and I think, depending on which setting you teach in, those worries are going to be very different and that needs acknowledging. One of the things that we'd requested, and it may well come up later, is not only a workload impact assessment, but also that Welsh Government undertake a comprehensive audit of the education profession's Welsh language ability, so they've got a good starting point to know where that resource would need targeting, where that support would need to be, and again to speak to those people on the ground to address those concerns, because there is some anxiety about it, despite the long running time. So, I think, without that, it would be impossible to have realistic costings for the Bill. So, I think it's really important for that starting point. And, obviously, that's going to be varied in different settings, depending where you teach.

Thanks. Okay, thank you. We now have some questions from Vaughan Gething, please.

Thank you, Chair. I want to go back to the common European framework of reference for languages. We'll call it 'CEFR'; it'll make it much easier and shorter. The Bill suggests using this as the measuring tool, as it were, for the language acquisition acquired in schools. So, I want to understand whether you think it can be applied effectively to the context proposed in the Bill and its impact and fit with the curriculum. So, that's both whether you think it's an appropriate measuring tool, as it were, and then, to reach the expectations in the Bill, would that have an impact on the curriculum that we are still introducing across schools in Wales? Perhaps we can start with the NEU, because I know you had some comments on the amount of teaching you think might be required to reach level B1.

Okay. Yes, so, one of the things we'd say to start with is the tool, I suppose, in principle, we don't have an issue with, although it's unclear how it will be used as a measure, because our understanding is that it's a self-assessment tool regarding your proficiency. So, that would need some work, I think. But our concern was that it appeared to be that the proficiency level that was expected at B2 appeared to equate with, if you were going to equate it with any qualification in existence, the A-level standard. So, we would have concern whether that is realistically achievable and that schools should really be in a position to know not only the proficiency of their teaching staff, but also the levels that their children are at. So, we think schools should have a real involvement in those targets and the levels that learners are leaving school with.  

So, do you think that will impact on the wider curriculum then? Is that, essentially, what your evidence is? Just so we understand. I don't want to put words in your mouth. We want to understand if you think it would or it wouldn't.

I think it would impact, really, and what our members are telling us is that even those that consider themselves to be proficient in Welsh and confident in Welsh, that might not necessarily equate to them being confident to teach in Welsh, not just generally, but subject specific. So, yes, it will.

Right.

I have a particular example of somebody in my district who is able to teach Welsh, but he's an ICT teacher. He has taught some Welsh in the past, basically because of the funding of the school and they couldn't get a Welsh teacher, but he didn't want to, and he doesn't want for that to encroach on his subject. And there are worries that teachers are going to be forced into teaching Welsh when they're really not comfortable, or even if they are comfortable, they don't really want to be teaching a large element of that.

Okay. Can I check if there is a different view from NASUWT? Because I want to come back onto some of the other points made around whether it's an appropriate framework for the Welsh-medium sector.

If you're having clear standards, you absolutely have to have some sort of framework, and this has got the advantage that it is widely used. I think my question really, in how it would operate in Wales, for us, is to go back to the organisation I mentioned earlier with the focus on indigenous European languages, the indigenous minority, and what we could learn from their approaches to increasing the numbers and the standards of the minority language that they work with. So, it is an understood standard to work with, but I do wonder if it's the best and if it's worth just checking other sources.

I think B2 is an aspiration and, in some ways, if the child has been learning Welsh since they were three even, like my grandson, Tomos, who’s learning Welsh now, by the time they're 16, 18, you would assume that B2, reasonably fluent—. I'm not sure if that equates to A-level, but I think that's a reasonable expectation for a school career, to learn Welsh, to be honest with you.

I wanted to move into the next point, which is that we’ve had evidence from other people about whether this is an appropriate framework for people who have either gone through the whole Welsh-medium system or, indeed, whether it's appropriate for people who come from a Welsh-speaking home, and so what that then means for the CEFR model, and whether a distinction can be made for those who already have the Welsh language. Because it’s essentially a system that understands and tries to give an assessment for additional language acquisition. And then there’s a second point around whether it matters for those people who don’t appear to have Welsh-medium ability at all, and there’ll be some children going through our system who you understand wouldn’t have that. I’m interested, Ioan, in your perspective on this.

So, we’re regularly asking people what the level or the threshold is for someone to be a Welsh speaker. And the challenge is that sometimes this can be loaded in a way that isn’t helpful, I think, for people who want to be able to go out and use the Welsh they have. But given that we’re talking about acquisition in a context where schools will be measured, I’m trying to understand where you think the threshold for a Welsh speaker should be. Is it somewhere on the CEFR model? And are we talking, then, about the changes to be made to GCSE, where you’d say, 'Someone who does that should be considered a Welsh speaker'? Or do you think it should be somewhere else? Then, there’s the different issue about how people describe themselves in the census, which is really about, I think, their confidence in themselves, which is something different as well.

I'll stop there, Chair, because I know we have lots of questions to get through, and I perhaps took up too much time in the previous section. 

Thank you. Cefin, did you want to come in here quickly?

I think in our response, we were emphasising—

I wasn't going to name you, but—. [Laughter.]

That's fine. In our response, we were welcoming the Bill, obviously, because it's really important for Wales. It's really important that the number of speakers increases as well as the standard increasing. I think what I didn't see and what my colleagues didn't see was the support that's needed. Through research that I've read, bilingualism is best promoted when the home setting supports it, and without that, even if you go down this legal route, I don't think you're going to succeed, because you're going to have such barriers, which could be increased—I don't agree with this—by people feeling that the language is being imposed on them. So, that's one aspect of it, and that brings me back to those previous points about sufficient funding to promote and to educate communities about the benefits of learning a second language and learning Welsh. 

And then other research, which I think is quoted in some of the responses, shows the importance of the setting of the school and the level of language in the community. I heard somebody in my village—this is a young person of 16—saying that it's not cool to speak Welsh. So, that setting there is really, really important. So, it still needs a lot of promotion, a lot more messaging around the benefits. So, I think if you bring this Bill in without enough resourcing to support and to get over the other barriers, equally those increases that you want to see I don't think you will. That's where I'm coming from. I hope that's clear. I don't know if you have any other questions. 

If I can just come back to the point you made about a feeling of the language being imposed in schools, I never hear that argument around physical education or music, or geography.

I'm not saying I agree with it. I don't agree with it. 

It's always to do with the Welsh language. I'm intrigued to understand why that should be the case. 

I don't have that thinking in my head, so I can't explain it, because I support the Welsh language. For some reason, people feel threatened by it. That's all I know.

If the system we're using at the moment has failed, then the NEU supports the strategy and we welcome the fact that there is a long lead-in time. Our worries are around having enough support and funding and training for teachers so that they are ready to take it on.

But in my head, I've got an image of Rhyl and I'm just looking, in my helicopter, at what's going on in that area and how would the use of the Welsh language be increased. It would just need such a lot of resources. There would need to be more skilled teachers; there would just need to be ways of speaking with parents that would get them invovled. There would need to be ways of really engaging with the community to get them involved. Otherwise, you've got an island of a school without any community support.

And the other thing is around possible transport—how the children get to the schools that can provide Welsh. It doesn't just sit on its own—it does link to so many other things in the community. I don't think it's a positive or a negative thing—it is true. I read the Estyn report; there is an issue with planning in primarily English schools, which does need addressing, but it would only be addressed by sufficient resources supporting the aims in this Bill.

I'm not sure. 

Thank you. We now have some questions from Tom Giffard, please.

Thank you very much. Can I start with the NEU, if that's okay? I note that in your written evidence to us you talked about the school language categories. You mentioned that the scale of change you thought would be needed to encourage a school to move from, say, a category 1 to a category 2 wouldn’t encourage schools to want to do that. I wonder whether you think that the ultimate aim, or the longer term goal of primarily English schools teaching their learners to become independent users, is therefore realistic.

I think our written evidence makes it clear that we don't think, at this stage, that it's entirely realistic without—just to repeat what many of us have said already—significant investment and training, because it all relates to the confidence and proficiency of those who are already in the profession.

And I think one of the things that we also said in that written submission was that we noted that there was an ability to move between categories but not back. But again, I think there's a bit of a lack of clarity around what that would mean and how involved in that process schools would be. And I think without repeating what our suggestions are for amendments, we think trade unions who represent the people working in those schools should be involved in the process of full consultation right from the beginning, and then we can actually talk about what these issues might mean in practice on the ground. So, I think, other than what we've written in our report, I've not got anything to add to that.

I don't know if anybody else has got any view on that, about the realistic nature of that goal.

Just to agree, to be honest with you, I don't think any of us disagree with the aims in this paper. It is how it links to the resources, current skills, but also whether there is slack in the system for teachers to take it up and move it forward. There's a lot of stress already there on teachers with the changes with the Curriculum for Wales. In schools, I don't think it's a lack of desire from teachers; it is 'Where does that get done in my school day?'

Diolch yn fawr. One last question, for everybody, I guess: what are your views on the requirement for all schools to have a Welsh language education delivery plan and how much of a change is that in practicality, compared with what schools are already doing?

I think, as Ioan said, there are plans in schools already and, like there are WESPs coming from the local authority, the problem is implementation. So, it is not only writing and creating plans that are suitable for that school and that community, it is somehow ensuring that they are implemented, and that comes back to the points that we've actually all already mentioned, which are working with the parents and the children, making sure the staff have the skills, making sure there are enough resources available, which are about tools online, translation, all of that. So, these aims would be achievable, providing those kinds of caveats about the right support being put in place. I think, in the paper we sent in, we were asking for reassurance from the Welsh Government that that is what actually would happen. Thank you.

If it's okay, just to add to that, one of the things, again, going back to the impact assessments, would be the impact of it on different groups. So, for example, we mention in our submission children with additional learning needs. Yes, there's no requirement for this Bill to be implemented in specialist provision schools, but what about those children with additional needs, whose current needs are being met through universal provision? That needs to be considered. Again, it just goes back to that sufficient time out for training and support for those teachers who are at different levels in different settings that I mentioned at the beginning. So, that would be the bit that I would add—the impact on different groups and the support and the provision that are in place for that to allow it to be successful.

Can I just expand on that a little bit and say that children with additional needs in school at the moment are not getting the help they need anyway? So, it's hard to see how they would get the help that they would need to be fluent in Welsh as well.

Thank you. Thank you, Tom. We are running behind time, so if Members and witnesses could keep their questions and answers as concise as possible, please, I'd be very grateful. Cefin Campbell, please.

Reading the Bill as it is, I recognise that there's a lot of detail yet to be developed. I think what is absolutely crucial for teachers to feel confident that they're going to be given the appropriate training would be to see a programme of what is available, what standards are expected, how it would work in practice, how teachers are going to be covered and how they are going to get released. And then, of course, you've got to match that, going through ITE, as to where teaching Welsh language skills will sit within that. So, to me, none of that is clear within the Bill, and I think, as it stands at the minute, it wouldn't give me reassurance as a teacher in a classroom. So, I think there's a lot of work to do. As it stands at the moment, there's a lot of work to develop that reassurance for teachers.

I would just add to that, as you touched on it, that there's already a wealth of pedagogical experience in the workforce, and it's critical to use that for the success of this Bill, but, actually, it's clear that teachers are going to need increased amounts of planning, preparation and assessment time to support children and young people in their learning if it's going to be successful and we're going to meet those targets, even though the run-in time is long. So, I would just add that.

Diolch.

I think I'd just say workload is workload, but I think, for this Bill in particular, for teachers expanding or learning new Welsh language skills, that’s a different bit of their brain they’re going to engage, so it will be slower and longer preparation for them, and through the years, after five years, it might be something that’s done really quickly. I also am aware that there are organisations that have been set up to help prepare Welsh language materials, but I think, initially for many teachers, even for teachers who are fluent in Welsh, if they’re delivering through Welsh for the first time, the fact that you’re using those different language skills is going to slow you down. Hopefully, that will decrease, but I think it’s a factor that’s going to increase the workload initially.

The only thing I would add to that is the workload impact assessment tool that’s being developed by the Welsh Government is not finished yet. There was a guarantee that that would be used for any new introduction of a Bill or policy, so we'd just repeat our request that that is done. I would agree that workload is workload, but actually, again, if you’re from a totally different starting point, then it’s obviously going to be different in your setting. So, I think one of the things that we would say is, based on experience of the huge changes with the ALN Act and the Curriculum for Wales, what gets taken away? Yes, workload is workload, but when something new is added, what is taken away to support that? I think that’s the issue, really, for us.

Thank you. We now have questions from Gareth Davies, please.

Thank you very much, Chair. Good morning, everybody. I want to focus on Part 4 of the Bill, if I may. The Welsh Government wants to establish a clear line of accountability, in their words, at a national, local and school level for the planning of Welsh language education. Do you agree with what the Welsh Government wants to achieve, and to what extent do you believe that the Bill does this and covers those matters nationally, locally and at a granular level in schools?

The logic within the Bill requires monitoring, otherwise how are you going to assess success? So, it is within the Bill. I think one of the things around workload that teachers are always raising is that they’re just always asked for so much information. They have to record so much information, it has to be collated and shared, and this would be yet another layer of that. So, any monitoring—and, as I say, the logic within the Bill does require it—would have to be carefully looked at as to what we have now that it could fit into, how it could be done most easily for the teachers involved with it. So, it would need careful consideration as to how it would jig-saw into what’s already happening without creating more and enormous barriers. Just before we go as well, we're talking a lot about teachers, but, actually, this affects all the staff in the school. There will be, obviously, teaching assistants, and all of the things we've talked about in relation to support will be necessary for those, and you’re looking at people that look after the school building, people that prepare the food, et cetera, et cetera. So, all of those issues need to be, for your question—.

Yes. Any more comments?

I think that there are clear lines of accountability already, we wouldn't expect them not to exist, but I think it goes back to doing it with the profession, as opposed to to them. So, ask the people on the ground what the impact's going to be, what support they need, how they envisage it developing in their setting, and I think that's the most important thing—to have those people involved right from the beginning. Yes, that's what I would add.

Yes, I think that's important. Just finally, if I may, Chair, when we took evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language, he told me—or told us, as a committee, I should say—that local authorities had asked for the name and the concept of the WESPs to be retained. And I've asked the same question in previous panels, which you may have seen publicly, to try and understand what the difference is between the initial plan in the White Paper for the Welsh in education strategic plans, and the difference between the WESPs. Did the strategic plans try to achieve something different to the WESPs, and what middle ground would there be, if that was the case, between the two of them? Or is just a terminology issue?

Can I clarify: are you asking were the WESPs written strategically? Is that what you're asking?

So, obviously, as we know, the WESPs are something that's established, but, in the original White Paper published by the Welsh Government, they were advertised as WEIPs—Welsh in education strategic plans. I'm just trying to establish whether the difference in terminology meant something different in what it tried to achieve, rather than the established WESPs, and, if it did, then is there something that it initially tried to achieve, but then it falls back to the—perhaps status quo isn't the right word, but back to the default, if you like? 

I understand. So, a strategic plan can sit in a cupboard and not really work, and, I think, anecdotally, that's what I've heard from members that I've spoken with. I think the WEIP, if that's right, is more specific, and it makes a reference to implementation, but that doesn't actually make a difference to what might happen. Just because it's got a different name, it doesn't guarantee it is going to be implemented. So, you're still looking at, actually, what's going to happen on the ground, how would it work, how will the local authorities link with the schools and the governors and the rest of it.

And that's ultimately the question. Are we perhaps just overthinking it, and it's just a change in terminology, or is it something more meaningful than just a terminology issue? That's all we're trying to establish, really.

I think the title talks about implementation, which is key, and, obviously, the Bill talks about accountability and monitoring, which does spell bigger and clearer responsibilities, but none of that will work without the resources. I think we'll always keep coming back to the resources. Huge ambitions, which we do support, but to ensure that the teachers, the parents and the children are involved, you need a lot of resources.

Any additional—?

Nothing to add.

Okay. Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for your time this morning. We really appreciate you joining us. There will a transcript sent for checking in due course, but thank you, again, this morning for your time.

We will now take a five-minute break, to bring in the next witnesses.

Welcome back. We'll move on to agenda item 4 now. Please can the witnesses introduce themselves and also outline briefly what, if any, involvement they've had in the development of the Bill?

Thank you. Members have a series of questions to ask you this morning, and I'll begin. Could you outline your initial thoughts on the Bill and the extent to which it will support the work and progress required to achieve the ‘Cymraeg 2050’ target of a million Welsh speakers?

Thank you. We now have some questions from Cefin Campbell.

Thank you. We now have questions from Vaughan Gething, please. 

Diolch, Gadeirydd. Thank you. I want to move into the questions that you may have seen I've asked other witnesses before about the use of the common European framework of reference for languages, or CEFR. There's, I guess, a couple of different parts to this. There's, first, whether you think it's an appropriate measuring tool to use, and then whether you think it can be applied effectively in the context proposed in the Bill, and then the knock-on potential impact in the curriculum. And I'm sure you'll have seen that other witnesses had views on that. So, I'm interested in what the inspectorate's view is on both those perspectives.  

So, CEFR is designed for additional languages. And there is a question about whether it's an appropriate tool for people who come from Welsh-speaking homes or a wider education environment, as opposed to learning it as an additional language. I just want to check if you have a particular view, or whether you'd stick to the view that, actually, it's appropriate as a whole-language continuum and it makes sense in the Welsh-medium setting, as well as in an English-medium setting, where Welsh would be, for most people, an additional language.

It's interesting, because the point around someone who would be described as not having Welsh language skills, and you made the point around the pre-acquisition stage, about whether in a school setting—. Because there will be some pupils who will, for understandable reasons, reach the end of their time and not have acquired Welsh language skills at all, and not reached the basic speaker threshold. It sounds like you're saying that, actually, that's fine, and the way you can apply CEFR doesn't create a problem. So, I just want to check that.

And then, the issue we keep on coming to and wanting to try to understand is about whether there is a threshold where you're thinking Welsh speakers should be. We've heard different evidence from different people about where that should be, and whether actually CEFR can help us—whether it should be a basic user, independent or proficient. But have you got a view on where you'd say a Welsh speaker is, without trying to draw you into issues about self-assessment or self-identification, where people consider themselves to be Welsh speakers, and about whether other people would?

Okay. Thank you. There's—

I'll stop there, Chair, because I know you have other questions to get through.

Thank you. We'll now turn to Tom Giffard, please.

Thank you very much. In your written evidence, you mention that you felt as though the language categories that were being suggested were complicated or misleading. Can you speak a bit more to that, particularly for the implications that that would have for Welsh-medium schools currently?

Diolch. In the context of the primarily English, partly Welsh schools, you'll know, obviously, that the Bill requires 10 per cent of the time teaching Welsh language education. I just wonder, from the context of what you see in school inspections and those kinds of schools, materially and practically, how much more, or perhaps even less, is that compared to what those sorts of schools are already teaching?

Thank you. And one final question on a fairly similar theme. Obviously, the Bill would require all schools to have a Welsh language education delivery plan. Again, how different is that to what schools currently have, and how much change does that mean in practice for schools?

Thank you, Tom. We now have some questions from Cefin Campbell, please.

Thank you. We now have questions from Gareth Davies, please.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Good afternoon and thanks for joining us today. I want to focus on Part 4 of the Bill, if I may, today. I’ll just start by asking this. The Welsh Government wants to establish a clear line of accountability at a national, local and school level for the planning of Welsh language education. Do you agree with what the Welsh Government wants to achieve, and to what extent do you believe the Bill does this?

Mererid, any additional comments to that?

Thanks very much. What would Estyn’s role be in that, then, in terms of the accountability at a national, local and school level? Where would Estyn play a role within that system?

Would you be seeking something additional in the Bill to achieve that, then, as a governing body over schools as something from the Welsh Government to give you the powers to assess the progress of Welsh language provision in those schools, or is it satisfactory within the Bill itself at the moment?

Diolch. Are there any other areas of services for children and young people that you believe should be added to the scope of the national framework for Welsh language and education and local authorities—the WESPs, basically—and if so, which services would they be?

I've asked previous panellists over two sessions now about the difference between the terminology in the existing WESPs and the Welsh education implementation plans—the WEIPs—that were initially proposed in the White Paper. Is there any difference in that regard in your view, and if so, what would that be? Is it just a simple terminology matter, or does it run a bit further than that in your view in terms of what the original plan was to achieve, or if it doesn't, does that then fall back on the status quo in terms of the WESPs?

I think that's been the consensus in that regard. I was just checking with you, as a body, as to whether you had any different thoughts on that. But over the sessions that we've had, I think that's certainly a consensus that we've been able to gauge as a committee—that it's more of a terminology aspect than anything deeper than that. But we just wanted, obviously, to explore that matter.

The White Paper included a proposal for Estyn to be asked to carry out a rapid review of a local authority's WESP and make recommendations. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language told us that this is not included in the Bill, as the Welsh Government already has the power to remit Estyn to do such work. Are you satisfied that there is already provision in legislation or other means for Estyn to undertake such reviews? I know that you touched on that in a previous response to my question, but just to expand that out in terms of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language's comments.

Thank you. Thank you so much for your time this morning. We really appreciate you joining us. You will be sent a transcript for checking in due course. Thank you.

We'll now move on to item 5, which is papers to note. Full details of papers are set out on the agenda and in the paper pack. Are Members content to note the papers together? Yes.

Moving on to item 6, I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix), that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Yes. We will now proceed in private.