National Assembly for Wales

Welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. 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. Cefin Campbell has sent his apologies for the meeting, and Siân Gwenllian will be substituting. Thank you, Siân. Are there any declarations of interest from Members? I can see there are not. 

Moving on to item 2, I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix), that the committee resolves to meet in private for items 3 and 8 at today's meeting and for item 1 at the meeting on 17 September. Are Members content? We'll now proceed in private.

We'll now move on to agenda item 4, which is the seventh evidence session for this inquiry. Please could the witnesses introduce themselves for the record? We'll start on the screen with Chris, please.

I'm Chris Williams, and I'm the director of education recently appointed at the University of South Wales.

I'm Angella Cooze, and I'm director of the postgraduate certificate in education secondary programme in Swansea University.

Bore da. Sarah Stewart, I'm the director of the PGCE route at the Open University. I also hold the chair for the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers.

Bore da, my name is Dave Stacey. I'm the academic director for initial teacher education at the Athrofa professional learning partnership, which is based at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

Thank you for joining us this morning. Members have a series of questions for you today, and we'll start with Siân, who's online, please.

I'm happy to start with that. Before I do start, I would like to say that, obviously, as a sector, we do communicate with one another. We're all looking for a solution to this. We recognise that teacher recruitment and retention is at something of a crisis point, particularly in certain secondary subjects, in Welsh-medium education, and in rural areas. So we are working very hard as a sector to try and address this.

It's very difficult to identify a single thing, I would say. We do a lot of work with our alumni, and we try and capture their thoughts on their reasoning behind entering the profession and what would make them stay. There's a feeling amongst young people that the job is quite inflexible compared to other career pathways. And also the reputation of the job, sometimes, is seen rather negatively, that it’s very hard work, that there are long hours, that there are increasing demands made on teachers.

Those who enter the classroom, when we do speak to our alumni, feel that a lot of that is allayed, actually, by their classroom experience. They feel more of the richness and the value of the role. They can really see that it’s impactful, and they feel really pleased to be a part of it. But there is a perception around the profession that is quite negative, I think, in general. So, the key thing would be trying to change that, to make it a more appealing career pathway, particularly for those students who are studying subjects where they have many, many career pathways open to them.

Would anybody like to add to that?

From the perspective of our students who follow the part-time or the salaried routes, it’s the cost of study that is often quite a significant barrier for them. Our students tell us that they couldn’t have completed the PGCE any other way than via our routes, and that this had offered them a lifeline into a profession that they had, for a very long time—. Many of them are established staff members in schools already, as teaching assistants or higher level teaching assistants, and they just haven’t been able to take that financial step due to the cost of studying, and, often, the cost of childcare alongside that as well.

I’d also say there’s a little bit of a risk around a kind of chicken and egg situation happening now, with shortage subjects in particular, where schools themselves are starting to report that it’s difficult for them to have capacity in, say, a science department to support and mentor science student teachers, because they may not have staff themselves who are experienced enough, they may be dependent on newly qualified teachers, they may be dependent on staff who are on short-term or supply contracts. And so the school, even though they really want to be able to support student teachers, may not feel that they can offer the best experience for them once they’re in that department. So, that’s an added challenge.

I’d agree with all of that. I think there's one thing that’s probably just worth drawing attention to. We’ve talked about recruitment problems in teaching for many years. I think, possibly, the one thing that’s changed in the last couple of years, potentially post COVID, is there seems to be a desire for graduates to value flexibility in professions. And that’s something that the teaching career, as it’s currently constituted, really doesn’t offer. So, on top of all of the traditional problems we’ve had of salaries and bursaries, that one seems to be coming to the fore in conversations with people who we think would probably make great teachers, but who are just slightly put off by that perception, at least, of that lack of flexibility.

Does Chris want to add anything?

Sorry, I dropped out there. I've just come back in. Obviously, we’ve only got primary students training to be teachers at USW. One of the barriers for us as an institution to starting a secondary pathway for those shortage subjects is the limited availability for schools to put those in for us. We’ve got a desire to get more offer, to set up a secondary course, to get those shortage subjects covered, but, obviously, it’s the barriers to getting the good quality of mentoring from the schools, because of the standard of some of those schools, which is something we’re working with.

The second one is—I’m not sure if someone mentioned this, because, as I said, I dropped out a bit—from speaking to school colleagues, for example, staff members who are TAs and different things like that, it’s almost like the historical barriers that put them off it. So, they actually could be, potentially, very good teachers, and want to be very good teachers, whether it’s primary or secondary, but, in year whatever, they didn’t achieve great GCSEs. I’m not sure if I’m repeating something that someone else has said, but they’ve got to do a GCSE equivalency course prior to doing the next step of the teaching course, which gives them, again, that extended amount of training, which they can’t afford at that point in their commitment to their family and things like that. I’m not sure if anybody covered those while I dropped out, but those are my thoughts initially.

There are a couple of points around this. Again, in our work with alumni and with our school partners, when we've asked them specific questions around 'Do you think that the structure of ITE provision acts as a barrier?', that doesn't seem to come out particularly strongly. The people who are looking at the structure of ITE provision are those who are already interested. It seems to be those who have not even considered teaching as a profession that we are struggling to get. 

We work extremely closely with our partnership, and it's been very, very productive for us. I can't overemphasise—I'm hopefully speaking for all of us—the importance of strong university and school ITE partnerships. Our schools frequently talk to us about the professional learning benefits that they have as institutions through being part of a university-school ITE partnership. I think that it enriches the system, it's in line with the national mission and the schools as learning organisations model. There's a huge value, and it's something that we should rightly be proud of in Wales. 

I do think, though, having said all of that, that there is space for a bit more flexibility, but not too much. Over the border, there is a great deal of flexibility and, I think, considerable confusion and lots of different routes, and there still seems to be a recruitment and retention crisis. So, I don't think that flexibility in and of itself is necessarily going to solve this. I think that there should be some mechanism of looking at ways in which we can provide—.

For example, you might have somebody who has got an adjacent subject degree that means that they're not really covering the 50 per cent of a subject requirement to teach computer science, but they might have worked for 20 years handling data, they might be a really good candidate. I think that we should look at routes that would enable those people to become appropriately accredited to allow them access, particularly in secondary shortage subjects. We often have candidates, for example, who would be possibly really good maths teachers but they don't have a maths degree, but they have worked in handling numbers for most of their professional career.

So, the structure of ITE in and of itself I don't think has been particularly problematic, certainly in the intelligence that we've gathered through speaking to our partners and our students and our alumni, but there does seem to be a need for some flexibility for people who might have a lot to offer but who haven't come from traditional routes. And that also allows us to open up the profession to people from backgrounds that might not be fully represented within the profession as well. 

Would anybody else like to add to that?

I would just endorse what Angella has said there and also add that what we don't want to do—. One of the major successes of policy reform in ITE has been that school-university partnership but also a really sharp focus on quality and making sure that our student teachers are laying the foundations to be high-quality teachers in the future. I would be cautious about adopting any new routes into teaching that could undermine that focus, because I think that that's certainly something that I've experienced. When you look at things like assessment-only routes, for example, there's a risk that that kind of route would bring in a two-tier system. We have students now who are working towards Master's credits as part of their qualification. I'd be cautious about any routes that possibly bring in that idea of a two-tier qualification system.

Can I bring in Joel quickly, please?

Just a quick thing. Angella, you mentioned there that there seems to be more flexibility across the border, and I just wanted to get a better idea of what that flexibility looks like. 

There are more school or employment-based routes over the border in a number of conurbations. There is also, weirdly enough, aligned with that, a great deal more central control by way of core content frameworks that all ITE providers must follow. There are just many different routes, some of them based in schools and led by schools, some of them still in more traditional university-led partnerships. But it's that availability of more employment or school-based routes, really.

I have friends who work within that sector and they, too, are struggling for recruitment and retention, even though they, too, offer incentives for subjects that we don't. It doesn't seem to have solved that problem. It really ties in with what Sarah said as well: we know that high-quality teaching is at the centre of school effectiveness and of really meaningful outcomes for our pupils. So, I wouldn't want us to rush to increase the numbers of routes into teaching at the risk of sacrificing quality, I think. I think that's really important.

Okay. Thank you. Siân.

More than numbers, I would say that our students come from incredibly diverse backgrounds. Eighty per cent of our students are over the age of 25 in comparison to those students who tend to follow a face-to-face one-year route. I think our oldest student to date is 67, so, we have a real breadth of age. Our students also bring a richness of life experience with them. And our headteachers in our partnership constantly tell us how evident that is in the way that they approach their teaching and the experiences that they bring into their classrooms. There is value to both the number and the impact on classroom practice as well, I'd argue.

Thank you. Do you want to—

Can I just add one thing quickly?

Yes.

I agree with everything. Siân's question talked about geography, and I think we've spoken already about some of the cost barriers to people joining the profession. If you're training in rural Wales, it increases travel costs—they're more likely to be travelling further distances. So, actually, sometimes, the models that are often thought through from quite urban centres slightly break down when you get into rural, western and mid Wales. So, I think the variety of the geography in Wales is a factor.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Siân. We'll move on now to questions from Natasha, please. 

Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everybody. Naturally, the committee has been reading the papers, we've taken evidence on a number of occasions, and one thing that's caused great concern is the number of young people—people of all different ages and backgrounds—dropping out, and especially in secondary PGCE courses. How great a concern is this for all of you and what can be done, or what do you think should be done, to try and counteract this?

That is a significant issue and it's a complex problem in a way, in that we don't want people entering the profession where it really isn't the profession for them, or where they're not suitable—where they might not have the sorts of dispositions or skills or knowledge that you need to succeed in the classroom in a meaningful way that will impact positively on pupils. So, we don't want to desperately make people stay on a programme when it really is never going to be the pathway for them, and some of our students recognise that quite early on. There are typical pinch-points in university programmes, traditional ones—and, Dave, you'll probably recognise these—and it typically tends to be about three weeks into first placement where they think, 'Teaching isn't what I thought it was going to be', and the,n three weeks into second placement, where they think, 'Okay, it wasn't just my first school, it's actually not for me.'

We tend to have more students dropping out from routes that don't have incentives, and I think that we can understand what the reasons would be for that. If they don't have money to continue anyway, and if they really don't feel that teaching is for them, they make the decision typically early on to leave the profession. What we have found, and this is anecdotal—it's something that we're gathering information on at the moment—is that those students who are from non-incentivised routes are still in the profession; those that complete are still in the profession several years on. And again, this is anecdotal—this is something that we're looking into.

We do quite a lot of work on creating a culture, and a supportive culture, and making sure that well-being is at the centre of everything that we do, and that includes working with our school partners to do that. This is where university-school partnerships are incredibly important, because it isn't just about tracking their progress towards standards for qualified teacher status, or making sure their academic assignments are okay; it's supporting them as people negotiating a complex and sometimes quite pressurised new professional world. And the school-university partnerships, I think—and probably all of us would agree with this—are very, very good at supporting young people, and enabling them to make whatever is the healthy decision for them, for their own well-being as well as for the benefit of the pupils in their classrooms. That sounds very convoluted—

No, no, it's fine.

—but I think that there is, particularly in secondary schools, a drop-out rate. It is something that we address fairly early on through very rigorous support and intervention sort of approaches, but I think that there will always be a drop-out rate, because it's the sort of thing that you might not yet know how well suited you are to it until you try it. I hope that answers your question.

Does anyone else want to add anything else?

Yes, just two things. I think the new programmes post accreditation probably address that better. We spend more time now preparing them for school placement. Some of that shock of the early school experience, I think, is reduced, and also there's more flexibility now for those who identify workload on a PGCE as being a particular problem to step away, take some time, come back. We've had a number of students this year that have taken two years to complete it but have completed it and are now in the classroom, which is a positive.

Ultimately, I think, for some people, they get to school, see the workload and the pressure that teachers face in school and that is the point they decide it's not for them. So, it's not the programmes; it's the reflection of the teaching profession themselves that sometimes people struggle with.

Chris, did you want to come in here?

Yes, briefly, but I'm reiterating almost what Dave just said there, actually, a little bit. In fact, I think the new accredited programmes do allow time to work with the students to build that core resilience. My experience with the PGCEs here is they get that three-week-in shock, 'Oh, this is school—it's not like what it was when I was there', but, also, you've got to have that time to build the resilience with the student teacher to understand this is the job. But there are many mechanisms where you can't do that, and in the midst of the PGCE programme with assessments, they're learning classroom management, differentiation, planning, all of those things, which is like—. I've always felt the PGCE is the most intensive apprenticeship you could ever do in a job, ever. I'm sure there are others, equally, but you're juggling so many different hats, it can be quite easy to go, 'No, it's not for me.'

What we note with our undergraduate programme is, actually, when you've got an undergraduate of three years—and this sort of reiterates what Dave said there—for the students to pause and come back and do it over two years, even though you think they couldn't do this, when they come back and they're recharged, they have had that, if you like, time to put things in perspective and there hasn't been, maybe, a 1,000-word essay to come, and so then you've got time to work with them to build that core, 'What is the reason why you want to get out of this profession?', because they all applied for the courses, wanting to be teachers. They want to inspire young people. Everybody in this room, I guess, has heard that over and over and over again. So, once you get them through the door, you don't want to lose them, you want to keep them, but it does take time and something can build, festering up. So, you know, our research here is that we don't lose many on an undergraduate three-year programme, because we've had time to foster them. We might lose a few in the first year, but once they get to year 3, they're completing. We've got very good retention rates over that final year, and again, similarly for those who pause a PGCE programme and take it over two years, generally, they come back and they're successful.

So, you know, there is a time thing here. I think it's something that might aid them in keeping on with the courses and keeping going. That's the same as with colleagues of mine that I worked with for 20-odd years when I was a secondary science teacher. It was very much, 'I can't do this any more', but, actually, if you worked with them in a professional capacity and supported them, they worked through to retirement; they weren't just going off to look for a career somewhere else. So, yes, it's a time thing for me.

Thanks, Chris.

I'd just like to add—and I totally agree with what everybody has said—that that's where flexibility might be really useful. We, too, have students who just need a bit of time, or they might take a slightly longer or different or more supported route to make up the 120 days of teaching and to make sure that they make steady progress, but that's where flexibility is useful, to understand that our students come from very different starting positions, that they're all graduates, but they come with very different experiences. Some of them might have had a lot of experience in school, and others none at all. They've all been successful, and sometimes that can be quite interesting for some of them to come to something brand-new where they're not necessarily successful straight away. Some of them might need to build up some resilience over a longer period, but that's where we, too, have found that being a bit flexible about how we can offer support and offer a staged offer to our students has been really helpful in getting them to complete and go into the classroom and become successful teachers.

So, the committee's had some stats. Education Workforce Council statistics for 2023-24 state that 26.4 per cent of students on secondary PGCEs withdrew from the course, and 38.5 per cent of students withdrew from their PGCE Open University course. So, I appreciate that's now. I get what all of you have said, that many have left and come back. Can you give us some rough stats as to how many have actually come back, from the previous stats that you've had? For example, if we've got 38.5 per cent now, how many do you anticipate coming back, and if we've got 26.4 per cent elsewhere, how many of that percentage do you see coming back? To be honest with you, as a Member, we all hear constantly that there are shortages of teachers. I want them back as soon as possible, and I'm sure you do too, as well as, I'm sure, my colleagues. But give us some hope, please, as to how many of these are likely to come back into the teaching sector. That's what I'd like to hear from you today.

Shall I pick that up? 

Yes.

I'd be very happy to provide further written evidence around the specific statistics—

Yes, please.

—if that is helpful. Because we have some flexibility within our modular structure, we have a number of students at the moment who are on maternity leave, for example, and we have students who may have deferred on health grounds, and those numbers won't necessarily show. They'll show as a withdrawal, but it won't indicate, as you quite rightly say, whether they're coming back. But, certainly, I can do some digging in our stats and get that over to you.

I think, when it comes to the OU students in particular, we sometimes say that the very reasons that bring our students to us are sometimes the reasons that they can't stay—that it just becomes too difficult to manage. Our students are deeply committed to their studies. They are managing caring responsibilities, often they're managing employed work alongside their study because of the cost-of-living issues that they're facing. 

I think, Angella, you mentioned the school relationship again. We might come to this, but that support from in-school mentors is critical, and having that shared culture of focus on well-being and workload management. So, having the shared messaging between the partnership schools and the universities is absolutely critical.

I suppose, in horizon scanning a little bit as well, I'm mindful that we offer a postgraduate route into teaching. We know that the uptake in higher education in Wales is declining, and so that will eventually prove more problematic for us in terms of postgraduate recruitment because the pool from which we can recruit simply becomes smaller because there aren't as many graduates.

Thank you so much for that. I'll move on to my next question, because I am conscious of time. To what extent is the current system for ITE recruitment suitable in terms of the allocation of numbers? What issue does it cause for ITE providers, and what impact do you feel it has on the recruitment of learners in the long term?

So, on allocation of numbers, it's not so much the allocation at the moment. You may be aware that, a few years ago, England decided they were going to go down an alternative recruitment route. So, the Department for Education manages recruitment to ITE programmes directly. We are left, along with colleagues in Scotland, using the undergraduate UCAS system. It's that system, more than the numbers, that causes the problems, because that undergraduate system effectively allows them to hold an offer until the end of the cycle. So, from our point of view, being able to plan, know when we need to stop offering, particularly around primary—. It's not the allocation of the numbers that's the problem, it's that the system underneath that that we have to use to support that recruitment process doesn't quite give us that same system that we had when we had a PGCE-specific system that encouraged them to firm up very quickly and allowed us to manage those numbers far more effectively.

Okay.

That's a real problem you often have. It's really difficult to actually use the allocation numbers because you simply don't know, sometimes for six months, whether a student is going to accept with you or not. So, you're kind of playing in the dark, really. So, that is a real problem. We need a much shorter time between an offer being given and the time when a student needs to accept, really.

In terms of allocation of secondary, I think that it doesn't really make that much difference because we're all looking to meet our allocation there. We need more students in most secondary subjects anyway, so it doesn't seem to make that much difference.

I don't know if anyone else wants to talk about the primary sector, whether that's more of a—

Yes, I can pick that up. Allocations work a little differently for us, obviously, at the OU because we are grant funded. But one of the things that we have noticed is that we offer an option for students in the secondary shortage subjects to apply to the programme, even though they may not currently work in a school or be matched to a school. This is particularly attractive to career changers in particular. So, we refer to these as our 'unendorsed candidates'. Unfortunately, we have more appetite from people who want to follow a salaried route than we have been able to secure salaried placements for. So, we work very closely with schools to offer a kind of matching service—I suppose we’re sort of the speed dating of the ITE world in that sense. But something that’s been very successful for us recently is an advertising route, where we work directly with a school to identify specific roles that they need and then we’ve advertised for a student teacher opportunity in that specific school. That’s been very appealing to both the school and the candidate, because they know, rather than applying to the programme and ‘Any school might come back to me in the course of the next six months’. So, I think the more we can support our schools to take on those salaried students the better, because there is certainly an appetite for it from the candidates’ perspective.

Thank you. Chris, did you want to add anything?

Yes, only briefly. The only addition, really, that I’ve got is—. I definitely agree with Dave there in terms of the timing of the whole UCAS thing; it’s a massive issue.

I’m thinking more now from the perspective of university planning. We don’t have secondary provision, as I’ve said, and we have a capped number for our PGCE in primary, which is nominal, because it’s 20 or so. But from the university point of view, they want us to recruit as many as we can, which then would allow them to invest more in the staffing within the educational area. So, if you’re in a position where you want to expand—. For example, I think for our PGCE, whilst we’re capped at 20 for PGCE primary, we probably could have got about 75 or 80 on that, which then, obviously, would have been a significant investment in the university, which then could have, hopefully, fed into an expansion of what sort of courses, what sort of provision and enhanced our provision here. So, that’s really the only negative thing from—. Because, obviously, we’re looking for a secondary group—that’s our plan now over the next 18 months, two years. If there wasn’t a cap and we were allowed to recruit whatever, we may get more and then, obviously, we’d get better investment from the powers above my head.

Good, yes. Thank you very much for that. My next question is going to be about university finances. So, I’d like to know what you all feel: to what extent do the current issues with regard to university finance impact on the ITE provision now and potentially into the future as well?

Could I pick up on that, just following on from Chris's point? Because primary routes have historically recruited very well, they often, internally, are used to subsidise, if you like, provision within secondary routes. I think it's important to recognise that the way that university staffing structures work, quite often there's a synergistic staffing model. So, your PGCE staff will also be teaching on the MA in education; they'll also be supporting the national professional enquiry project, for example. So, any risk to ITE can actually pose a wider risk to other provision within the faculty.

I think Chris has pointed out that we are very dependent within a university on the recruitment of students, because fee income is our primary source of funding for these programmes. And you will have heard from our vice-chancellors that the real-term value of the fee income has decreased over time. One of the particular challenges for us in ITE is that the mechanisms that universities usually would take, such as centralising provision, generic content, increasing staff-to-student ratios, for example, you can't do that in ITE, not if you want to retain the quality. So, what that means is that we become very costly. We become very costly programmes to run. My understanding is that we're not allocated as a high-cost subject in the same way that nursing or allied health provision would be, so we don't attract the funding for that either. And we also have substantial additional costs around placement, supporting school partnerships, memorandums of understanding, placements—all of these things bear additional costs.

So, potentially, as a sector, if I put aside our individual institutional priorities and think about the position of the sector, given the strategic importance to our nation of the role of teacher recruitment, it would seem precarious to leave it to the vagaries of the market, in that sense. That's one point where I don't think the market model works particularly well for us.

Okay. Would anyone else like to add anything to that?

Did you want to add something, Dave?

Just briefly to say that I think that—. Just to reiterate that fact that ITE is expensive. There are models elsewhere in HE in Wales—Sarah mentioned health—where that's recognised in the funding arrangement. Currently, HEIs see a lot of the fee income go straight back out the door to support schools—and that's absolutely necessary, you couldn't do it without that school support. But, equally, the idea that we can therefore just go straight to schools and they can do it cheaply jeopardises the quality that's been built over the last few years in Wales.

And it's necessarily expensive, ITE. It isn't to do things that aren't necessary in order to fulfil an accreditation criteria. We have quite a heavy university input load per credit, which is higher than a lot of other types of provision. A lot of the funding that comes in from student fees goes out to school partnerships, which is right, because the model means that we work in partnership, and so obviously that work needs to be funded, it needs to be supported financially, but it does mean that the sector itself is creaking, I think.

To reiterate points that are really valuable here, a market-based system is really difficult with ITE, because we value, for example, the training of computer science teachers much more highly than we will the fact that there may only be three of them. We need to have these people, and it needs to be funded in a way that allows it to be sustainable, really, for universities to continue with high-quality ITE provision.

Thanks. Chris, you wanted to contribute to this as well, I believe.

Very briefly, just to say I think we need the funding, as I mentioned, for the expansion of universities and to have the support mechanism. I'm sure my colleagues will say, and I have it from my team, that their workload is so tight in delivering and supporting students, supporting school partners, because obviously we're running at a bare minimum, because the finances accrue to the university. So, if there were better finances, or a raised profile, I think—I suppose that's what we're talking about—for the universities, then there could be more investment.

We'd also be able to better support the recruitment, which locks onto the previous conversation around recruiting for our shortest areas. Because universities want more people, they want more bums on seats, to coin a phrase. So, if we had spare capacity within our own time to do that, which only comes with money, it would be better for everybody.

Again, I suppose just my final thing on finances, this supports my whole belief in the fact that ITE does need to be everywhere. It needs to be in every institution here, because many, many students live at home. For example, if USW got rid of it, now you're down in Newport, you're potentially losing a huge number of potential teachers from that whole part of Wales. Albeit, yes, I know Cardiff offers it, and there's the OU route, but they're more likely if they're on the borders and all of those different areas—and it's the same sort of thing if you're in Swansea. If the finance became too short, universities could go, 'We'll park that, we don't need that anymore in Swansea, in Newport.' So, it's crucial, I guess.

Okay, thank you very much for that. Final question: Welsh Government's educational reforms—they have been the talk of the town for quite some time—I'd just like to know from you, good or bad, do you feel that there have been any identifiable impacts, in particular to the recruitment of ITE?

I'm not sure it's had a huge amount of impact. People want to be teachers because they like the idea of working with children and supporting them and giving back, and all the rest of it. The one thing that perhaps has happened, and it's been a small number, but it's probably just worth commenting, we have recruited over the last few years a small number of student teachers who have come from England because they have said they want to teach in Wales. They recognised particularly some of the negative publicity around the situation in England, and it had led them to decide that a teaching career in Wales was more suitable for what they wanted to achieve. That does give us an opportunity to perhaps promote some of the differences. We've already heard our pool of graduates is shrinking in Wales. It may be that we need to look further afield and advertise the positives of the Welsh education system to draw people in to train to teach inside Wales.

Anybody else?

I think that, as well, it's worth noting that ITE students are actually a really good vehicle for curriculum transformation and realisation and for policy enactment, because they don't know any other system. This is their system. And again, very strongly from the work we do with our alumni, they do feel research ready, they do feel that they engage in a lot of the practices that inform curriculum realisation in Wales, and that's a really strong vehicle, I think, for Welsh policy enactment.

There is a feeling that there is a degree of initiative fatigue, that people feel a bit overwhelmed sometimes. It's not necessarily students, again, because they're not changing anything, but just from some school partners feeling that the time that they have allocated to them is being drawn in lots of different directions, which I suppose is understandable at the beginning of any sort of reform journey—that's going to happen. I think that helps give the impression of teaching as being a career that might not be particularly attractive to some. But, yes, I think our students on the whole are positive agents for all of the reform work that's going on in Wales.

Chris, did you want to come in here? 

Yes. I think you've covered the point a little bit there, really. I was going to say that they are, I suppose, our graduates, our alumni now, the biggest advocates of the curriculum reforms. Schools frequently come back to us, our school partners, talking about the benefits of them coming in with expertise around the new curriculum. I know it's not really been embedded everywhere, but they are already coming in, as you said, research informed. They're leading research, supporting staff in this. So, they're actually improving—. I think they improve the settings they go into because they are ready for the new world, if you like. The digital skills, I think, if anything, all of our school partners talk about the digital skills that they're bringing into the schools and the way they're delivering that.

One thing that our graduates talk about—actually, I'm going to graduation later on—something that they would love the universities to support them through would be their newly qualified teacher year. I'm not sure if colleagues—[Inaudible.]—in other meetings, but—. Obviously, they have an NQT lead, and that's taken over from us, but they would love to continue that relationship with their university tutors through their NQT year, and, I don't know, but would that maybe ensure that they're still there in a few years' time, or not? That's a research thing that someone should do. But it's pie in the sky or blue-sky thinking, which I like to do.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chris. Vaughan, did you want to come in here, quickly?

It was interesting, Chris's point around the new intake, who are digital natives, if you like, whereas people of my age have had to learn new things along the way.

But I just wanted to pick up on the point that Dave made around the education reforms and to what extent we're seeing numbers come into the system, and at what stage as well. Because anecdotally I've heard that, but if there is any evidence from you or other people about the extent to which we are seeing people who want to come into Wales, whether it's because of the curriculum reforms or anything else. Because we're asking you about initial teacher training, but, actually, teacher training and recruitment looks at all stages in someone's career. So, I know someone who lives in the same town as I do who made a positive choice to come to Wales, from teaching in England, because they could see what was happening. I'm interested in what the flow of that looks like, and if there are things that we could do to make potential barriers for teachers moving from England to Wales easier, for them to come into our school system. Because that would be a positive choice they're making, and so you'd have thought that they would be motivated. But, maybe, if you can't answer that question now, then a suggestion afterwards about who we might ask about it, I think, would be really welcome.

Yes.

I think the vast majority of our intake are people who are either from Wales originally or have come to do their undergraduate study in Wales and have then decided to stay because they like the country. It's a handful that I am aware of on ours. But I think, more broadly, the idea there that we can do something around tracking and understanding where people have come from and why they choose to stay in Wales—. I'm not sure we know that at the moment; it's not something that we routinely ask. I know, when you had colleagues here talking about the evidence base, there was a sense that we perhaps know a little less in Wales than colleagues do in England. So, I think there are some more questions there to be explored.

Maybe we should go back to that panel on the Education Workforce Council, to understand if they do have an understanding in numbers, as opposed to an anecdotal impression.

Yes. That's a good idea. Thank you. We'll go now to questions from Joel, please.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks ever so much for coming in this morning. I just wanted to pick up something, if I can, with you, Dave, actually. Well, I suppose it's open to—. Actually, no, let me go back first. You mentioned there, in a sense, that people are coming to Wales to teach because of the negatives that are happening in England. I was just wanting to get some better idea of what those are, if that's okay.

Yes. So, I think we sometimes struggle with the fact that, often, the media narrative in Wales tends to be very England led. I think, if you look at stories around teaching over the last 10, 15 years, they've tended to concentrate on challenges with behaviour in schools, workload, burnout. It's been a largely negative narrative through the press. Certainly, some of the things then around in England—the accreditation process, they went there; the move to school-centred initial teacher training; the sense in which perhaps it was a little bit more of a train-by-numbers approach—may have led to people deciding that England isn’t the place for them to teach, but they still want to teach. And so, perhaps, Wales, or talking to colleagues in Scotland, on the border there—again, a move across.

I think, more generally, it speaks to the challenge of promoting a more positive view of teaching as a career. We’ve got a headteacher in our partnership who often complains that teachers can sometimes be their worst enemy. One of the previous people that gave evidence talked about the fact that teachers sometimes like to moan, and, actually, we need to capture the positivity. We need to recognise the challenges, address them, but make sure that, actually, the benefits of the profession are shared more widely as well.

Brilliant, thank you. So, I'll go back to the initial question I was going to ask, and it sort of touched upon what Chris was saying there about more help with the newly qualified teacher year. In your written evidence you said:

'Once we have recruited student-teachers to ITE programmes we need to ensure that schools are in a position to support the early stages of their professional development'.

And I just wanted—and, obviously, this is a question open to everyone, really—to get an idea of how important is that support for teacher retention, and can ITE play a role in that as well. I just want to get your views.

So, how important is it? It's vital. Students on a PGCE course spend two thirds of their time in school, and we spend a lot of our time and effort making sure that the quality of that experience in school is as positive as it can be. We know that, sometimes, there tends to be a tendency to slip back to, 'I will mentor how I was mentored'. And if you’ve been in the profession a long time, things have changed a lot since then.

So, all of us, I know, put a lot of work into making sure that that mentoring support in schools is high quality, because we know, if we can improve it during the ITE experience, that then has positive benefits for the NQT year and onwards. We know, for example, some of our partnership schools choose to deliver our mentor training as whole-school continuing professional development, because it isn’t just those colleagues who are supporting a student teacher at that point that will benefit from it.

We ran a project a few years ago, post COVID, where we supported the consortia in the NQT year and beyond. And we had some really positive outcomes from that. We do hear that student teachers are keen to continue their relationship with us after that. And so just trying to smooth out any bumps in that system I think would be an important point of making sure that we’re looking at the retention piece, as well as the recruitment one.

Can I bring Siân in here, just quickly? Sorry. Siân.

I’m not aware of any numbers that demonstrate that; it’s probably more of a question for the Education Workforce Council, and perhaps whatever the associated agency in England would be. You probably need to talk to school leaders in terms of how they feel about recruiting people who’ve trained in England. I think the PL system in Wales is set up to recognise that people are going through a transition from an old way of working to a new way of working. That’s probably more focused in primary schools than it is in secondary. It seems that, actually, there’s a lot of: you walk into a secondary school and it probably looks quite familiar to how things were set up when you were there. So, I think that difference can be overstated.

More broadly, there is probably something that can be done about supporting subject knowledge enhancement more generally. Angella spoke about the challenges of people who perhaps did a different degree five years ago, and are now very keen to get into the classroom, but their qualifications don’t quite match what we need. So, I think something that takes that view from a widening access point of view, and looks at how we can top up that knowledge before they get to us, because the PGCE year—Chris alluded to it—is a very intense year; there’s very little capacity to do anything else. That, I think, though, would help address that question for those moving across the border. There’d be materials there that would support that transition into the way of working in Wales.

Thank you. Joel. 

Yes, thank you, Chair. Just one more question, if I may. Again, just looking at the written evidence, and, Sarah, this is what the Open University have said, and, again, this is open to anyone, really—. You mentioned here about how, in England, they have subject knowledge enhancement courses pre ITE, and I was just wondering—and obviously, Wales doesn't have that—how effective they are in terms of ensuring, then, that teachers are retained as they go along. Is that something that we should be looking to bring here, really, into Wales?

It's my understanding that once an applicant has secured a place on an ITE programme in England, they can then access funding from the Department for Education to complete a DfE-endorsed subject knowledge enhancement course. The PGCE is incredibly intense. It's essentially nine months of study, whether you're doing it for one year or over two years, as you would with us. The demands on our teachers are rightly very robust: we want our teachers to develop Welsh language skills; we want them to have adequate levels of subject knowledge; we want them to understand lots about well-being and child development. And that's a big thing to ask people to do in a very compressed period of time. So, I think, where we have mechanisms to support, either through language sabbatical schemes, perhaps pre-entry to ITE, or subject enhancement courses, I think that would be an attractive offer. Again, I think, where there are also financial incentives to enable people to do those things as well, that would be important. That's the point with the DfE, that it's a DfE-funded option—it's part of their incentivisation package.

And I, too, wrote in the written evidence about the importance of at least trialling those routes. Again, it's evidence that we could gather if it would be useful, but we do have, every year, numbers of people who would like to enter the profession and they don't yet meet the requirements. And that might even be through GCSE requirements, but it's typically through degree requirements. And I think, if we can draw upon the resource that we have of our universities to provide a funded way of developing the requisite subject knowledge and understanding that's needed for the classroom prior to starting, it would at least give those people an opportunity to join the profession. As I said, they often come from very different professional backgrounds. We'd be enriching the profession by having people who can offer a whole host of different skills and experiences, but we obviously have to be robust. We want high-quality people that understand science, if they're going to be teaching in a science classroom, maths, if—. We need to maintain high standards in Wales, because we're serious about educational reform, and anything that can benefit and provide pathways for people towards that would only be a benefit, I think.

Thank you. Dave, did you want to come in quickly?

You potentially get multiple outcomes from that one thing, so if you had those funded courses, not only would it provide that incentive for people coming in, but we have a number of students each year who are primary trained but want to teach in secondary, and that would support their professional learning. We have a number of people who are post-compulsory education and training trained, so they don't have QTS, but they've got a teaching qualification. There's a pool of people out there who currently face barriers to getting into the classroom, and this could be a significant contribution to knocking some of those down, I think.

And it could also help support those teachers who are currently teaching out of subject in shortage subjects. We know that, in a lot of our schools, there are considerable numbers of maths lessons being taught by people who are not trained in maths, and so it could also be an offer that is given to existing qualified teachers to help support and deepen their subject-level understanding to support the quality of teaching in those classrooms. Something that was brought up in the last Estyn annual review was about the need to deepen and make sure that there's secure subject knowledge in secondary shortage subjects in particular.

Thank you. We're running around 15 minutes over. If Members and guests could keep their answers and questions as succinct as possible, I'd be really, really grateful. We now have some questions from Vaughan, please.

And that's for me, really. [Laughter.] So, look, we're asking all our witnesses a series of questions. This sort of follows on from the point that Angella was just making about to what extent do issues relating to recruitment and retention impact on the quality of teachers. And I say that because some of the other answers we'd heard were about concerns that people weren't specialists in their knowledge and were being asked to move across. So, I'm generally interested in to what extent do you see that from your perspective, where those issues may or may not affect the quality of the teachers going into the classroom, or those who are in the classroom and may need to move across.

I can start with that one. Our programme in particular is very much centred around disciplinary and subject-based sessions—not wholly, obviously, but it does help support people who might come from a slightly adjacent route in, because they have a lot of time to develop and support their pedagogical content knowledge as well, their understanding of how their subject should be taught in the classroom. That does have resource implications, obviously, because it is costly in terms of time, and then, therefore, finances. 

It's a difficult thing. All of us are under pressure to have enhanced recruitment and to have students attending our courses, but we also have a moral obligation to make sure that those students are suitable for the role, that they're going to enhance the pupil outcomes in the environments that they're going in to teach. We're very careful about ensuring that anybody that is accepted on the programme has the potential, at least, to develop the specialist knowledge. As I said, we work very hard to make sure that the time and space is afforded to them to do that.

We also give them pre-course things to do, to assess that. So, we have an understanding, before they arrive, of their level of subject knowledge. Somebody might have done a degree, as I said—it might have been 20 years ago, and they might not have used it or even visited it in that time. So, we make sure that we have an understanding of their base level of subject knowledge and understanding. Again, that comes with a resource implication. But I feel extremely strongly about having something pre course that is nationally recognised, and that if they were to do a subject-enhancement provision of some sort in Swansea, or in UWTSD, or anywhere, it would be recognised nationally by any ITE provider, that it would be something that we could feel more confident that we have—. Also, the ones in England, there are different times allocated to them, depending upon the position of somebody's subject knowledge at that point. So, I think it's something that we should really investigate.

At the moment, it isn't particularly affecting us, because we work closely with our subject departments in Swansea. We're lucky, we have a suite of subject departments that offer undergraduate provision in our areas, and it's something that we take really seriously. We focus on developing that specialist knowledge. But it is quite hard work, and if some of that work could be picked up beforehand, because it is a very busy, packed year, it would be really useful, I think.

Can I add, we want, as Angella said, people who can do the job and do the job well, but, for me, that's a slightly different question to how we accredit or recognise that knowledge and how—? So, at the moment, we're very tied to specific criteria—'You must have this particular outcome in this particular qualification.' I think universities, by and large, are recognising that younger students now are perhaps looking forward to portfolio careers. So, when I have a career changer come to me and say, 'I'd really love to be a maths teacher', and they ask, 'How do I do it? I haven't got a maths degree', I have to say, 'Well, go away and do a maths degree, then, and come back to me in three years.' That's not a very attractive proposition for some of our younger graduates who are looking for portfolio careers, they're looking to develop skills across multiple career pathways. I think universities recognise that they need to respond to that, so we're looking at more innovative and different types of qualifications. At the moment, you have to be degree qualified to become a teacher. I wonder, when we start to have more people come through apprenticeship routes or vocational routes in the future, what will that mean for the criteria? So, I think we need to be ready in ITE to respond to that change in that more agile, more innovative way of thinking about qualifications, but then our criteria needs to keep pace with that as well.

Okay. I think that's really interesting about qualifications that are fit for purpose for doing the actual job. There's a contrast in the way that further education typically works, where practical colleges, if they want experience of that, somebody's got to pass that on.

We're also asking everyone about—it's the mirror to one of the questions that Natasha asked—not so much how the education reforms are impacting on recruitment to ITE, but whether you think that teacher recruitment and retention issues will impact the Welsh Government's educational reforms? And I know Dave politely referred us back to earlier evidence. Maybe you think that there's something you can say, or even if you want to say, 'Actually, we think there's other evidence', that's fine too. I don't want you to feel you have to give a five-minute answer to every question.

Very briefly, if we don't have enough teachers of a high enough quality, we can't see through the education reforms. So, this absolutely poses a risk to the very high aspirations that are there in the national mission—all of that documentation. So, yes, it's absolutely fundamental.

It isn't just about numbers of teachers either, as Dave alluded to there, it isn't just about us having numbers of warm bodies in classrooms who can deliver a lesson, it's about—. The Welsh reform agenda is quite complex, and it isn't just about doing different things as a teacher, it's about being a different thing as a teacher. And that's something maybe we should, to go back to earlier questions, really promote a bit more: that you have more autonomy, that you're included in decision making and that you can make decisions about teaching in your classroom in a different way to in England. But I think the reform agenda is really quite seriously threatened if the crisis in ITE is not addressed, because, as I said, it isn't just about numbers, it's about a different way of being a teacher, engaging routinely with research, inquiring into practice as just part of your daily experience. I think that's something that is firmly embedded in current ITE practice and is essential to the agenda of the national landscape at the moment.

I think structural recognition of the role of schools is really important as well, because they are joint deliverers of ITE alongside us. I worry that if we were to recruit to a target, all of us, tomorrow, or above, we would really struggle to place those students, because schools are having to make very difficult decisions in light of budgetary constraints that have very practical real-term consequences for the experiences that our students have in schools around the quality of mentoring, around the time. It's such an important role that I really think we would be well served by lifting the profile of the school mentor as a very important and intrinsic part of the professional learning offer that we offer the education workforce.

I'm really sorry, but we have to move on now.

No problem. We talked a bit about innovation in the curriculum. A previous innovator was Betty Campbell and the choices she made in teaching at school, or ‘Mrs Campbell’ as she preferred youngsters like me to refer to her. But she's a marker of the lack of diversity within the teaching workforce—the only black woman to be a headteacher in a primary school at the time. So I'm interested from an ITE perspective what more you think we can do in terms of getting more diversity in the workforce when it comes to gender, disability and ethnicity in particular, because we know that we don't do well enough. It's that odd thing about primary education in particular—lots more women in the classroom, but you look at headteachers, and it's lots more men who are actually running the schools as well. I'm interested in what you think we do in ITE to try and address some of those issues.

Part of that, I think, is about the classic thing of if you don't see yourself there, do you recognise that it's a job for you. So I think there's a lot to be done about positive role models. There's work being done at the moment through the ‘Anti-racist Wales Action Plan’, through Diversity and Anti-Racism Professional Learning, in terms of trying to make that a more attractive proposition. But it's also identifying some of those barriers. Angella's spoken about things that can feel quite restrictive in terms of, particularly, entry into secondary school. Thinking about the flexibility around that, not just in terms of warm bodies, in Angella's words, but actually thinking about people who would make great teachers for whom there are currently barriers into the profession that we can remove—that will absolutely help a lot of those people that you've just described. 

I'd be interested to see if you've got a note of what you think those barriers are, and what we could do in terms of recommendations. That's really helpful in terms of an area for recommendations.

I think it's thinking through some of those structural things, isn't it? Because we ask, for example, that students must have a C grade—it was a B, it's now a C—in GCSE English, Welsh or maths, although we know that it's much harder for students from a black or global majority ethnic background to perhaps gain those C grades at GCSE level. So straight away, there's one barrier that's built in, that's baked in to the system.

We've also set up recently a group for our students, Diverse Futures, and the purpose of that group is to provide peer-to-peer support for students from diverse backgrounds, really practical advice. If I'm a student and I believe that I'm experiencing microaggressions in the classroom from my mentor, for example, that's a really difficult thing for a student teacher to tackle. The power dynamic in that situation is really difficult.

Actually calling things out, being really direct, helping our students to have the language that they need to describe and articulate and change practices on the ground, I think, is something that we've really looked at as a sector, through the work of DARPL, through our anti-racist and diversity plans, which we publish, because that's part of being accountable, and holding ourselves to account for that as well, as well as the work that we're doing within our curriculum.

Many universities are decolonising the curriculum, as they refer to it, but really it's just about making sure that our student teachers are recognising their experiences in what they learn about being a teacher, and that they're able to do that for their pupils so that they represent them.

I'm really sorry, we've got to move on now to questions from Carolyn.

How long have I got?

About three seconds. [Laughter.]

Oh my word. Right, well I’ll make it into one. I just want to ask you which actions—Welsh Government's actions or training incentives—do you think have been successful, and which haven’t. We talked earlier about the bursaries in England, which haven't really attracted people as much as we might have expected. We talked about positivity, mentoring, flexibility as being really important. So, what would be the most important action do you think the Welsh Government could take to ensure the sustainability of the education workforce? What have we missed? Is there anything else we can do?

One thing I'd like to say—and again, this came through quite strongly; we've been discussing this with our school partners, we do a lot of recruitment work with our school partners—is that it needs to start much earlier, in that there are declining numbers of people studying A-levels in our shortage subjects, let alone then going on to do a degree. So, the pool is reduced at school. And so, we need to look at how we can encourage pupils to take A-levels in French, or A-levels in computer science, or whatever subjects that we identify, because when we have a declining pool of A-level students, we have a concomitant declining pool of graduates, and then fewer people that can come into ITE, certainly without any other subject knowledge enhancement route that might be available to them pre course. That's something that I think we need to look at.

Do you think that goes back to career advice as well? We're doing an inquiry on post-16 education at the moment. So, good career advice, maybe—tell them about going into teaching, what qualifications they need at an earlier stage, what levels, et cetera. 

That also involves promoting—. You'll often hear the idea of 'I was going to be a teacher, and my teacher said don't do that'. That is absolutely killing the profession. We have to deal with that.

Positivity and promotion. 

The changes in terms of flexibility within the workforce—all of that stuff that I know you've heard from other people—that will itself then make the profession more attractive, that combined with a little bit more flexibility in terms of interest will. But all of those layers are linked.

Can I bring Chris in here, please?

By the time I come in now I will be repeating myself. But it is about the perception of the teaching profession, I think. I think there's a real opportunity here for media, policy—all the people that give messages out to the wider public—to give the idea that Welsh education, the teaching pathways in Wales, is better. It is a better pathway. I didn't chip in earlier on, but on our undergraduate programme now, four years ago, we had one student come from Hereford college to do the primary pathway. We're now up to eight, potentially, this year, coming from Hereford college.

We're on the border. It's somewhere we're going to explore a lot more this year, because the university wants me to get more bums on seats again. But again, the word of mouth is going out there. But I think if you're getting the careers advisers to give a perception that teaching is great—. Sell a six-week holiday, for goodness' sake—it's a marketable thing, isn't it? No-one really gets it all, but it's something that you don't get in any other profession. There are lots and lots of positive things. This is where the influencing and all of that comes in. I think that's where we need to be, to feed through to our recruitment.

We have job fairs promoting jobs in businesses. We talk about bringing businesses to the area, but public sector jobs, jobs in teaching, we need to say jobs in teaching, social care, nursing, we need to be talking about that in schools as well, don't we?

Can I say flexibility in the profession as well? We have part-time students who want to go on to be part-time teachers. They tell us that those roles are few and far between, that those flexibilities don't exist. So my plea from the OU, I guess, would be to continue to support and enhance the support for part-time study, because that's absolutely critical in terms of widening access to PGCE and also that diversity work around different people.

If you have to have an income as well and be working.

There's no point making the courses more flexible if they're then hitting an inflexible employment system. You're just pushing the problem a year or three down the road.

It's a really tricky balancing act as well. I know that particularly one other route that had some success in England managed to sell teaching as a route that high flyers should be attracted to, even if it was only for a while. And so we need to be sure that if you sell something too cheaply, people won't necessarily want to do it.

We want to make sure that we still sell teaching—and I don't like using that word, but even so—as a job that is for people who are special, people who've got a particular skill set, that it's something that's highly valued. Because that's where you see success in countries like Finland, where teaching is a highly regarded, high-status profession. And whilst we need flexibility built into it, that mustn't be at the cost of the quality of teaching or the quality of the perception of the role, either.

So, it's a really tricky thing, and the weird thing with teaching is that everyone's been in school, unlike many other jobs, which are like Willy Wonka or somewhere where you've never really been. Everyone's been in school, they think they know what it's like, although it's really different the other side of the desk. But they have not just perceptions externally, but internal ones as well, about their own experience of what school is like. So, it's a tricky thing to navigate, I think.

Thank you. Sorry to rush you at the end there, but we did run over. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. You'll be sent a transcript in due course for checking. Thank you for your time. We'll now take a short five-minute break until 10:30. 

We'll now move on to agenda item 5, which is the eighth evidence session for this inquiry. Please could the witnesses introduce themselves for the record?

Members have a series of questions this morning, and we'll start with Siân, please.

Thank you, Siân. We move on now to questions from Joel, please.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks ever so much for coming in this morning and joining our evidence session. I just want to ask a couple of quick questions. Obviously, from the evidence we've taken, the recruitment of teachers who teach Welsh and through the medium of Welsh is quite difficult, but the retention rates are slightly higher then than within English-medium settings, and I just wanted to get an idea of what your thoughts were. Why is that? Because I would have thought that the pressures that teachers are under are the same, regardless of the language, really. Is it because of, maybe, smaller class sizes, or maybe—? I know it's been mentioned that the locations of the schools are a lot nicer in some cases than, say, English medium. I just wanted to get some views on that, if I can.

Yes. So, that should be, obviously, the primary focus, rather than what Welsh-medium education is doing differently, then, to English medium in terms of keeping those higher retention rates. 

No worries. Okay. The other question, then, really—and it's my final question—is just about the role of the Welsh Government and policies and the reforms—I say 'reforms', but I don't like using that word because 'reform' has positive connotations and sometimes it's not always positive, you know. I just wanted to get an idea about the impact that the Welsh Government has had. Has there been any identifiable impact from what the Welsh Government has been doing?

Thank you. Can I bring Dona in here, please?

Okay, thank you. Thank you. We now have some questions from Natasha, please.

Thank you, Chair. Good morning, both. I'd just like to ask you: to what extent do issues relating to teaching recruitment and retention result in lower quality of teaching in the workforce generally, and what do you personally feel—and professionally feel, in fact—the impact of this is going to have on learners, the outcomes, and, ultimately, their behaviours as well?

Okay. Dona, did you want to come in on this?

Thank you very much for that. I'll move on to my next question. So, in your experiences, to what extent do you feel that the shortage of teachers has an impact on the delivery of the Welsh Government's curriculum? I know you've spoken about Welsh language, obviously, in relation to the teacher limitations or the limits on students per class, but I'd like to ask it specifically with regard to ALN reform, also the Welsh language reforms. We have touched upon it briefly, but if you can go into a bit more depth and detail for the committee I'd be really grateful.

And Dona, did you want to add anything?

Thank you very much, Chair.

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

I think my first question has largely been answered by the exchanges we've just gone through around recruitment and retention issues, meeting the needs of learners' development and, in particular, the vision set out in the Welsh language education Act that's recently been passed. But there's one thing I wanted to pick back up, and it comes from scrutiny of the Bill, but also some of the issues we've gone through here, and that is about where teachers have their primary initial teacher training, but then, actually, how you pick up the Welsh language skills of those teachers regardless of where they train. Because we do know a number of learners go from Wales into England for teacher training. The risk is they take the Welsh language with them and don't come back. There is something about—and it goes back to the previous session we had as well—are there barriers that we could look to release to allow qualified teachers with Welsh language skills, to make it easier for them, to come back to teach in Wales to deliver against the vision that this Senedd has agreed to in the Welsh language education Act.

Diolch, Dona. My final question comes back to the point about diversity. So, we know that the current workforce doesn't reflect the diversity of Wales, certainly when it comes to gender, race and disability. On gender, it's not actually the overall proportion in the teaching workforce; it's actually where they are in terms of leadership positions. That's where there's a much clearer gender divide, with men being much more likely to be promoted to leadership positions. So, I'm interested in how you'd see your work or suggestions from you to try to make sure that in the future our workforce more properly reflects the people of Wales in the number of people who get to have the potentially transformational job of being a teacher, in all parts of the curriculum.

Dona.

Diolch, Chair.

Can I bring Joel in here quickly, please?

Thank you, Chair. It was just something that came to my mind now. I’ve asked previous evidence—what’s the word I’m looking for—‘evidencees’, is it? I can’t remember. Obviously, we’ve seen the coverage about Gwynedd Council and how they’re looking at phasing out English language education, for it to be more Welsh focused, and I just wanted to get your ideas on that. What sort of impact would that have? Because all the evidence we’ve been taking is that there’s a shortage of teachers, but there’s a shortage of Welsh teachers, and there’s even a shortage of Welsh teachers in certain subjects, like STEM subjects, maths; it doesn’t seem that there’s been much long-term thinking in that decision. I just wanted to get your ideas on that.

I suppose the negative there is, as we’ve heard, we have teachers who don’t teach their subjects because there’s a shortage, and there’s a shortage in Welsh. So, the quality of teaching, surely, would be, or could be, less compared to, say, an English-medium teacher. We’ve heard anecdotal evidence where, in Welsh-medium schools, because there’s a shortage of, say, a physics teacher, then the lesson is in English. And when you look at, compare, Gwynedd to the rest of Wales and then Wales to the rest of the United Kingdom, there could be concerns raised there that, actually, people will distrust the quality of education, compared to—. Even though, as you say, they might be getting the same standard, but public perception might be—.

Can I bring Dona in here, please?

Vaughan, please.

Just on this point—if you take Gwynedd out of the picture; it's not about one county—I think the evidence we've heard both in this inquiry but also when scrutinising the Bill is that there are shortages in the teacher workforce in a range of subjects regardless of the medium, in English medium or Welsh medium, and really the concern is: how do you get more people to go into the teaching workforce? Then, in some subjects, there is a steeper challenge in Welsh-medium provision—STEM is the obvious one that keeps on coming up. We've had that from all the teacher unions, as well as a whole range of people. The evidence that we've had from witnesses isn't that there aren't the courses available, it's still about how you persuade enough people to want to undertake those courses successfully. That's both the new workforce going into teaching, as well as the work that the national centre would be doing for people already in the workforce as well. I think that's the bigger point that comes from Joel's question. Forget about this being a question about Gwynedd; it's about how do we successfully get enough people to want to be teachers, in the medium of English and in the medium of Welsh, when we have such an acute problem in STEM subjects in particular and getting people to go onto the courses that already exist with the incentives we already have as well. That's one of the things we're trying to resolve. If there are recommendations that you think can work, then that would be helpful. But, it doesn't sit well with all the other evidence to say, 'If we have more courses, then we'll get more people', because the evidence is that we've got more than enough courses but we're not filling them at the moment.

Sorry, but on that point, the evidence we've heard isn't that it's just that there aren't courses in the right place. Part of the reason why some institutions are no longer providing courses is some of them had quality issues they didn't think they could resolve, and, for some of them, they weren't getting the numbers of people coming through. So, with respect, the evidence we've heard doesn't quite match the, 'If you strategically plan courses in different parts of the country, you'll fill them'. It's actually a different challenge, and I want to understand what we can do about the challenge we have, given that that's the structure that universities put forward, and say, 'This is why we're not providing all these courses in all these places'. It's not as simple as saying if you had a new course in the middle of Wales, that would resolve the issue, because that doesn't sit with the evidence we've heard from the universities themselves, who want to be able to deliver this provision but they've not all found they've been able to.

And part of the issue about universities in the same city is, sometimes, that's where the supply of people is as well—where people are going to want to have a student experience. So, if there were challenges in delivering the number of students in that setting, I could see that, but, actually, that isn't the evidence we've had either. And thinking about the panel we had just before you, they all appear to be getting people to come through in a variety of areas, but, again, the challenges in English medium and Welsh medium exist, and they're largely about subject area, albeit there's a recognition that there are some additional challenges depending on where you deliver your initial teacher training as well. So, I don't think the explanation is as simple as, 'If you had another institution geographically located, that would be the answer.' It doesn't sit with the previous evidence we've had from those providers.

Can I bring Siân in quickly here?

Diolch, Cadeirydd. 

Siân. 

Thank you. We'll move on now to questions from Carolyn, please. 

My question was: how successful do you think that Welsh Government incentives have been, particularly to do with training, as Siân touched on earlier? The previous panel did say that the bursaries in England didn't seem to attract many more students; it was more to do with flexibility, mentoring and positivity about it. And I know that quite a few attend Welsh-medium primary schools, but not higher education Welsh-medium as well, in Flintshire, north-east Wales. So, how would you help encourage young people to become Welsh-medium teachers? And then also, from my experience, teaching in Bangor, when you're actually immersed in Welsh around you, when you go out and about, it makes such a difference—that immersion in the language—so, keeping a hold on those students is crucial to try Welsh-medium education.

Can I bring Dona in here just to finish, please?

Okay, thank you. Thank you for joining us this morning. We appreciate your time. You'll be sent a transcript for checking in due course. Thank you. We'll now take a short break to bring in the next witnesses.

Welcome back. We'll move on now to agenda item 6, which is the ninth evidence session for this inquiry. Please can the witnesses introduce themselves for the record? And we'll start with Lowri, please.

Dr Lowri Brown, chief education officer in Conwy, north Wales.

Thank you. Deb.

Hi. I'm councillor Deb Davies, and I'm cabinet member for education and early years in Newport City Council. Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us this morning. Members have a series of questions, and we're going to start with Siân, please, who's also on the screen.

We acknowledge, of course, the importance of teachers and the positive difference they make to the lives of children and young people across all local authorities in Wales. I think it's really important that we express gratitude and thanks this morning for their hard work—the hard work of the teaching profession and of course local authority officers and colleagues who support schools. This is within the context of a really challenging time to be fulfilling this particular role.

I think it's difficult to pick a single factor. The issues seem multifaceted. But I think teaching is generally and currently perceived as a really challenging profession, which is influencing the people who consider or are considering entering the profession. I think it's seen as quite a highly stressful, intense job with a significant workload and it doesn't have as much flexibility compared to other roles.

So, I think these negative perceptions around teacher well-being also contribute to the impact on the number of individuals wanting to train to become teachers. We know that across Wales teachers themselves are reporting low job satisfaction and the challenges, of course, of the role are well publicised, as is the narrative that things really have got even more challenging over recent years. We know, of course, that learner needs are increasing and are becoming more complex, which in turn also impacts on teacher workload and the intensity of the role.

So, we don't feel that there is one significant factor for initial recruitment and that negative perception around it. We do feel that there are a number of variables that are contributing.

Diolch, Lowri. Before Deborah comes in—.

I feel this is the reality, the absolute reality, and I think as an officer of the local authority, working really closely with leaders and teachers across a number of schools across all sectors, I do have first-hand experience that this is the reality. I think there are a number of variables that are contributing to that reality. We look at the pace of change in terms of policy development, we look at the reforms, the expectations that parents have as well on teachers' ability to meet a range of complex needs. So, I absolutely feel that this is the reality, and I think the challenges have been increasing over time. We can see that the demography is changing, as I've said. We look out in our communities, we look at the changes that are happening as well in families, family networks and family structures, which also have an impact on learner need. Yes, so it's the absolute reality. Diolch.

Deborah.

I'll just unmute myself. Yes, I certainly would agree it's a reality. We've had some national profile stories in regard to children's behaviour, and I think potential teachers look at that and it puts them off. We know there are different behavioural issues, we know children are entering schools with greater needs. It's not just needs in regard to additional learning needs, but it's developmental issues. We know those are well talked about, they're well understood, and there's a huge understanding from teachers that it's not just about teaching. They are actually becoming providers of a support network, very often, for families. So, it's a tough profession to go into. I think 20 years ago the long school holidays were an attractive feature, but they no longer are. It's not about pay, it's about the difficulties of the job, which actually are creating a problem regarding being a recruitment attraction. You've got to have someone who's determined to work through, and specifically work with children, who wants to take on this role.

I think that the first five years are pivotal in the teaching career. I think after the initial five years, there's a real turning point and a shift. I think individuals gain confidence, they have a sense of empowerment, and I think they are confident in being able to make decisions autonomously. However, I do believe that the support structures that we as local authorities, the Government and our higher education institutes put in within that five years are key to the success of a longer term teaching career. Whilst they're finding their feet, I think that five years is a really challenging time.

Just referring back to all the variables that I listed earlier in terms of the pace of reform, the challenges in terms of learner needs, all of that, coupled with inexperience, finding their feet, navigating their career within the five years, is really challenging. I think if we can catch them at that five-year point, making sure that they feel skilled, that the professional learning offer is of good quality, that they are supported, that they see that there are aspirations that they can achieve within the profession if they wanted to, there's a real window of opportunity here for us to shift things.

I think the partnerships certainly work in south Wales. We've still got a strong relationship with our consortium; they continue to work with our schools. So, we certainly have good strong partnership working. We've certainly got schools that link closely with our universities, and it's providing those links.

I think it's for our student teachers to actually get that opportunity to experience different types of schools, and, within those schools, those different contexts. And actually to ensure those teachers are provided with appropriate support with regard to behaviour management and that that mentorship is strongly there throughout that process. That mentorship needs to continue and be ongoing throughout the whole of the five years.

It's recognising, when someone goes newly into the role, that there is more than adequate support there, that they know who to turn to. I believe that does happen within our local authority. In my understanding from working with newly qualified teachers, that is in place, but it needs to be more, given these additional issues that we are seeing in today's society.

In light of the school improvement review, the changes that have been as a result of that are significant. I think that the work that we need to undertake now, in collaboration with our colleagues in the Welsh Government, is to redefine what those partnerships look like. It's really clear in the school improvement framework, as you'll know, which is the statutory document, what the role of the school is, the governing body, the local authority, and other key partners. But I think now, following the significant change in terms of the disbanding of the regional consortia, we do need to do some work around redefining roles and responsibilities, which will naturally lead to a new definition of these partnerships.

I think we've got well-established partnerships with our school leaders, but again, that is evolving as we speak. We need to strengthen the partnerships on a school-to-school basis in order for us to realise our vision of that self-sustaining system. I think the role, of course, of FE and HE, particularly HE, is going to be key, and that's something that we're navigating closely with the universities. Because we do feel that they've got a really important contribution now to make towards the professional learning offer on a national, regional and local level. I know that the appointment of the chief executive of the professional learning body for Wales is going to be a really important position to fill, and we need to make sure that the partnerships that we have with colleagues in HE continue and are further developed.

I think the school improvement review has offered a really exciting, innovative opportunity for local authorities to regain that ownership of school improvement and to define, on a local level, albeit across multiple local authorities in partnership, what that looks like to support schools. I think other key partners that we need to work with, of course, are Estyn, because they form an integral part of the school improvement agenda. So, absolutely, I think it's an exciting time. I think there's an awful lot of change on the horizon that is already being initiated by local authorities since the ministerial direction back in 2023. I can't reinforce that strongly enough, the change that has been implemented in local authorities. I think the next two years are going to be really important and key for us to re-establish what school improvement looks like across Wales.

Thank you. We have to move on now. We'll go to Joel, please, for the next set of questions.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks ever so much for joining us this morning. I just wanted to ask you a few questions specifically around teacher retention. My first one is that we've heard a lot in the evidence sessions about the various pressures that our teachers are under, and one of the things that comes up is about excessive workloads. I just wanted to get your opinion on this. It's a simplistic question, I'm afraid: why are there excessive workloads, if that makes sense? Is it because of the extra coverage that they have to do in terms of classes? Is it because of extra policies coming from the Welsh Government? We know about lesson planning and teacher CPD and so on. I wanted just to get an idea about yourselves, really. And also—and, again, it's a quite a simplistic question, so forgive me for this—when we say 'excessive workloads', how is that measured, if that makes sense? Is that just teachers coming back and saying, 'Listen, I'm feeling that I'm overburdened, I'm overworked'? Or is there almost like a quantifiable thing to say, 'Well, actually, that's too much work you're doing there'? 

There are a number of areas that I can cover here, I think, in terms of responding to your question. When we look at funding in its entirety, the financial pressures and the underfunding do lead to an increase, for example, in redundancies. We know, across Wales now, we've seen a significant increase, in the last two years, in both voluntary and compulsory redundancies. We know then that leads to fewer individuals at the chalkface, coupled with the increasing demand of learner needs. I think we're finding that lots of our support staff, as well, are part of that redundancy pool. So that increases—indirectly and directly—the teacher workload.

We know that schools are responding to these budget pressures by trying to avoid backfilling roles, for example for maternity cover, and not renewing some fixed-term contracts, which, then, of course, exacerbates the situation because we've got fewer individuals in the classroom and within the school to respond to the learner need.

We do know, as well, where schools are having to make significant reductions—and we know that that is the reality across Wales—they are making reductions that, of course, have a knock-on effect, as I've just said, on the teacher workload and their ability to support learners. And in turn, I think it does add to the stress and the strain and the intensity of the role, which also inadvertently impacts on retention and recruitment.

As I said earlier, I think the support for the teachers in their first five years is key. When it's early in their career, it can feel quite overwhelming, and we need to ensure that we see a good quality professional learning offer across Wales and in local authorities, to support them with the coaching and the mentoring and making sure that they feel that they have somewhere to turn when they find that that workload is becoming overwhelming.

I think we do need to develop solutions to support this notion of the unmanageable workloads. For example, early on in their careers, within that first five years, do they need more protected time? Do they need time to engage in the support, the coaching and, of course, protected space to have that mentoring support? Is this something that we need to consider until they become more experienced? And also maybe introduce a more flexible approach to working, which would enable them to have some time and space.

We do feel, as well, and we do find, that teachers, particularly newly qualified teachers, are coming into the profession underprepared. We need to be asking the questions on what that initial teacher training does look like. Do we need more investment at that level? Coming into the profession and having to deal with the complex range of needs that we see in schools is an ask, and I think we often see that they're underprepared.

I think the increased workload also is as a result of—and I will use this term—reform fatigue. As I stated earlier, I think the pace of educational reform all at once has been immense. We're looking at the Cwricwlwm i Gymru, changes to the additional learning needs legislation, we're looking at guidance around education other than at school, behaviour, transgender policy. All of these changes lead to an increase in workload because the expectations on our teachers are becoming increasingly higher to deliver these policy changes.

In terms of pupils and parents, learner needs are changing. We see that the policy changes—for example, I'll use the ALN legislation and reform—lead to increased parental expectations of what that offer should be in schools, which I think can be quite stressful for teachers in responding to that. And I think also, supporting families in getting their children and young people school-ready. In order to do that via the regular attendance, that's an added pressure on schools as well, to make sure that those learners are in school on a regular basis and they're ready to learn.

So, I think all of those factors contribute to the workload question that you asked. And, of course, we've got the professional teaching standards as well, which we can measure workload and progress against. So, those are used by every local authority.

That was a really good response, actually. It covered quite a lot of factors there. And so, with that, then, in mind, I just wanted to pick your brains about where can the local authority come in here, then, to best support teachers, and what can they do more, if they're not doing it enough, to address that situation. Because you mentioned there about underfunding. Is this a case where money's not coming from the local authority there? Because I'm conscious that one of the things that always comes up in the Chamber here is the amount of financial reserves that councils have. For example, the three in my region have about £0.5 billion, so it's quite a lot of money there. But, obviously, there are various caveats to that, and some of that's tied for capital projects. But I just wanted to get a better idea of what—well, to summarise what local authorities can do to better address that, then.

Deborah, do you want to answer that question?

Yes. There are a number of things that can be done, I suppose, looking at funding and financial pressures. It's difficult for schools because they find themselves in a situation where they have to plan a budget year on year. They can't long-term plan, just as local authorities can't long-term plan. That doesn't enable schools to actually set more than fixed-term contracts. And I think, for teaching staff, that gives them an uncertainty, particularly newly qualified teachers, in regard to the sustainability of their role. That puts pressure on themselves as to whether they'll be employed the following year, and that puts pressure on their colleagues as well, because there's that unknown whether that person within that role will be there in the same role next year. And I think we need to look at recruitment and look at ways that we can actually get away from the fixed-term contracts that we do focus on within our schools, just to enable budget setting. You could look at it, I think, as another reason that teachers aren't attracted to the teaching profession, because it doesn't give them that financial stability. So, there are such things for individuals to think about, for example mortgage payments. Actually, they can't get a mortgage with a fixed-term contract, for example. We really need to think about different ways of recruitment.

Schools—we can support schools. Very specifically, in secondary education, every school manages and knows how many teaching hours are allocated to members of staff. And it's a responsibility, I think, as a local education authority, to make sure there's an equitable balance, and monitor that within our schools, which we do.

In regard to looking at supporting schools with new reform, I think, very specifically, at the moment, we're looking at the new exams that are coming in for 14 to 16-year-olds, and with that comes a whole new scheme of work, which has to be taught, which means teachers need the time to actually understand that whole new scheme of work, as well as preparing the literature and the books that need to be purchased for that. There's a whole process. So, it's local authorities working with our schools to support them. And I think inter-school relationships—I know of a really good example of that, very recently working with our religious studies teachers and looking at that new exam, because there's also a lot of anxiety in regard not just to teaching, but delivery for those RS teachers, and so it's working together—and that's not just through secondary, but primary provision as well—to make sure everyone understand the scheme of work and the same themes, and actually trying those exams that work out together. And I think seeing that, literally at the coalface in the last couple of weeks, I've seen the reassurance that's given, to those different teachers in those different schools working together, that actually it is a realistic new programme that can be delivered, and that actually outcomes will be far better. It's ensuring that teachers have got that confidence to go forward, and we can enable that as a local authority. Does that help?

Yes. Thank you, Deborah. We'll have to move on now to questions from Vaughan. Could guests and Members please keep the questions and answers as succinct as possible? We're running very over time again this session, sorry. It seems to be a pattern, doesn't it? Vaughan, please.

Thank you. I've got a question that we're asking everyone, and that's about how teacher retention and recruitment issues affect the quality of the workforce and potential learner outcomes and behaviour. I know that you've given written evidence about some of these, but we're interested in how far this practically affects the capacity of schools, both from a quality perspective but then, as I say, from a learner outcomes perspective as well. 

Thank you. I think more reform, even where some reform is needed, inevitably of course leads to greater workload and bureaucracy for the teaching workforce and local authority officers as well who support them. An increased workload, of course, means that provision is more stretched. So, although reform doesn't necessarily lower the quality of teaching, it does mean that there are fewer staff, resources including the staff time, to deliver interventions. And otherwise they would have the capacity to deliver. So, I think that the pace of reform, in a nutshell, impacts on the capacity to deliver a good-quality education.

We know that fewer teachers, due to redundancies and the cuts that I referred to earlier, and fewer support staff would have an impact on pupil outcomes, and it is likely to influence as well pupil behaviour. We see that there are fewer interventions being able to be introduced at a classroom level. And I think that, with having fewer staff, larger class sizes, we do see that it is really difficult for them to build and maintain strong relationships with learners, children and young people, and we know that this is the bedrock of positive behaviour management and lots of the evidenced interventions that we use across the country. So, in summary—

Sorry, if I may, the question was really about recruitment and retention and whether those issues affect the quality of the teaching workforce. We've heard varied evidence on this, actually. Some other witnesses said that they think that there is an impact on quality, and others said actually they don't think there is. And this morning, we heard interesting evidence about how new entrants to the teaching profession are actually a really good thing in terms of the mix in a school of experience, particularly younger teachers who are digital natives and haven't, like myself and Deb, being still young in the broader sweep of politics—actually, we've had to learn new things along the way, whereas actually those things are native to newer entrants to the workforce. So, it's this question of: is there a lowering of quality, or is that we simply could just do with more teachers, but you're actually satisfied with the quality of new members coming into the profession, whether they're on second careers or, if you like, of traditional undergraduate age?

I think the quality—there is a range of quality that comes through from the initial teacher training, and I think that you're right, it's the capacity to deliver. It's the capacity to deliver the actual reform that you're referring to. I think that you're right about the wealth of expertise that comes through into schools when we do find that we've got more mature candidates with life experiences. I think that the quality is there, but I think it's sustaining that quality. So, as I said, in that really important window, in those first five years, we do need to make sure that we continue to develop, provide that PL offer and sustain quality over time, so that they reach that pivotal point and they continue to become really experienced, quality practitioners.

Thank you. I'll be back with another question later. 

I thought you might. [Laughter.] We'll move on now to questions from Natasha, please.

Thank you very much, Chair. Good morning, everybody. I'd just like to ask you: to what extent do you feel that the shortage of teachers impacts on the delivery of the Welsh Government's educational reforms?

Okay, thank you. I think that there is a risk to the Government's education reform agenda. We know that specialist teachers are needed to deliver a broad and balanced curriculum and, of course, those wholly important wider learning experiences. We know that, as mentioned in the evidence paper, local authorities have reported critical shortages in some specific areas; we know in terms of Welsh language, maths, and we're looking at science as well, particularly chemistry and physics, ICT, technology, geography, and the MFL offer. 

Also, whenever there are some additional requirements such as a need for staff who provide specialist ALN provision, staff that can teach through the medium of Welsh, or staff that can teach in a specific sector, for example the faith sector, the shortages, then, are exacerbated. We do find that schools in some of our small and rural schools in our rural areas are also facing a different set of challenges, particularly in relation to the recruitment of staff and leaders especially, and of course the range of staff that's required to deliver those specialist areas and the relevant learning experiences.

As mentioned as well in previous evidence from the Welsh Local Government Association, and of course from the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, we do support the principles of the Welsh language and education Act, but we are really concerned about the workforce's capacity to fulfil some of these really ambitious targets, and we know that a shortage of teachers and support staff in schools is also likely to lead to larger class sizes.

Thank you very much. Deb, did you want to add anything to that?

I would just like to add that I think another significant pressure in education is finding effective leaders, because recruitment is a problem and it's actually delivering—. And leadership is a very specific skill set. A leader in a school is someone who's also got a clear understanding of what teaching and learning looks like, and what that education reform looks like, and it's finding that individual that's got that skill set, as well as taking the school forward. Having been involved in a number of recruitment exercises very recently, having gone out to recruit for a headteacher in a local secondary school, we went out four times to find the appropriate person who was capable of doing the job. It's tough, it really is tough, and it's supporting teachers through that process of learning to become effective leaders that I think we need to develop more.

Well, I'm really glad you spoke about leaders, because that's my next question. So, I'd like to know, in your opinions now, what can be done, should be done and who should be the one doing it when it comes to supporting our leaders in education? 

Deb.

I think it's a responsibility for all of us. Leadership is very much an innate skill; it can develop in some. I think we have now developed a new programme to support headteachers through a training programme, however I don't think it's broad enough. It's a two-year programme. I think that needs to be expanded, because we've got a gap in leadership currently within our schools; it's hard to recruit, as I've said. I welcome that programme, however I think we need more input from our local authorities about their recommendation of who they know should actually be recruited into that training process. We need to ensure, as governing bodies, that we've got a clear understanding of leadership and who has to support that process, because there are definite gaps in the system at the moment, mainly in secondary schools, but also in primary schools, where you're not seeing individuals wanting to take up that role.

I don't think it's about finances. I think the pay for a headteacher across Wales is more than adequate. In fact, you can actually look at pay for headteachers across Wales and some of them are actually probably on equivalent pay to some of our chief execs. It's about ensuring that headteachers are supported in that role as well. It's an all-encompassing role and it has a level of accountability. I think headteachers can sometimes feel quite isolated in that role, because they're making very, very difficult, challenging decisions in regard to teaching staff, in regard to behaviour, and it's ensuring that there's a support mechanism in place, whether it's peer-to-peer support across schools, and that they've got those links across to local authority. But it's also ensuring that they've got support across Wales where they can go to for further training advice. I think it's imperative on all of us that our headteachers have that support.

Estyn provide a lot of that support as well, and I think they do an excellent job, but it's having that awareness of need, that headteachers are in a very, very lonely place.

Understood. Lowri, anything you wanted to add to that, before we go on to the next question?

Yes, just I think, in terms of improving that career progression pathway for leaders in terms of the NPQH provision and the actual process, we as local authorities would welcome a stronger role in validating and supporting applications, just to make sure that those candidates are progressing. We need to open it out as well. I know the numbers are quite small coming through that progression pathway, so we would welcome further work on that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Back to Vaughan, please. 

Thank you. I've got a question that I've been asking this morning about improving the diversity of the teacher workforce—gender, race and disability in particular. And on gender, it's really about the levels of promotion and leadership, so it's interesting we've got two leaders from the WLGA who are both women in leadership positions. I'm interested, in particular, about the impact that elected members can have on wanting to set an expectation about what happens, and particularly in scrutinising leadership choices, because, when a school is distressed, the local authority almost always takes a role in helping to support that school, and who it actually looks to bring in as well. So, I'm interested in what influence you think you can have on both the challenge about the fact that most women in the teaching workforce will have a different profile when it comes to leadership and progression, but our bigger challenges in race and disability in the proportions of people that we don't have in the education workforce at present.

Deb.

Okay, thank you. There's a whole gamut of questions you're raising there. In regards to women in the workforce and teaching, we see a disproportionate number of women. I think what happens is women start off as very ambitious, they look at career progression, but what I think actually stymies women's careers, and I will say this, very often is maternity leave. That creates a gap, and it's very difficult then to get them back into development and give them that support, and I think that, as a local authority, it's for us to ensure that progression is enabled and continued and how we support that. It's not just—. It's childcare—the lot traditionally still falls upon women, whereas men in the profession seem to be able to develop because those same issues don't apply. So, you see men, particularly in primary schools, quickly moving to the top, where women seem to settle in that middle tier. It's an issue, it's a challenge, that we still need to work with.

However, what I will also say to you is with men, particularly in primary schools, there's a gap, because for a lot of our young boys in school they need that male role model, and there's a lack. We need to focus, actually, on attracting men into primary education, because actually that would create more equity and a better delivery for children; they can help develop role models and see who supports them.

In regards to us as leaders in education, it's supporting women through and enabling them to progress. We're seeing in Newport now more and more women being our secondary headteachers. I can certainly see that across Newport; I think half our secondary headteachers are women, which is brilliant, because you generally see it's more men in secondary schools who take on those roles.

As regards diversity, I could completely agree with you, Vaughan. It is a massive issue. But what I'm seeing more recently in our schools is that more and more of our teaching assistants are reflecting our diversity and those individuals who may come from a background where they've got a disability. What I think we need to do about that is actually not just about celebration but enabling individuals to take that next step in regards to training, so we actually develop those teaching programmes to become qualified teachers. Because it may well be that, on leaving school, those individuals don't see necessarily that that's a role that's natural to them, but, actually, many, many individuals would be excellent teachers and outstanding teachers. But it's ensuring not just do we create those links when young people leave school, but we actually strengthen those links and different routes into training to be a teacher once they take that step into being a teaching assistant. 

Thank you, Deb. We'll have to move on now, sorry, to questions from Carolyn. 

How successful do you believe Welsh Government's initiatives have been to address recruitment and retention, such as training incentives?

Which one of you would like to go first? Lowri or Deb? Lowri.

Yes, I'll come in. I think providing targeted financial incentives and enhanced professional development opportunities would help overcome some of the barriers. However, I do think there are questions around the sustainability of this as a long-term strategy when we know that resources are finite and the financial pressures that authorities are under.

I think the feedback from local authorities also on this is that pay alone, I think as Deb referred to earlier, isn't the biggest incentive at play here. It's not really about the pay, it's about the ability to work flexibly compared to other roles and reducing the workload, so that we do, in turn, improve teacher well-being, which are also critical factors in addressing these challenges.

Okay. Thank you, Lowri. Deb, do you have anything to add to that?

No, I just completely agree with Lowri. It's not about finance. You rarely hear teachers complaining and being concerned about finance, except those on fixed-term contracts. It's ensuring that they get the support with behaviour management and support with supporting children with additional learning needs. It's that additional training.

I would say—. I suppose what I would say as well is, as cabinet members for education across Wales, we've met and talked about the challenges that face our teaching staff, and a lot of it is about behaviour. And we would very much welcome a behaviour strategy that local authorities could embrace and deliver across our schools to ensure there's consistency and continuity, so that teachers know that they're going to a school with a consistent approach to behaviour and how it's dealt with to minimise some of that low-level poor behaviour in classrooms before behaviour actually gets out of hand.

Thanks, Deb. Carolyn.

That leads me into the last question, really. So, what would you think would be the most important action that Welsh Government could take to ensure sustainability of the education workforce? You've raised behaviour as one. We looked at banning mobile phones in schools as a petition, but, when we did the inquiry, the evidence came back that it should be left up to individual headteachers in schools, but national guidance is helpful. Do you agree with that—that guidance on behaviour would help you and the workforce, but leaving it up to individual schools?

Yes, I completely agree. I think there should be a national behavioural strategy, which would help and guide. That would help local authorities to set standards and expectations. I think it should be left down to headteachers how they determine what a mobile policy should look like. Most secondary schools in Newport have now banned mobiles. However, there's always a context where some children need access to that mobile phone, and very specifically—and I can identify a school locally—where children are known to be carers, they need access to that phone, because it could be that they're checking if mum's taken her tablets, or whatever it might be, but it's actually ensuring, maybe, that that phone is kept in a secure location and that the child can then go and check and use that phone. It does—absolutely, the banning of mobile phones does—have a positive impact on behaviour. It does reduce bullying. It does reduce distraction within the classroom. And it actually improves relationships with the local community. There is a positive impact with the removal of mobile phones, but it has to be down to individual schools how they manage that. I don't think it can be a direction from Welsh Government. It's also impossible to manage.

The other thing I think would be helpful, with regards to additional learning needs, is a more holistic approach to managing that child and determining a diagnosis at an early stage. And that would then ensure that we get the right interventions in place in schools at a far, far earlier stage. The impact of delays in diagnosis doesn't just impact on that child, on that family, it impacts on how that child can be supported in the classroom as well, and that may well be whether they need a teaching assistant, what provision is additionally needed. We need a very, very early holistic approach that starts as early as possible, as soon as a need is identified, and that pace would actually have a positive impact on learning within the classroom for all the children and for teaching staff as well.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Deb. I think we've lost Lowri, unfortunately. She was there and then she wasn't. Oh, there she is, she's trying to come back in there. That's okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time this morning. We really appreciate you joining us. You'll be sent a transcript for checking in due course. So, thank you very much.

That's lovely. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting us today—it's appreciated. Thanks. Bye bye.

So, we'll now move on to item 7, which is papers to note. We have nine papers to note today, full details of which are set out on the agenda and in the paper pack. Before we formally note the papers, I want to draw your attention to papers to note 7.3 and 7.4, which are raising serious concerns about perinatal mental health. I am concerned about the issues raised in both letters. I would like to suggest that, in the first instance, we write to the Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing asking for a response for our first meeting of the autumn term. We can discuss what, if any, further steps we wish to take. Are Members happy with this approach? Yes. Great, I can see Members are happy. So, are Members content to note all the papers? Yes. Great.

So, as agreed under item 2, we will now move to a private session.