Lynne Neagle MS, Cabinet Secretary for Education
As we start a new academic year, and welcome new teachers, leaders and support staff, I wanted to provide an update on how we are supporting the profession. I fully appreciate the challenges that our workforce is facing and I am working closely with our partners to make improvements. The success of our education system is reliant on a high-quality workforce, and it is essential that we provide the best support and conditions for them.
Work to develop the Strategic Education Workforce Plan is progressing. The plan will set out our vision for supporting the school workforce in four key areas:
- Supporting our workforce to deliver quality teaching and learning to improve outcomes for learners
- Addressing workload issues
- Responding to new challenges for the school workforce and ensuring access to support through a specialist workforce
- Ensuring that teaching, leadership and supporting teaching remains an attractive career pathway.
The well-being of staff will be a key consideration across all four areas.
I have already committed to taking forward a number of actions to support the workforce, and today I’m also pleased to outline progress in several areas. We have been working with the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Partnership Forum to develop the proposals to move Additional Learning Needs Coordinators onto the leadership pay scale following the initial consultation during the summer term. I intend to make a further announcement on this work in due course. Additionally, I recognised the important work of school leaders and the pressures they are under by remitting the Independent Welsh Pay Review Body (IWPRB) to consider what changes could be made to leaders’ conditions of service. I look forward to receiving the IWPRB report on that part of the remit later in the Autumn. In the meantime, I have written to directors of education to remind them of the importance of ensuring leaders have time away from work on weekends and over school holidays. And I am looking forward to receiving the outcomes from the Strategic Workload Coordination Group shortly which will inform our future plans.
As we further develop the plan, my key priorities will be to work with our social partners and stakeholders to:
- agree how we will take forward my commitment to improve pay and conditions for our support staff, who play a crucial role in our schools
- collaborate on solutions to our recruitment and retention challenges, particularly secondary teachers in both Welsh and English-medium schools. This will include detailed consideration of how we can improve support for teachers through initial teacher education and their first few years of teaching,
- develop our proposals for covering teacher absence, which is a complex area due to the variety of different approaches used by local authorities to source supply staff.
The details of the plan will continue to be developed with the profession, local authorities/governing bodies as the employers, the education workforce unions and our key partners over the coming months. I will also be taking account of the Children, Young People and Education Committee’s inquiry into Teacher Recruitment and Retention, and my aim is to publish the plan during the spring term.
Lastly, over the summer, I was pleased to announce that Dr Gwenllian Lansdown Davies has been appointed as the Chief Executive of the new national professional learning and leadership body and will take up her role in November. The name of the body will be Dysgu, recognising that our education workforce need continued support to develop throughout their careers to ensure the best outcomes for our learners. Dysgu, which is now operational, will be taking responsibility for my key national priorities for maintained schools and settings, including literacy, numeracy and well-being, alongside long-term change programmes including support for additional learning needs and improving the teaching of Welsh in our English-medium schools, and our practitioner leadership programmes.
This statement is being issued during recess to keep Members informed. Should Members wish me to make a further statement or to answer questions on this when the Senedd returns I would be happy to do so.