Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Corporate Director Education.

Consideration was given to the report of the Corporate Director of Education and the Service Manager Education Transformation and Business Change which was presented to provide Members with the opportunity to scrutinise the draft Blaenau Gwent 10-year Welsh in Education Strategic Plan, providing views, comments and responses in line with the consultation process.

The Corporate Director of Education spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein.

A Member commented that if the Welsh Government wanted to increase the number of Welsh speakers they should consider making Welsh compulsory in schools and provide extra resources to facilitate this. The Director of Education said the provision of learning Welsh was already a statutory component of the curriculum and felt that it was crucial to provide provision through the medium of Welsh as early as possible within the education system. 

In response to a Member’s question regarding progress on developments for the Welsh school in Tredegar, the Director of Education said that progress was going well, some investigatory work on the proposed site had provided assurances that the site was suitable for development and at this point in time they were still on track to have the new school available from September 2023.  He hoped that post pandemic site visits could be considered for Members to see some of the practices going on within schools.

A Member commented that most schools in Blaenau Gwent used incidental Welsh throughout the school and thought that all secondary schools taught Welsh, from year 7 pupil options were between full time Welsh or short course Welsh so that every child sat a Welsh exam.  The Head of School Improvement & Inclusion said there was an expectation for schools to use incidental Welsh and that all young people from nursery upwards were having Welsh lessons. 

The Director of Education added that it was important to recognise within the WESP document the priority around Welsh as a second language and promoting that within English medium schools to increase the amount of use of the Welsh language in school settings.

The Chair commented that it was important that parents with children who attended Welsh medium schools were supported.  The Director of Education said that parental ability to be able to communicate via the Welsh language in home settings was an important consideration for learners being able to use the language in an immersive way.  He advised that there was an element of Adult and Community Learning provision that needed to be strengthened moving forward to ensure that parents had the right skills to help and support their children in the medium of Welsh.

The Committee AGREED to recommend that the report be accepted and endorse Option 1; namely that the draft 10-year Welsh in Education Strategic Plan (WESP) be accepted.