Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Welcome back. We'll move on now to agenda item 3, which is the fifth evidence session for this inquiry. I'm very pleased to welcome our panel this morning. Could you introduce yourselves, please?

I'm Eluned Parrott. I'm head of Wales for the Institute of Physics.

Hello. I'm Annette Farrell. I'm programme manager for education policy at the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Hi. I'm Shabana Brightley. I'm the senior education policy officer for the Royal Society of Biology.

Thank you, and you're very welcome this morning. We'll now start with some questions from Members, and we'll go to Cefin first.

Bore da. Good morning. I'm going to ask my first question in Welsh.

Diolch yn fawr ichi am y papurau, gyda llaw. Mae'n amlwg i ni fod yna broblemau o ran recriwtio athrawon mewn pynciau gwyddonol yn arbennig. Mae yna bynciau eraill, wrth gwrs, ond pynciau gwyddonol—. Beth ydych chi'n teimlo yw'r prif ffactor sy'n effeithio recriwtio i mewn i bynciau gwyddonol, ac oes yna wahaniaethau daearyddol o ran y gallu i recriwtio i'r pynciau hynny?

I would say that it isn't a single issue. There isn't going to be one main issue and a magic bullet that fixes it. I'm really sorry, there isn't. What we have is a systemic challenge. We have a challenge where we don't have enough STEM graduates. So, in physics, for example, we're training around 200 physics graduates a year in the three physics departments in Wales; your target for teacher ITE recruitment is 74. So, you need more than a third of your Welsh physics graduates to go into teacher training. But the other industries in Wales that are really important to us, like compound semiconductors, photonics, energy all require physics graduates and could take all of them.

So, at this point in time, you don't have enough graduates, which means that you don't have enough people going into teaching as a route, which means that there isn't enough specialism within the teaching profession, which means that young people are not getting the passion and enthusiasm from their teachers for the subjects that they love, which means that more young people don't take it at A-level, they don't go into doing it as undergraduates, and therefore there isn't a pool of people to draw from at that ITE stage. So, it's this whole system that is a challenge, unfortunately.

I can add to that, if that's okay. So, with chemistry, in 2023-24, there were only seven people who passed their PGCE in Wales, and the target allocation intake was 67. So, we're way off the mark there. As you said, it's a really complicated factor. So, the perception of teaching as a career is also an important thing. The safety and the status of teaching is being degraded because of the issues that the sector is facing because of the shortages. The high workload and behaviour issues mean that teachers who are in post don't feel able to advocate for the career to their students, or to other people they meet in their lives, so that's a worry.

The financial barriers to training are a big issue. If you compare the English bursary system to Wales, once you've taken account of, taken out, the paying of fees and everything, Welsh students next year will only take home £2,465. If you compare that with England—people taking the bursary—that's £19,465. So, it's not a financially viable option for people who do need to rely on those finances to get them into the profession.

And in terms of the geographical issues, then that obviously plays out where you are very close to the border. The biggest STEM departments are in Cardiff and south Wales. It's very easy to go to Bristol, and you have to worry about the math skills of a physics graduate who's going to stay for a couple of grand, rather than go to Bristol for £20,000. So, I think that we need to look at that as part of the issue.

The other thing in terms of the geographical challenges is that we have cold spots around Wales about where teacher training is possible, but also where science training is possible. So, with only three physics departments in Wales, you have big cold spots. It's even worse in chemistry. And so, if people want to stay in their own community, it is increasingly difficult to do so, particularly since the closure of Aberystwyth's ITE department. And that will give you additional challenges around Welsh-medium education, because it's a strong centre for Welsh-medium.

As Cefin previously said, there are only two—[Interruption.] Sorry. There are only two centres, which are Cardiff and Swansea now, where you can study chemistry in Wales. Bangor has closed recently, and that's a real issue because of the Welsh-language provision that was there for studying chemistry. So, you've got a massive cold spot in the north of the country.

And I'll just add, from a biology perspective, I think that has a knock-on effect on biology trainees. If they know that they are then going to go on and be teaching out of specialism—so, physics and chemistry, which they're not trained in—they're not likely to then sign up to biology teacher training either. So, it's a knock-on effect to the other sciences as well.

Okay, if I can follow on with another question then: do you think that ITE, as it's currently delivered, is the most appropriate way of attracting students into the science subjects?

I could start off, if that's okay. I think, when I've spoken to some ITE providers, I think they said that the university routes could be more flexible. So, I think we do welcome the OU flexibility, with the part-time and the salaried route—that's great. But a slightly worrying unintended consequence is that they might make the traditional PGCE routes less attractive. So, if we want to have enough choice in the system, we perhaps need to make sure that those routes are invested in as well, so that they can still be sustainable.

And I think we also need to make sure that there's subject-specific content in those courses as well. When we've spoken to ITE providers, there's just not enough subject-specific content in those courses, and that's really important as well.

Yes, I would very much agree with that. There is a real challenge with Welsh ITE not really having the level of funding and investment that other ITE centres have in other parts of the UK. And I'm particularly concerned to hear that some ITE centres struggle to recruit even a part-time tutor for their STEM ITE provision. We don't have any gaps at the moment, but we're looking at that you could go to study in an ITE centre that has a full-time professional and professorial level of ITE tuition, or you could go to somewhere else where they're struggling to recruit part-time tutors to help you. There is a problem with that investment, and that's one of the reasons why we're suggesting creating this idea of a STEM centre of excellence. So, rather than trying to spread out the expertise across all of the ITE centres—it is important to have ITE centres spread out across the country, but—rather than spreading that expertise, maybe create something that is robust, is academically respected, is driving improvements across ITE, like a hub-and-spoke model.

Okay, diolch.

Thank you. To what extent do you believe teaching is seen as an attractive profession for science graduates to enter and then remain? And what barriers, do you think—? If you think they're not wanting to remain, what are the barriers for them to leave?

Yes, I think we've kind of touched on it, haven't we? The barriers are the financial incentives, mainly, to attract graduates to come into the training. That kind of area is not about retaining them, but it's about attracting them into the profession, and I think, based on the bursaries in England and all the incentives they get in England, they would rather go across the border to go and get trained. There's a little bit more incentive there as well.

I think there's also an equity issue here with the bursaries and what that means, because you cannot realistically live on the bursary that you would get in Wales, so, if you come from a less wealthy background, it is a major financial choice to take on another year of study and take on another year of student debt and another year of living a hand-to-mouth existence, particularly when you're in ITE and you have to travel to teaching placements. That's an expensive thing to do; it's not an easy thing to do. So, we need to be mindful of that.

And as I say, in terms of the demand issues, there's supply and demand in a workforce market, which is not in teaching's favour at the moment, because there are so many other options for highly qualified STEM teachers. We need to make ITE just a really exciting prospect for good graduates to say, 'Do you know what? I'm really excited by this. I can go and train with some of the best. I can go and change the world. I can do amazing things.' And at the moment that's not how it comes across, and I would encourage the committee to maybe look at visiting some of our ITE providers and talking to them in person about what are the challenges they're facing with funding, with facilities and with partnerships with schools. Because, even when it's putting placements into schools, we have English universities now placing students in Welsh schools, and the Welsh schools like to take them from England because they get more money for it. So, it's little things like that that have knock-on consequences.

And I think it's really important that we get those passionate graduates coming through, because that really makes a difference to learning outcomes for students later on. If they're passionate about their subject, they will be able to tell them about the subject knowledge, about key concepts, about practical work and field study. So, we really need those graduates to be really passionate about wanting to come in and teaching their subject, rather than just not feeling—and having that burden of financial outlook as well.

So, I think my colleagues have talked about the financial side of things and the system as a whole. Particularly with the system as a whole, we need to be thinking about addressing the financial sustainability of HE in general. So, obviously the committee knows about this, but, if we don't have the graduates coming through in chemistry in Wales, then there's not going to be enough of them to become teachers in Wales, and that's vitally important. I think another key thing is addressing the workload issues for teachers in Wales so that they can really advocate for the profession and that they've got time to really deliver a high-quality education for students.

Thank you. So, thinking about the Welsh Government's education reforms, what, if any, impact do you think that has had on science teacher recruitment and retention?

I think we'd say it's really too early to say, and in particular in the context that the GCSE specification for the sciences hasn't been set yet. So, when we see how teachers deliver their work in practice, particularly if they're under time pressures, the content of that curriculum will very much determine what they choose to teach. In more broad terms, the idea of having more freedom to teach what you believe is important, to teach around the science capital teaching approach, that's a really positive step. It ought to be something that's attractive to high-quality teachers and to graduates who want to go into the profession, but it's a little bit early to say what that impact is going to be.

I think we're a little bit concerned about possible unintended consequences of whatever the new GCSEs will end up being, and that's something that we really need to consider. So, for example, it's great if biology, chemistry and physics are seen and taught as distinct subjects, which, hopefully, they will be in the new double award. But then, a potential unintentional consequence would be that schools perhaps in the most disadvantaged areas that don't have the specialists will then actually choose to do the single-award integrated science approach. The inequalities that can result from that will be quite similar to the system that we have at the moment with triple science and double. So, we're worried about those unintended consequences that we need to be mindful of.

Agreed.

I think also that there's a concern about the resources needed with the curriculum reform as well, especially as science is quite heavy on the knowledge and the practical skills—so, the resources needed for that, and especially in Welsh medium as well, for Welsh-medium schools. So, there's something that RSB has started; we've translated our Evolving 5-19 Biology framework into Welsh, and we'd like to do more. But then there's the question about funding and resources again, and staff to do that.

So, why do you think that some teachers are leaving the profession early on in their career? How important is early career support and professional learning for retaining science teachers?

I think it's really, really important. Early career support is very important, especially having subject-specific mentors in schools that can guide the teachers in their specific subject. I was a primary school teacher, and I did secondary science teaching as well, and I had a specific science teacher and he helped me immensely—like with the way you teach practicals, the way you can disseminate subject knowledge to them. So, it's really, really important to early career teachers that they have that support and also have that continuous professional development as they're going as well, because, if we don't give them that, the workload is huge for them and they've only just started in their careers. That workload and the well-being are two of the reasons why they decide to leave, because it is a lot of work to take on board and especially if they're being deployed to teach out of their subject as well. So, if, let's say, a biology teacher is then having to teach physics and chemistry, which they've maybe not done since GCSE, that is a huge burden, because they've got to then go away and research and plan, and that's a lot to do for them.

I completely agree, and I think it's absolutely critical. You will be aware, perhaps, that the Welsh Government has funded the IOP and the RSC recently to help provide some of this early career mentoring for newly qualified teachers. But we've got a situation where we have 174 physics teachers, according to the Education Workforce Council. We have 204 secondary schools—205 secondary schools. So, there are at least 30 schools that don't have a single physicist to be able to provide subject-specific mentoring to a newly qualified teacher coming in, and that's disastrous.

So, is the current quality of early career support, is that adequate, would you say?

It's extremely patchy, because it's very reliant on what the schools can provide. As I say, that's part of the reason why we've been funded to try and bridge some of those gaps and try and support some of those early career teachers to make a success of their first steps into the profession.

Thank you.

I think it depends on what area you're in as well. So, if you're in a rural area, you may not get that support that you need, whereas if you're in, let's say, Cardiff, you might get better support.

Thank you.

Like, obviously, my colleagues have said, we've talked a lot about the workload, but it is kind of staggering. In our annual science teaching survey, we asked, 'If you're thinking of leaving the profession, what's making you leave?' Both in our 2023 survey, when we last asked this, and in our recent 2025 one, workload was by far the highest reason that's cited.

Interestingly, I think workload associated with behaviour is becoming more of an issue, and that is something that needs to be addressed with strong behaviour policies at a school level. Because, if you're the new teacher, you're always going to get the worst behaviour, so those teachers really need to be supported in that, with schoolwide policies, which, of course, a lot of schools do. But any support that can be added for that is really, really important.

Joel, did you want to come in?

Thank you, Chair. Thanks ever so much for coming in this morning. It was just a quick question, and I'm prepared to be corrected if I'm wrong, actually, because I'm not 100 per cent. But I read somewhere that, in Scotland, teachers, by law, can only teach what they're trained to teach. Do you think something like that should be brought into Wales, then, or would that just worsen the situation, or would that be used to spur on recruitment, if that makes sense?

I'm happy to—

I'm—

Oh, I think we're all happy to talk on that. We'll take it in turns.

I just wanted to say that, although it's a lovely idea, the Scotland system is very different from Wales in the way they teach. So, they have single science qualifications, whereas Wales has combined. So, you'd have to change the whole structure of your qualifications in order to do that. So, it's a massive job to do, and speaking to our stakeholders at RSB, it's not something that anybody is inclined to do at the moment, and that would be a huge task to take on board. So, although it sounds great, you'd have to overhaul the whole system to do that.

Because young people in Scotland aren't required to study all three subjects beyond the age of 14, I think it is. So, that's an issue.

At the Royal Society of Chemistry, we advocate for our—. Our message is an unbroken chain of subject experts teaching students throughout their career [correction: education]. But we also acknowledge that that expertise can come in different ways. Teachers do need to have that subject knowledge and expertise for the classes they're required to teach, but you can get that through your ITE, or through your undergraduate degree, postgraduate studies, through tailored CPD or retraining whilst in post. And for some teachers who have been teaching for 20 or 30 years, they have just developed on their own that adequate expertise.

And I think we just need to acknowledge that when teachers come into the profession, they come with a whole wealth of experience. And it varies so much; some might have, for example, done one of the sciences at A-level, some of them might have done all three. And the degree that they did might—you know, the amount of chemistry in your degree will differ from another chemistry degree. So, there's all that variation. I think the important thing, from my point of view, is that school leaders acknowledge that individuals have individual strength, individual knowledge, and they need to be confident that the people they're putting in front of their classes have adequate and appropriate knowledge for the classes they're required to teach.

So, I would like to be in a system where we could go to a school leader and say, 'Tell me about teacher X. Why should they be teaching chemistry?' And they might be able to say, 'Oh, well, it's because they've got a degree in it', or they might be able to say, 'Oh, they've done this very intensive CPD course and I put them through that before they started teaching the class.' So, I'd like the onus to be—sorry, not the 'onus'—I'd like school leaders to acknowledge that, just because you've studied one of the science subjects, you're not automatically adequately prepared, without further training, to teach another one or two. You might be, but you might not be.

And I think it's really important, instead of going down the Scotland route, I think RSB would recommend that the Welsh Government really honed in on the expertise, the subject-specific expertise, and really embedded that throughout recruitment, retention and training, to have a bit more of an impact in that area, rather than just changing the whole system. I think it's really important that we invest in that subject-specific expertise within schools.

It's a really beguiling idea, isn't it, that you've got this—? And when I first came into looking at this subject, you've got this coincidence that Scottish teachers only teach in their one subject, and they are the part of the UK that has the least problem recruiting and retaining teachers. So, that's an interesting coincidence, shall we say. But, as my colleagues have said, it's a different system, and we're not in a position to move to that system; we're nowhere near a position with the workforce numbers to be able to get there, even in the medium term. So, rather than looking at that, what I would encourage the committee to look at is what we can do to help teachers to teach across the spectrum. Remembering, of course, that the new GCSE and the new curriculum encourages interdisciplinarity of study as well. So, actually having a spread of subject expertise is not a bad thing at all.

We do, of course, want teachers to be passionate advocates for the subjects that they love and not to be just trying to fight to stay one step ahead of the kids—that's, of course, the truth. But there are some interesting retraining opportunities here as well. So, for example, in England, there's the Ogden Trust. They run an accredited physics conversion course, if you like, for other subjects. We could also do something a little bit less intensive here in Wales, maybe do summer schools before the start of an ITE course, and say, 'Okay, on these two weeks, we're going to do the physics; on these two weeks, we're going to do the biology; on these two weeks, we're going to do the chemistry', so that the graduates can come in and do four or six weeks to build up their confidence across the subject disciplines.

I think a thing they used to do were subject enhancement, knowledge enhancement courses, which biology and chemistry have lost their funding for, but they really helped. They were like six weeks or eight weeks or 12 weeks, depending on how much knowledge the candidate had. Those, we found, were really, really helpful in getting that subject knowledge up to speed. So, that could work. So, I think it goes along with what you were just saying.

I think you still have the funding for the chemistry one, but there aren't many of them.

There's a college in Dublin that does this really well, and we can provide you with some details, maybe, if you want to look into that.

That would be interesting, yes, please. Thank you. We now have some questions from Carolyn Thomas, please.

Does the current and future workforce, particularly in the science subjects, reflect the diversity of Wales, including gender, race, ethnicity and disability?

The short answer, 'no'. So, the overall teaching workforce is around about 75 per cent female. Only 41 per cent of those are delivering physics education in Wales, and we've done a lot of work looking at some of the stereotypes that contribute to this continuation of perpetuation of stereotypes. So, one of the things that we are doing with the relationships and sexuality education, with the Welsh Government funding that we've received, is to work more with primary schools, because the stereotypes happen really, really early. We have primary schools where the female year 6 teacher will say, 'Well, I'm going to get one of my colleagues in to do the year 6 maths, because it's hard.' No, it's not so hard that you can't do it. We want to look at that science capital teaching approach. We want to look at improving and breaking down the stereotypes.

There are things that Welsh Government can do to help. I have complained previously about the Careers Wales website. Here we have the physics page: a lovely picture of an elderly white dude in front of a blackboard full of equations as the example of what a physicist looks like, not to mention that the number of jobs—job openings for physicists—next year is 65, it says. Well, your target for teacher training recruitment is 74. So, there are things like that that are fundamental that need to change. We need to have different attitudes to what a scientist looks like. And, as I say, that starts really, really early on in a child's learning and development. And that's why this science capital teaching approach that we'll be working on and building is so important, because it's about showing young people, wherever they are, that there is science in their local community, that it's part of their life, that it's something that everybody does, and that it is something that anybody can go on to pursue. It's a long-term and societal challenge, it's not something that will happen overnight.

Yes, I agree. I think, while I was doing this response, I was really shocked to see, through the education Wales data, that 92 per cent of teachers in Wales identify as white, and there's 0.2 per cent as black and 0.8 per cent as Asian, and that has a knock-on effect in front of students as well. So, if they don't see somebody like them in that kind of subject, they are less likely to then go ahead and choose subjects, for example, biology, later on, because they've not had that role. It's like, if they've just seen a certain person teaching them the whole way through, they're less likely to go and choose that subject later on.

There's been a National Foundation for Educational Research report on, I think it was, ethnic diversity in the teaching workforce. And it was in England, but I think it's quite relevant in Wales as well, where they didn't have the role models, and they found that it's not just a recruitment issue where you're recruiting ethnic minorities, it's the whole pipeline. It's like when they're teaching, it's their career progression as well into leadership roles. So, as you go up that pipeline, it gets even less that you will see those kind of ethnic minorities up there. So, it's a pipeline issue rather than just a trainee issue.

I was just going to say, the forgotten demographic here is about poverty and the inaccessibility of the teaching profession to people who've come from less well-off backgrounds. I would like to see the Education Workforce Council perhaps collecting more data around that, and also collecting data around which individual schools are struggling to recruit. Because while I can say that I know that Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent have fewer physics teachers than they have schools, I can't say in Cardiff that the wealthy middle-class schools have more physics teachers than others, because they haven't collected that data. There is a tendency towards our teaching profession being middle-class white people, and that isn't helpful.

I think, to really get into this problem and to solve the problem, we need to have better data—obviously, what you said, but also data at a subject level. I haven't been able to find—I don't think it's published—any data on the ethnic diversity of teachers by the subjects they teach. Just knowing that would help us solve the problem, hopefully. We're very invested in really addressing this problem, but you need the data to help identify it better.

And what about science through the medium of Welsh?

Again, the data isn't robust enough for us to be able to say categorically on this, so I'm relying now on the conversations we have with our teachers when we're working in our coaching programmes with them. We believe that the shortages are far worse through the medium of Welsh. We know that there are challenges with Welsh-medium schools finding the people with as much of a qualification in the subjects they're teaching as others. There are concerns around resources, as Shabana mentioned previously. In rural areas, teaching through the medium of Welsh, the Welsh-speaking, physics-trained, physics teachers are unicorns, frankly. You're going to struggle to find too many of them.

It's a very similar issue with chemistry. With the closure of the chemistry undergraduate course this year, there were no chemistry ITE people studying at Bangor. That's a real worry and I can only see that problem increasing. The teachers we've talked to from Welsh-medium schools say it's very, very hard to recruit new chemistry Welsh-medium teachers. When somebody leaves, you're not likely to get many applicants, if any at all.

Another issue is, obviously, a lot of Welsh students do their undergraduate study in England. We need to be attracting them back, because they've got, potentially, a Welsh language skill that they are therefore not using.

I just want to add that although there isn't such a problem with biology courses in Wales, there will be a knock-on effect. As you get more biology teachers coming through, they will be expected to teach physics and chemistry, because there's such a lack of chemistry and physics teachers in that pipeline. So, that would be a knock-on effect for those biology teachers. Again, that goes on to adding workload to those teachers, and then, do they stay in the job because of the workload? Then, that's a problem for retention as well. So, I agree with Eluned that we need more data as well.

Do you think having that data will help? Because we've been doing a piece on career pathways as well, and people very often talk about needing to grow business organisations, but they don't very often talk about needing more teachers and needing more doctors and nurses. There are huge gaps now in those professions and public services. So, do you think now is the time we need to be looking at, where the students are showing they're doing very well in certain subjects, saying, 'Why don't you think about teaching?', and say that at an earlier level?

I think opening up the routes for career changes to go back into teaching is—. Obviously, it's being started now with the Open University, but I think that can be expanded with the other HEIs.

And through Careers Wales, because we've had them in as well, and getting them to look back at those sorts of things. But I think having that data would be really helpful, wouldn't it?

I think career guidance is really important, and making it attractive to students, because teaching is made to look like it's—. It hasn't got the best PR, really, at the moment. Also, thinking about career changes, as well, would help. There are older people that have such a wealth of knowledge, and that's really worth looking into as well.

Can I just say, teaching is fundamentally for our society? It is the career that underpins everything we want to achieve, isn't it, because without teachers inspiring, encouraging and guiding the next generation, we don't have any teachers for the future, but we don't have anyone going into business, we don't have any doctors, nurses. We don't have anything if we don't have a teaching profession that's alive and passionate about what they do. So, that's the level of emotional, as well as financial, investment we need to be putting into a profession that really transforms lives for us.

I'm going to bring Joel in here, but can we keep our contributions really concise, because I'm really conscious of time? I hate saying that. Joel.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks ever so much for letting me come back in. It was just a quick question. You talked there about the lack of data and everything, and I just wanted to know, out of curiosity, really, those students who go on to study a science degree at university, do you have, then, what their route is after that, where they go then? Do they stay within the field, or do they change to something else? Do you have that sort of data?

So, graduate destination statistics is collected by HESA, the Higher Education Statistics Authority, and you can get that information relatively easily. So, I'd suggest, perhaps, looking there.

Thank you for that. We now have some questions from Natasha, please.

Thank you, Chair, and good morning, ladies. It's really nice to meet you all and have you here today. We've spoken a few times, and you've mentioned a few times that there are a lot of teachers who aren't teaching in their particular subject; they're having to be a jack of all trades, per se. So, I wanted to know, from you, what do you feel is going to be the impact of this on both the teacher himself or herself, and the learners, by doing this?

I think, as you say, that understaffing and teaching out of specialism is a key thing. In our teaching survey, the most recent one, 71 per cent of respondents from mainstream secondary schools in Wales reported that learning was significantly impacted by understaffing of teachers in the sciences. That's a key factor. It's definitely happening. I think about half of people teaching in chemistry in Wales haven't done their training in chemistry. So, I think that having that subject expertise is really important, vitally important, and, without it, just the quality of education isn't as good.

The impact on teachers—we touched on it earlier—especially new teachers, that extra workload associated with having to prepare to teach in a subject that you don't know enough about is considerable. And I think that that is a worry when we're thinking about retention of early career teachers.

The things you lose when you're overstretching your teachers to subjects they're not confident in: you lose the passion, you lose the ability to talk around the subject and explain the context of the subject, but the biggest one you lose is the practicals. And that's the bit that the students love. We all love doing practical stuff. We all love breaking things in physics, making horrendous smells in chemistry and the dissection and the actual engagement with the subject. You lose that when you've got teachers who are teaching outside of their subjects. They're overworked and they're stressed.

I think that the impact on learners is that they're less likely to learn the core concepts and the knowledge, because the passion is missing, and the knowledge is missing from the teacher as well. So, that's a huge impact for learners.

Taking on board everything all three of you have just said in relation to that, when it comes to retention and recruitment, how much do you feel that all of the factors that you've just discussed, as well as what you've mentioned to my colleagues, actually lowers the quality of the science teaching workforce as a whole then, going forward? And what is the impact on learners' potential outcomes and behaviours as well?

I would say we've got to be cautious how we phrase this a little bit, because it's not a workforce quality issue. It is the fact that we're spreading them too thin, and that they then have challenges in delivering the kind of teaching that they would love to be teaching. We've got to be really, really cautious about saying that. In terms of the impact on the workforce, actually, teacher retention in Wales is not in the same level of crisis as teacher recruitment. Our retention is relatively stable, particularly by comparison to other places. So, that is something that’s to be celebrated, but it does mean that we then have an ageing workforce challenge.

Like Eluned said, it's not about the teachers, the workforce, it's also how they're being deployed within their schools. So, it's really for the schools to look into that as well. Where are they deploying those teachers? And I think the Government could gather more data on that. Where are these biology, physics, chemistry teachers being deployed when they get into the school? Are they actually teaching within their specialism? So, that would be an important area to collect some data on as well.

So, if you don't mind me just asking a sub-question to what you just said, let's say you're a biology teacher and you go into a school, where could you potentially be deployed that's not related to biology?

To teach chemistry or physics, or even maths.

Any of the other sciences.

Yes. And I've heard, especially during COVID times, of teachers teaching maths to higher level students when that's not really their subject. I was a biology teacher back in the day. If I was told that I had to go and teach an A-level class in physics, I wouldn't feel confident in doing that. And I think that's the issue here. You're deployed to teach something that you haven't done since GCSE. And I hadn't done it for 10 years. So, I had to then go and look up and research, and I'm not the most passionate person about physics. Not to say that it's not important, [Laughter.] But the passion wouldn't have been there either, and that kind of reflects on the students then, and what you're teaching them. As Eluned said, the passion won't be there, and you really have to be passionate about what you're teaching.

So, from a nitty-gritty perspective, if you were to walk into my school and I said, 'Okay, you have to teach A-level physics', for example, and you really didn't want to, as a teacher, would you have the power to say 'no'?

Probably not, no. You're employed, sometimes, as a science teacher, not as a biology teacher, and that, I think, is a problem as well. So, if you're employed as a science teacher, you can then be deployed wherever you are [correction: wherever you are timetabled].

So, it blurs the lines a bit. Okay, understood. Thank you so much, Chair.

Can I just add one point? I think lots of teachers are different, and some teachers really enjoy teaching across the sciences, which is fine. But let's make sure that they are adequately prepared, and that teachers who want to do that get the support to do it.

Of course, yes. Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you. Now we have some questions from Vaughan, please.

Thank you. Given the discussion we just finished and the comments we heard in the previous session about effective teachers being asked to teach a different subject, being supported to do so I think is the point that you're broadly making. Look, we're interested in the number of teachers we have, and the shortage that we do recognise exists—that's a combination of recruitment and retention—and in particular how that affects the delivery of the curriculum reforms as well. So, I'm interested in your views on the delivery of the curriculum reforms, in particular around the sciences, and the science-based areas of learning as well. I'm going to start with Shabana, because you've been a classroom teacher, and so I'm interested, from your time in the classroom to now having a policy role and an overview, about how you see this delivery and its impact with the pipeline of teachers coming in, as well as the teaching staff we already have in schools in Wales.

I think, at RSB, we have positive views from our members about reform, the curriculum reform. It's not that we're not positive about it; I think it's the way that it's delivered. So, do you have the training in place? Do you have the resources in place? That's an important factor as well. And the timeliness of it as well. Are you just throwing it at the teachers all at once? Because if that happens, that increases the workload, and then you've got teachers being stressed by that workload, the well-being, and then you've got teachers leaving. If it's done in a very slow process, and you've got the resources and the kind of the professional development along with that, and it's done in a slow process, then it's more agreeable to teachers because they're very time poor. So, if you give them time to put those reforms in place slowly, you're not going to lose teachers as much at that point.

I know, Annette, you've written lots about where are all the chemistry teachers. We've got curriculum reform as well as qualification reform that's taking place, and there's the point of, 'Is the supply of teachers coming in the bigger issue, or is it about the time and support given for teachers already in the system to successfully deliver the reforms that have been proposed?', because they're two different points, aren't they?

Yes. I think they're related, in that teachers I've spoken to recently have said that they'd like to engage in the reforms a little bit more, but they just don't have the headspace because of the workload, because of shortages and that they're currently having to pick up other classes. But also other things—more general workload and behaviour—kept on coming up when I was talking to teachers.

Behaviour and our ALN reforms are other big factors we hear from lots of stakeholders, about challenges. They're not subject specific; they're general about the ability to teach and to teach well in any subject. So, that's consistent from your point of view. I don't want to put words in your mouth.

I think so, yes. Obviously, we care because it affects the teachers that we are interested in, particularly the science teachers. So, not everything is a science-specific issue, but it will have a really big impact on science teachers, especially when there are shortages and people are being deployed, perhaps, outside their specialism, or in areas they're not comfortable with.

Okay. And I assume, Eluned, you do have something to say. [Laughter.]

Always. I think the reforms that have been introduced have the potential to be incredibly exciting, because it's about empowering teachers to excel and linking the science we learn in our classrooms to the communities that we live in. And that science capital teaching approach that it's built around is fantastic, and it's particularly good for social mobility, it's particularly good for encouraging young people to keep that questioning mind open throughout their life, rather than box themselves off into silos early on in their life. But the question now for us is: what can we do to make sure that we get absolutely maximum impact from the reforms that have been introduced, and that we can make a success of the implementation?

As I say, we're very, very fortunate to have been funded to help support this process, working with primary school teachers to help build that science capital approach because it's new, and it's because it's something that perhaps they won't have had introduced to them before. It's an opportunity to find the love of the sciences from a very early age, and then also to work with the new teachers coming in to mentor them and to support them. But I do think there's some fairly—I mean, nothing's easy, nothing's cheap—relatively low-cost solutions that can help make sure this works. I would definitely look at the introduction of subject-specific pre-ITE or post-ITE training, so that people can learn a bit more about the other subjects and build their confidence. I would also look at, as I say, the STEM centre of excellence, again, as a way of pushing out new ideas, creative ideas, reinvigorating a profession that's feeling a little bit under the cosh at the moment.

Can I just check in terms of the qualifications and knowledge to be teachers in science subjects, because my understanding is that your A-levels can be used, together with a degree, to go into the teacher training course to be a teacher? So, you don't need to be a biology graduate, for example, to teach biology, but you ideally want A-levels and a degree, and you then—. So, I'm trying to understand that it's supposed to be that the qualification you then do to become a teacher in that subject should give you not just the ability to teach, but should also deal with subject knowledge to teach to the standard you're being then asked to teach in, whether it's primary or secondary.

I think, as far as I understand it, when ITE tutors have talked to me, they say that they are looking and are required to check that the candidate has at least 50 per cent chemistry in their degree, and I think that's becoming more of a challenge now, obviously, with fewer chemistry degree courses on offer. So, I think, to do a chemistry ITE course, you are still required to have that level of chemistry, and I think there's some really—. I think there'll be some very good opportunities to do something, as you mentioned previously, before the ITE course to bring people who have perhaps got an A-level in the subject to a science enhancement course, or a similar summer school, to bring them up.

I'm trying to understand, for all the recommendations, do we need a third of our science graduates to go and be teachers, or is it actually that there's a wider supply of people who can come in, but it's still about how they get the subject knowledge as well as the teaching qualification? Reflecting back—and not just on today and your written evidence—about how and where could that happen, if we only focus on the number of undergraduates, then you are in competition with the rest of the economy, and that's going to be challenging. There are some people where teaching isn't going to be their passion, but there are other people who, actually, if we're—[Inaudible.]—would want to be teachers, because it can make a really big difference in a young person's life.

I think a degree apprenticeship, the teaching degree apprenticeship route, is something that could be considered. It's starting in England. So, I think that's something that would help with that supply in Wales as well.

I think there are opportunities to look at bringing people in from other professions into the pure sciences, so, for example, people who have trained in something like nursing or medicine. A more integrated, perhaps two-year conversion course into teacher training might be possible. For physics, it's engineers. The engineers have all of the skills, most of the knowledge; a little bit of additional subject-specific knowledge alongside ITE would be really, really helpful. I would say that ITE in Wales focuses largely on pedagogical approaches and teaching technique rather than on subject specialism, which is assumed to be known before you arrive. So, that's something for which maybe, if you want to convert, you need to have the subject specialism taught as well.

Okay. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. We'll have some questions from Joel James, please.

Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering if I could just pick up something. In the previous evidence session, we talked about the continual impact that COVID has had on schooling. I note from your written evidence that you've said that it has also had an impact on recruitment, in the sense of weaker professional habits and there's less resilience—some of the examples—and timekeeping is not great. I just want to get a better idea of that and how serious an issue that is, really, because that would impact not just STEM subjects but across the board, I'd imagine.

I think that might have been the RSC—we put that in our response. That was really, actually—. I don't have any hard facts. It was from anecdotal conversations with a number of different ITE providers, who were saying that they'd just noticed that being an issue with the new ITE students coming through. So, yes, I don't have much more to say than that, but it's worrying and a concern.

Yes, absolutely. It must be to an extent that people notice it.

Yes.

Okay. So, the other thing I wanted to have a quick chat about was the role that the Welsh Government has been doing in terms of addressing recruitment and retention. How successful do you think that is? We've talked about bursary schemes and being paid to teach and everything. I just wanted to get your idea on that. I noticed also from your written evidence you've mentioned there about the intensity of the PGCE courses and everything. Is there anything that the Welsh Government should be doing to say, 'Well, hang on, this would solve it'—if that makes sense?

So, in terms of the—. Sorry, the first part of your question was around—?

What the Welsh Government's been doing in terms of addressing that, and how successful that's been.

So, in terms of the interventions we've seen, the Welsh Government's just announced a really big package of funding, not just to us, but to a lot of organisations, to help make a success of the implementation of the curriculum, and some of that is aimed at the retention of teachers. I think that some of the interventions we've already seen have been quite successful in terms of retention, but we need to look at recruitment with a greater degree of urgency than we've previously had, because we are reaching, or we're beyond, really, crisis point with that. So, I think that some real energy there could pay quite strong dividends.

And if we look at things like bursaries, yes, it sounds like a lot of money, but we're not talking about a lot of people. If we target those bursaries at the subjects where we're really, really struggling, then, actually, it isn't a huge amount of money, in global terms. Similarly, doing things like setting up summer schools is not a huge amount of money in global terms, setting up a STEM centre of excellence is not a huge amount of money in global terms, but they could have a long-term impact. But Vaughan was quite right that we've got this situation where, the graduates we have, they compete in a market economy for different jobs, and so we need to be thinking broadly about how we make sure that teaching is one of those jobs that graduates are really excited by.

You mentioned there about some of the interventions that the Welsh Government have made to address retention. Could you just give some idea of what some of them have been?

Yes, absolutely. So, again, I'm going to talk about funding that the Institute of Physics has had over a period of years to provide mentoring and support. We have run a project called SPN, the Stimulating Physics Network Wales, for many years. A couple of things that we do specifically there is work with teachers who are teaching physics but are not physics specialists, to help them to gain the skills and to build their confidence. And that's one-to-one mentoring, that's online coaching sessions, particularly around things like maths. We've been doing some additional learning around there for teachers, just to build the confidence, and that helps retain teachers, and we've got good data that suggests that.

We've also, more recently, used that funding again to work on mentoring those newly qualified teachers who are coming into schools that don't have a teacher in their specialist area, again, to provide them with that subject-specific knowledge and that confidence, and to help them really embed themselves in their career. The new funding is working with the Royal Society of Chemistry as well to expand that out, so that we're covering more of the STEM subjects; we're working with more of the newly qualified teachers. We're helping them to grow and to be part of a professional community, even if that subject-specific knowledge doesn't yet exist in their school. We're going to try and help them become that subject-specific knowledge for the next generation of teachers coming in.

Thank you. I'm done.

Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us this morning; we do really appreciate your time. You'll be sent a transcript for checking in due course. Thank you very much.

We'll now take a short break to allow the next witness to come in.

We now move on to agenda item 4, which is the sixth evidence session for this inquiry. I'm very pleased to welcome Kerry Bevan, representing the Association for Language Learning. So, I'll now hand over to Cefin for the first set of questions. Thank you.

Dwi'n mynd i ofyn y cwestiwn yn Gymraeg. Beth, yn eich barn chi, yw'r prif resymau sy'n effeithio ar recriwtio myfyrwyr ar gyrsiau addysg neu hyfforddiant athrawon ieithoedd modern tramor, ac i ba raddau mae'r prinder athrawon yn y pynciau yma'n gysylltiedig â'r nifer o ddysgwyr sy'n dewis astudio iaith dramor fodern?

Okay, thank you. Diolch yn fawr. I think the reasons are numerous. I'm going to start with the bursary, which is significantly higher in England. And that draws our learners, our students—and I know that directly—to go and study in Bristol rather than continue to train here in Wales. They often might return afterwards, but that £26,000 versus ours is quite significant. There is also a scholarship available via the British Council for those students who have a 2:1 or a Master's in education in—I think it's French, German and Spanish. But they offer up to £28,000. It's a competitive competition, but it is only available for England. And that, again, will attract people to go and study in England rather than Wales. So, money, it's not everything, but it is very important when they don't have very much.

I think there is an image issue around teaching, and I'm sure my other colleagues and the people who have given evidence would say the same. It's societal, it's perceptions around teachers and the value that we place on teaching in society. I think there is a lack of flexibility that might prevent some students wanting to start to teach. The fact that they can't take holidays when they might want to take holidays. They can't perhaps be as flexible as other professions are now perceived to be post COVID.

I think there is the fact that there are fewer students studying languages. I know we're not going to see the closure, thank goodness, of the language department, the School of Modern Languages, in Cardiff, but we are going to see that being streamlined and we are going to see German disappear from Cardiff University, along with some of the other subjects. And there's the current consultation at Bangor, who also wish to close their German department. So, we just have fewer language students studying and therefore fewer students wanting to go on to be teachers.

And I think, actually, there's one more final reason, and that is around mature students; I know previous witnesses spoke about those. It's difficult. I've spoken very recently to two mothers who wanted to apply to do the postgraduate certificate of education; just very challenging. It's very difficult to accommodate the rigour and the demands of being on campus, for example, at Cardiff Metropolitan for 9 o'clock and drop off and pick up, in terms of initial teacher education with the one-year PGCE programme.

How that impacts, I think, was the second part of your question. I don't think you can say there's a direct correlation between the number of students that we recruit and the quality of teaching and the standards that the children achieve. I think there are many other factors that, again, contribute to the low numbers and the low uptake. Dr Ian Collen produces an annual 'Language Trends Wales' report, as he does for England, and as he has started to do for Scotland. And the trend is evident, that there are fewer and fewer learners studying GCSE, and fewer and fewer at A-level, but, again, those are not linked necessarily to the number of teachers. They are linked to, again, societal perceptions of languages; they're linked to little time on the curriculum, perhaps, in the lower years. And it's true that there are some schools that can only offer one hour a week for French, and then, when they get to year 9, they might think, 'Well, actually, I don't feel very confident in this subject, so I won't continue.' And there are other issues around some students, some learners in schools, see Welsh as a foreign language—and I'm not here to discuss that—but I do think that that then—. They think that, if Welsh is a language, then they don't need to do another language, and that can sometimes affect things.

And also just the number of courses being offered—. Senior leadership teams have to make very difficult choices, financial choices, budget choices, and, if they don't have enough learners who opt in year 9 to choose the subject, then they won't run the subject, and that obviously has a knock-on effect. Fewer GCSEs mean fewer A-levels, mean fewer people going to university. So, it's sort of cyclical, really.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Felly, jest i ddilyn ymlaen o hwnna, ydych chi'n meddwl bod y ffordd mae'r cyrsiau AGA yn cael eu cyflwyno ar hyn o bryd yn denu myfyrwyr, yn enwedig i'r pynciau ieithoedd tramor?

Can I just clarify: are we talking about the current design of the programme?

The design of the ITE course—

Yes, I think that could be an issue. I think it is quite rigid in its design. It doesn't allow necessarily the flexibility for the people I'm talking about. I think we have a workforce that we can draw upon. We're not just talking about graduates from university; I think we have a vast wealth of knowledge that we could attract into the profession. But it's very difficult. It's very difficult to give up a salary, perhaps, and retrain; it's very difficult to find childcare, and the issues around pick up and the issues around holidays, perhaps, and maybe the issues also around workload in an ITE nine-month programme, which are the same wherever we study. If we study in Belfast, London or here, there are the same issues. But, yes, I think the rigidity of the programme could prevent, perhaps, some students from entering.

Diolch. Y cwestiwn olaf—rŷch chi wedi ateb hwn i raddau yn barod—ond beth ŷch chi'n meddwl yw'r prif ffactorau sy'n effeithio ar recriwtio pobl i swyddi addysg ieithoedd tramor?

I'd go back—. I think it is around financing. I also have one comment, and that is that, currently, students in Wales can go and study the ITE, the PGCE programme, in Bristol, but still train in our schools in Wales. They can still do placements in Wales. So, I have students who I regularly speak to at Cardiff University who say, 'We're going to England because we can get a larger bursary, but we are going to do our placements in Chepstow, or on the borders', which allows them access to our curriculum, our rich Curriculum for Wales, which is wonderful, and actually they're getting the extra money, which feels a little bit unfair to my students who stay and are committed to the Welsh curriculum here in Cardiff, but don't have that access.

Do you know how many who are attracted to the bursary schemes—

I wish I had the figures, but I—

—actually come back to Wales to teach? Do you know?

No. We don't have those figures. And, again, that's lack of data. I don't have the figures around those students. I know regularly that I interview quite a significant number of students who either decline, or accept and then decline, and when I go back to them—because I often follow up just to find out if it was something I could have done and we could have offered, or I didn't explain properly—and they often have told me that it's—. Well, the question is always around the bursary, and they go to Oxford, or they go to Bristol or they go to London and just choose to train there.

Ocê. Iawn.

Thank you. Thank you. We now have a question from Vaughan, please.

Thank you. It follows on from Cefin's question. Cefin asked about recruitment and my question is about retention, and about the factors that you think have the greatest impact on retaining foreign language teaching staff in schools in Wales when they are already here.

Yes. So, I think workload and well-being is an issue. If I speak to my students who leave me, my alumni, who then go into teaching, they talk about the significant impact of the workload, and perhaps they weren't always fully aware of what that would look like. As they train with us, the maximum they teach on their own is 10 hours a week, which, if you were actually to consider a teacher's timetable, is significantly reduced, for obvious reasons, because they're training. When they, however, get to school and they're faced with a form, and they have responsibilities—pastoral responsibilities and they have teaching responsibilities—that then becomes quite overwhelming for them. And they're not always fully prepared for that.

And that leads me into my second point around, perhaps, the continuity of mentoring. Currently, when my students leave me, that's it. And yet I have spent a year fostering relationships, I know their strengths, I know their weaknesses. And they leave me and they enter the Aspire system, which is currently being delivered by the consortia. But there is a bit of a disconnect. There isn't really that continuity of mentoring that I think is vital for young teachers. The amount of e-mails and even WhatsApp texts that I have asking for help around perhaps what one might consider basic things like 'How do you teach the imperfect tense in French?', or 'How do you'—perhaps—'plan a scheme of work?', or 'How do you deliver a GCSE oral exam?' They were things that they wouldn't have encountered whilst training, and if they enter a school where they are on their own, which they can do as NQTs—there are lots and lots of schools where they just might have one language teacher—that's quite a lot to deal with, and I find that, when we discuss later on, if they leave the profession, it's because they felt overwhelmed with the volume of knowledge and information that they had to cope with. So, well-being and workload is definitely a factor, coupled, I think, with mentoring.

And then, a final issue, I think, is around—. Again, my colleagues previously spoke about teaching outside your discipline, outside your comfort zone. So, students come to me who have 50 per cent or usually have studied the language at university. That said, many students have got a GCSE in another language. GCSE doesn't really equip you to teach another child GCSE. If you studied only GCSE, which is the equivalent of A2 in the common European framework, that's not really—. And therefore, if you go into a school, and schools need one person to deliver maybe two languages, they will be teaching outside their expertise. That adds to their workload because they're trying to learn another language. They're not the same. The subject knowledge is different. So, that also is an issue.

Okay, thank you.

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

To what extent are language teachers leaving their career early?

Again, I don't have the data. So, the Association for Language Learning, who I'm representing today, runs out of London and has regional groups across the UK. And we are just about to launch the ALL Cymru on 9 July. That will be, initially, a virtual group, with the hope that we will run pods of teacher groups across Cymru, because we cannot meet together. It's just not practical and it's not possible. So, we don't have—. I don't have, and I checked with ALL London—they just don't have those figures.

Thank you. Does the current teaching workforce, particularly in foreign languages, reflect the diversity of Wales, including gender, race and ethnicity and disability?

No, to be frank. I had a quick look at just the EWC around just female teachers of languages. We are predominantly female. So, there is a lack of male representation, which has an impact, a knock on, on boy learners of languages, who might see it as a female subject. If we talk about stereotypes, that's how it's perceived, often. And there is a lack of diversity. But, again, that is reflective of perhaps not very many learners carrying on for GCSE and therefore not continuing into A-level and onto university. So, absolutely.

And then we have a lack also of international students. We do, at Cardiff Metropolitan, have a link with Canada. So, we do have Canadian students come and enrich our programme and enrich the schools they teach in. But the lack of international students from French-speaking countries or German-speaking or Spanish-speaking countries—. And that's around visas, which is another issue for the Department of Education. We don't have any international students applying, which is very different to when I trained and very different to when I started teaching, 28 years ago—a substantial number of European and beyond teachers, just to diversify and enrich the curriculum.

That's strange. And that's probably because of the visas.

Absolutely. So, I checked with my colleague in UCL in London this morning, where they do have international students, and although the Department of Education—. International students are allowed their bursary in England, so they can receive the £26,000. That is only for the 10 months whilst they're there, and then they have to apply for a visa, and it's very difficult to get that visa to stay in order to do their early careers training. And they can't bring family members. So, it's also very, very challenging. So, they provide a scholarship, but they don't provide the opportunity to stay afterwards, which is what they'd like to do.

Okay. Thank you.

That's okay.

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

Thank you very much. Good morning. So, to what extent do you feel that the issues relating to teacher recruitment and retention result in a lowering of the quality of the teaching workforce, and particularly in relation to foreign-language teaching? Would you mind sharing with us?

I don't think that you can say that there's a correlation. I don't think that I have students who have lower standards of language education than I might have done training and teaching a long time ago. I think that it is just that we have fewer applicants. So, by nature, I have less choice. I have only had maybe nine applicants for Cardiff Metropolitan for the next academic year for international languages, and I only have six who have accepted, which is well below the EWC's recommendations, well below, I think, what will be required, moving forward.

So, based on the application numbers you just shared with the committee—and I think that all of us are slightly stunned by the figures you just gave us—what impact is that ultimately, do you feel, going to have on learners' potential and behaviours, going forward?

Again, that's hard to say, because I don't think that the current workforce shows any evidence that language teachers are not specialists in their subjects. I don't think that we're at the physics level, where we're teaching completely outside our subject. I think that, if we move forward and teachers are going to—. If there are fewer of them and they might have to accept jobs where, perhaps, there's French and Spanish and they have a very limited level of the other language, that will absolutely have an impact on learners. Learners are so perceptive from a very young age, and they know whether you have subject knowledge. They're incredible, actually. They can see it, they can hear it, they can feel it. And that subject knowledge, which first of all you'd need to have in order to be able to deliver the curriculum, but also the passion. Languages are not about the words. It really isn't. It's about all of it, that culminate—. It's about understanding the music, the art and the history, and the literature and the food, and that that you deliver to your learners you can't just pick up by doing, maybe, a subject enhancement course. That takes time, that you've probably lived and worked in those countries. So, I think, as we move on, if they are teaching outside and delivering lessons in a language that they're not comfortable in or don't have a level—. And my students are asked to do that, too. They have, sometimes, very limited second language knowledge, and they struggle.

So, speaking of that, speaking of the struggle with a second language, then, okay, with regard to the Welsh Government's reforms, and there are many of them—

Yes.

—what impact are they having specifically on foreign languages, then?

I think that, in terms of what my students perceive and what they see as they train, there's a need for more time for teachers, the current workforce, to really embed. And I think that it is a wonderful, rich, diverse curriculum that offers teachers agency and it offers the opportunity to remove the silos of languages. Colleagues around the UK are in awe of Welsh Government's reforms around the curriculum in languages, and even the naming of international languages, they find that revolutionary, they think that it breaks down barriers, that don't exist elsewhere. That said, I think the teachers need more time to really live the new curriculum and those statements of what matters, which, again, are wonderful. And now, to add to that, they've got a new GCSE, which they have to grapple with, for teaching in September, which, again, is wonderful—I'm not here to pick holes in any of that. I think it's just about a lack of time that they need, and, therefore, my students don't feel that they are getting real quality guidance in Curriculum for Wales, and how we design the curriculum, how it could be, because teachers just haven't had the time to have those powerful conversations.328

The Welsh Government have got a great initiative in the new professional learning suite that's coming out. They have invested in some—. Literature Fires the Imagination is going to be run by a colleague of mine from Oxford, which will help and support language teachers in embedding literature in younger years, which they're very fearful of, because they feel uncomfortable—it's the unknown, it's the scariness, so we want to unpick that and support teachers. So, there are some good initiatives, but it's the time.

Okay. So, how do you propose, then, that we do get the time, because we've had so many people coming in and giving us evidence today—? I appreciate there are workloads—I do; I think we all can sympathise with workloads. We can all sympathise. You haven't mentioned pay, but we've had a lot of people drumming that into us this morning. So, I want to park that, but with regard to time and workload efficiency—because you've just mentioned your friend and the Welsh Government package, which they're going to be using—most teachers will say, 'Well, we don't have enough time in the day. We've got children with ALN, we've got this, we've got this, we've got this'. How are they even going to have the time to be able to do some of these projects and initiatives that are coming forward, then, if they don't have time as it is?

That's an excellent question. Well, I think, as teachers, we are overworked, but I think we find the time. I think we know that—. This professional learning will take place after hours. We will try and keep it as compact as we possibly can—so, in our design. So, before we even launch the professional learning, we're going to go to the teachers, we're going to create focus groups, to include them in the planning of how we might deliver these. If we can provide some asynchronous help and support that teachers can access perhaps on their own, in their own time, when they've got—. Perhaps a podcast—something that they can listen to, when they might not need to sit at that particular time when they've got other constraints. So, I think, again, it's about creating maybe a hybrid approach to professional learning and a suite of resources and a package that we can help them with.

Okay. Great. Thank you so much, Chair.

Just really quickly, just going back to one of Natasha's first questions, you speak so passionately about languages, I feel like I want to leave this room and go and learn to speak another language. [Laughter.] But that's infectious, and we all know how infectious that can be when you're in the classroom with little ones, because they're like sponges and they absorb everything. And children in Wales learn to speak Welsh from a very, very young age. So, at what age would you like to see another language being introduced in our schools—around what age, because, like I said, we all know that primary school aged children absorb everything around them? How you are now when you speak about languages, it's so infectious. I can imagine my youngest, in primary school, if she'd met you, she'd want to speak every language under the sun.

So, the Curriculum for Wales does stipulate that they are exposed to it as part of the progression steps from progression step 1. So, international languages are mandatory. The actual teaching of it doesn't kick in maybe until years five and six. And that's interesting because that is an issue, and it was raised in Dr Collen's report in 2024 around primary practitioners and their confidence in delivering international languages. Already, primary teachers have to be masters of everything. They are absolutely phenomenal in their ability to be able to deliver literacy, numeracy, history, PE. And then you ask them, 'Can you just teach French?' And I think, as I said before, it's not just about the words. I think anyone can just—. Well, maybe we can't; not everybody can just deliver some words. I think we'd need greater upskilling of our primary students. I have very little time with my primary students because of the number of areas of learning and experience that they need to be exposed to during their training year. I'm lucky if they do have some French or German or Spanish or Italian. Actually, I think it could be any language, and that's what I love about the Curriculum for Wales, particularly in primary school. If you have a teacher that has Arabic, brilliant—let's learn Arabic. Because it's not always about—I know we could talk about it—continuity and progression and we need to learn that language in year 5 or year 4; I think it's about the skills, I think it's about creating global citizens, I think it's about empathy and understanding others. And if we can do that through a language—which we will do; that's what the purpose of it is; it's to be able to communicate and understand other people and their cultures and their history—I think if we could do that more effectively by more time in PGCE primary training, I think that would be really useful. But, ideally, I'd like them to do it from very little, and many schools do—many schools do.

But, definitely, the report that came back talked about the fear of primary practitioners in delivering to progression step 2 and 3 languages, because they just felt ill-equipped. That said, you've got organisations like e-sgol, who are doing fantastic work, working with our global representatives, so the Goethe-Institut and the Institut Français and the conserjeía, and they are providing online lessons, again, to remove the inequity, because it shouldn't just be that my school in Eglwys Newydd has got a teacher who speaks Spanish and, therefore, those children get access. Everybody in Wales should have the same access, and it shouldn't be regional. So, e-sgol are doing great work, I think, about trying to break down those barriers and therefore allowing primary pupils access via hybrid approach, which is wonderful.

That's really good. Thank you. Joel James, please.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to pick up a few pieces, if I can, off topic.

Yes, fine.

You mentioned there how a lack of students taking foreign languages impacts lack of students learning to teach it. And if I remember back to when I was in school, I learned Welsh, German, French. But the only thing that really sticks in is French, because we went on trips to France and everything, where we were told to practise it and everything. And I know there were also German exchange trips and everything. Is that being impacted, then?

Yes.

So, there are fewer opportunities for that.

Yes. I mean, again, this is anecdotal, but I absolutely believe the reason I am the way I am is because, when I was in year 8, I went on an exchange to Lyon, and I was the only person who cried on the bus home because I wanted to stay in France, and that was life changing for me. I suddenly realised I could communicate and I could explore a whole new life through French, and then I did a German exchange later. I think, again, issues around Disclosure and Barring Service and safeguarding—. They are great, they are wonderful, but what they've done is they've prevented exchanges taking place. But you can do it—you absolutely can do it. You can get police conduct certificates from Germany—you can get all of that. It just is more workload for teachers to try and organise.

I think, post COVID, we're starting to see more trips return. There was definitely a lull in trips to France and Germany. I think, for any language teacher, that's the bit they live for—it's the bit of taking the children. I mean, I've taken so many trips and so many exchanges, and, to watch children and learners, it might not be that they make great linguistic steps—not always—but it's, again, about the little things. It's about noticing the little things—you go to a German baker's, and you just see all these amazingly different types of bread that we might not necessarily have. So, yes, I absolutely think that.

And the thing is, it's about broadening horizons as well, because I know quite a few people for whom their only ever foreign travel has been on school trips.

The other question I have, then, is—. I remember, a couple of years back, I was speaking with a teacher, and she was a bit frustrated, as she said, 'It seems to be about English and Welsh, but I have students in my year group that speak languages from all over the world.' What's being done there in that sense? You mentioned there, 'Well, if you've got a teacher who can speak Arabic, teach Arabic.'

Yes.

But what's being done in terms of identifying those skill sets that students have, whether it's Polish or Somalian?

Do you mean learners, or do you mean students that—?

Students that are in school that have it as, say, their main language—but it's as if they've been brought up with it, rather than they've learned it, if that makes sense—to identify it and say, 'Well, why don't you help teach others?'

So, I think that data is tracked by schools. They keep data on any learner that has—I don't like the word 'home' or 'heritage' language; again, it has that hierarchy of languages—another language and might be bilingual or trilingual. I think the multilingualism focus in the Curriculum for Wales has actually led the way in that. I think that that is being celebrated by schools. I can take a number of schools around Cardiff and beyond who celebrate that multilingual aspect, and, within the Curriculum for Wales, drawing on learners' knowledge of other languages is vital, making those connections. When you ask a learner, 'How do you say that in Polish?', or, 'How do you say that in—?', they'll start to say, 'Oh, it's similar', 'It's not similar', 'Look at the way we do it in Welsh', 'Look at the way we do it in Arabic', 'Look at the way we do it in Russian'. The Curriculum for Wales allows that and encourages that. The first statement is 'Languages connect us'. So, multilingualism is encouraged and is celebrated within. That's not an issue.

Perfect. Chair, if we've got time, the other question, then, is we've talked about recruitment and retention, and I was just wondering if you could pinpoint any specific Welsh Government policies, either past or present, that are having either a positive or negative impact on retention and recruitment.

Generally, the introduction of any bursary has been important in ensuring that we do have students applying to be international language teachers here in Wales. I think that the establishment of Global Futures, which is the overarching policy directive for languages, is really important. It sets out how we as a country are going to move language teaching forward, so I think that's been really, really positive. My colleagues at Cardiff University are doing great work around modern languages mentoring for learners, and, in the vast amount of data that they've gathered, they say that learners actually are really, really keen to learn languages. And they are still fairly—. I mean, they're not in infancy, but it's still early days. So, maybe we will see impacts of that MFL mentoring scheme, which, again, is funded by the Welsh Government, that will have an impact on uptake, that will eventually be cyclical, and we'll end up with more students studying languages at university.

Okay. I think that's it from me, Chair.

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

Diolch yn fawr.

I will now move on to item 5, which is papers to note. We have five papers to note today, full details of which are set out on the agenda and in the paper pack. Are Members content to note papers together? Yes.

Moving on to item 6, I propose, in accordance with standing order 17.42(ix), that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of today's meeting. Are Members content? We now move on to private.