6. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the success of the trial of additional enrichment sessions in Welsh schools? OQ59766

I thank Rhianon Passmore, Llywydd. An evaluation of the trials was published earlier this year. It found that children and young people, parents and school settings were positive about the opportunities provided. We're considering the findings in the context of the wider programme of educational policies and reforms.

Diolch, First Minister. The £2 million Welsh Government pilot trial offering pupils extra art, music and sports activities as well as lessons has been hailed as a clear and resounding success. Ninety-one per cent of children and young people reported that they'd actually had fun, and this is so important, whilst 84 per cent said that the extra school hours helped them socialise with peers, all set within a context, post COVID, of identified needs here. The trial noted that parents and carers appreciated the wide range of free activities and, critically, it allowed children to try activities that they otherwise may not have done because of financial barriers. The report’s authors recorded that the extra hours of activity also helped well-being, behaviour, school attendance and engagement. So, First Minister, please may I firstly urge and request that the Welsh Government seek to include Islwyn schools in the Caerphilly County Borough Council region in the proposed next round of trials? And also how would you describe the impact of these enrichment sessions on the lives of Welsh children? And isn’t this potentially another huge opportunity for the advancement of Wales’s egalitarian and equitable education system?

Well, Llywydd, I would describe the impact of the trials in just the same way as the Member has, and I’d do that because I was lucky enough to visit a school in my own constituency taking part in the trial where the headteacher described the way to me in which, on the days when the extended school day was being run, attendance figures went up rather than down. You might not have imagined that; the children who don’t attend school normally attended on the day when there was more school rather than less school. But they did it for all the reasons that Rhianon Passmore has outlined, because they knew that, as part of that extended school day, they would be having access to experiences that would not be available to them in the rest of their lives. And these were experiences that many, many children in many parts of Wales would simply take for granted. This was access to additional sporting activity, to drama, to reading, and children wanted to come to school that day because they knew what that extended school day would provide for them.

So, in the way that Rhianon Passmore has described, Llywydd, that egalitarian impact of making sure that those experiences are available to as many children as possible was very much part of that trial, which is only one part of the wider set of actions that the Minister is taking in pursuit of this Government’s commitment to reform the school day and the school year.

And in relation to the school day, alongside the specific pilot to which Rhianon Passmore has drawn attention, there was, of course, the wider Winter of Well-being pilot over last winter, £6.7 million pounds available for that, I’m very pleased to say; Islwyn schools taking part in that in good number.