Siân Gwenllian MS calls for clear catch up plan for pupils following months of lost education

CONCRETE plans need to be laid out which address the needs of pupils across Wales whose education has been disrupted by Covid-19, Plaid Cymru has said.

Plaid Cymru’s Shadow Minister for Education Siân Gwenllian MS said there needed to be plans to support both off-site and blended learning and a recruitment drive to ensure pupils receive greater levels of engagement as the “key to recovery”.

Ms Gwenllian added that retired teachers and teaching assistants should be “encouraged to enlist” with supply teachers offered formal contracts and former teachers now working in other jobs or in local authorities, education consortia or educational bodies should be offered school secondments.

Plaid Cymru Shadow Minister for Education, Siân Gwenllian MS, says,

“The inevitable further disruption to education means that thousands of our children and young people are being left behind and their well-being being undermined – the Welsh Government needs to publish an Education and Wellbeing Recovery Plan to explain in detail how pupils and students are to be helped to catch up with lost education.

“It needs to include immediate steps to improve off-site teaching, options for blended learning when it is safe as well as a comprehensive plan for recovery which will need to be implemented over the coming years. It should also include a massive Recruitment Drive to enlist more staff because the key to recovery lies in greater engagement between educators and students.

“Those who have been left behind most need to be identified through individual education plans with support then targeted at those who need it most.

“The Education Minister’s initial £29 million Covid recovery plan was welcomed but now with weeks if not months of further disruption ahead, pupils and parents need to be confident that there will be substantial investment and that a comprehensive Recovery Plan is underway, led by the Education Department at Welsh Government.”