I made this speech when laying an amendment to the secondary education policy letter to ensure health and wellbeing was considered was considered in educational transformation.
Sir, I will be brief. This second amendment again reflects the necessity of a close working relationship between HSc and ESC to meet the objectives of the Policy & Resource Plan and to enable our children and young people to have the best start in life.
I will not go into great detail here, but the Committee did think it was important that, amongst all the talk about what education should be provided where, a key point had been largely missed, and that was the importance of the mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing needs of all learners.
Again, like our first amendment, this amendment seeks to reinforce the message of our proposition in the policy letter approved last month, which is to affirm that the States in all its policy decisions, should consider the impact of those decisions on health and wellbeing, and make use of any opportunities to improve health or reduce health inequalities, across all government policies. The importance of this is set out in the CYPP, which has recently been refreshed and which represents an example of joint working between officers at HSC and ESC.
However, we believe that, given the fundamental importance of the subject matter we are debating and how, whichever model is chosen, this should not be forgotten and be an integral part of the transformation of secondary education.