Autism within Schools
13:59:20
3. Will the Minister outline how the Welsh
Government is raising awareness of autism within schools?
OAQ54924
13:59:26
Thank you, Jayne. I'm committed to ensuring that
autistic pupils in schools are effectively supported to overcome
any barriers to learning that they may have. Our ambitious
additional learning needs reforms will completely overhaul the
existing system for supporting learners, and will drive
improvements and raise awareness of ALN to ensure all learners
achieve their full potential.56
13:59:47
Thank you for that answer, Minister. There are
around 700,000 adults and children on the autism spectrum in the
UK, and if you include their families, autism is part of the
daily life of 2.8 million people, yet it's still often
misunderstood.
I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight
the latest measure that is happening in Gwent to raise awareness
and to introduce the Minister and the Chamber to Moli,
The Cow Who Moo She Was Different. Moli is autistic and
her story is a wonderful new addition to primary schools and
libraries across the region. The book aims to highlight the
importance of embracing difference and how everyone has their own
individual strengths. Launched at Newport's Serennu centre,
Moli's story was developed by young people with autism and
came about after Newport councillor Paul Cockeram was inspired
by The Elephant Who Forgot, a book created by
parents to raise awareness of dementia. This is the third book of
its kind, with another two in the pipeline. The books are funded
through ICF. These soft approaches to teaching children about
what are often difficult subjects are simple and beautifully
insightful. They're proving to be effective in addressing stigma,
and I ask that the Minister look closely at these projects and
see how these books could be rolled out so that, eventually,
Moli's story can be one that all Welsh children would
recognise.
14:01:15
Well, thank you, Jayne, and thank you for
bringing to the attention of the entire Chamber the availability
of that resource, and, hopefully, I can have a closer look at it
after questions finish. We are working to improve knowledge and
awareness of autism amongst not just children, but also all of
our professional groups, including those working in education,
health and local authority services, as part of our ALN
transformation programme. That's included the publication of a
guide for practitioners. That guide details effective
interventions for learners with autism in education settings. And
we are continuing to roll out and develop our learning with
autism scheme, with programmes aimed at early years, primary,
secondary and FE. That does include the publication and the
working up of bilingual resource packages for all of those
settings, so that enables us, as I said, to help raise awareness,
and I'm sure the book that you've highlighted and Moli the cow
will be a useful addition to those resources that schools need to
be able to address these important differences that exist within
a classroom.59
AM
14:02:26
Minister, sport plays an important part in
supporting children with autism and their families. However,
children with autism are often misunderstood and can find
socialising and communication challenging in their communities
and in their surroundings. The lack of autism awareness among
other children can therefore lead to autistic people being
isolated or bullied. Minister, what guidelines has the Welsh
Government issued to ensure that our schools take a proactive
approach to raising autism awareness to promote greater
understanding and tolerance of autism in our classrooms? Thank
you.
14:03:08
As I said in answer to Jayne Bryant, we have a
pan-Wales programme of raising the autism awareness of the
practitioners that are working with children. That includes, as I
said, producing guides and training material for them, as well as
producing resources that can be used in schools, and, of course,
our new curriculum gives us the opportunity, in a variety of
ways, but primarily through our health and well-being area of
learning and experience, where we can proactively explore
difference of all kinds with our children and ensure that they
are understanding, empathetic, respectful and knowledgeable about
the very diverse communities that they will be growing in and
that they will become, hopefully, an ethical, informed citizen of
when they leave our school system.
