Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg
I thought it may be useful to update you on our plans for Additional Learning Needs (ALN) in Wales, in light of recent developments in the Senedd.
I was delighted earlier this week to confirm an additional £60 million investment in ALN this financial year, following the passing of our supplementary budget.
This includes £56 million for schools and local authorities – the vast majority of which will go direct to schools – and £2.5 million for further education. The extra funding is designed to help alleviate immediate financial and operational pressures, stabilise staffing and local provision, and strengthen support for learners.
I am grateful to political partners and to trade union colleagues for their constructive discussions and am pleased that together we have managed to secure more money to support children and young people with ALN.
Upon entering government, we were informed that our public services were facing severe in-year pressures in 2026-27, with the NHS alone facing a net deficit of over £300 million. This has led to difficult decisions having to be made across our portfolio.
I recognise, though, that funding alone will not transform learner experiences in the longer-term and it is clear that a more sustainable approach to ALN support is needed.
Schools and local authorities are responding to rising demand and increasingly complex needs. The capacity of education settings and access to expertise are not consistent across Wales, and education, health and other services do not always work together as effectively or as early as they should.
It is a point raised repeatedly on my visits to schools and I want to assure you that I am doing everything I can to build greater coherence across our system and in the process make life easier for teachers, leaders and support staff.
In the short-term, we are taking practical action to improve the support available to learners and their support networks.
We are strengthening arrangements for children and young people with healthcare needs, through the development of new integrated guidance, co-produced by health and education partners. This is intended to provide greater clarity and consistency for supporting learners with healthcare needs in education settings.
We are investing in workforce development through national professional learning and training delivered through Dysgu, building the skills and confidence of practitioners while strengthening the strategic leadership role of ALNCos in embedding inclusive practice and improving outcomes for learners.
We are also strengthening our evidence base. Estyn are undertaking a thematic review of local authority specialist resource bases, which will help us better understand how specialist mainstream provision is delivered across Wales.
We are also continuing to improve Welsh-medium ALN provision by building capacity and improving access to timely support in Cymraeg.
Alongside these actions, we have published our Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Plan and are moving at pace to implement its actions. Literacy and numeracy provide the essential foundations for accessing the wider curriculum, and it is important that every learner, regardless of background, is encouraged to develop their skills in a manner that best suits their individual needs.
My ambition is to build a genuinely inclusive education system in Wales. A system founded on the same high expectations for every learner, which identifies and overcomes barriers to participation, engagement and achievement. A system that recognises the value that every learner brings. A system that focuses on what learners can do, not what they can’t.
I am therefore proposing that we work together, with learners, schools, local authorities, families, health and wider partners, to move towards a nationally-consistent approach to inclusive education in Wales.
This work will build on what is already happening across Wales. During my visits to schools and settings, I have seen for myself the commitment, expertise and innovation already shaping support for learners – and it is important that we learn from the good practice that exists currently.
This model will seek to strengthen mainstream capacity, support earlier help and timely access to specialist expertise, improve collaboration between education, health and wider services, and clarify how mainstream, specialist and alternative provision should work together as a coherent continuum of support.
This work will involve:
- agreeing a shared model, principles and national expectations for inclusive education in Wales;
- building an agreed evidence base on learner need, current provision, capacity, workforce, costs and demographic change;
- assessing readiness for change and identifying the barriers, enablers and local transition requirements;
- developing a realistic, phased and costed transition approach that reflects local circumstances and informs future ministerial and budget decisions.
Over the coming months, my officials will work with all our partners to take this work forward and I will set out our proposed approach in the coming weeks.
I see this as an opportunity to move beyond immediate pressures and build a stronger, more inclusive and sustainable education system: improving outcomes for children and young people, strengthening confidence among families and practitioners, and making better collective use of expertise, provision and resources.
Above all, inclusion must be a golden thread running through the education system, shaping how education is designed and delivered. It is not a bolt-on or an approach that sits alongside. Inclusion is our core business; it is everyone’s core business.
That means schools and settings having the skills, capacity and support to respond effectively to a wide range of needs. It also means learners being able to access specialist expertise and provision when they need it.
Colleagues, we have backed our commitment to ALN with investment, and we are preparing the ground for more fundamental and lasting change. But this is only the beginning of our journey towards transformation.
