I think that the evidence is that different learners see their requirements differently. And I agree that a textbook is part of the picture that should be available. But I think the evidence also shows that not every young person will use them; perhaps the teacher uses them. There is an emphasis, for example, from one pupil there, on that traditional model of revision, namely class notes and his own revision notes, but that he personally also wanted a textbook. So, certainly, the content of a textbook is going to be important, and that that's available in some form or other. It was very interesting to know, for example, that when he was describing the traditional model of revision, he felt that he'd had quite a lot of the content of the textbook through the classroom notes. Much of that digital content, of course, corresponds to the content areas of a textbook, but it's just in a different form. But, in general, there should be a textbook. And some of our frustration as well is that the timetables of some individual publishers don't always get us to the point where there is a textbook available in time. That doesn't happen so often in English medium, but we know about that gap in time in the Welsh provision.
Well, it's happened fairly regularly in the English-medium textbook world, hasn't it? My daughter—she featured in that video—has got her RS qualifications coming up, and she only had a textbook over the Easter period. I mean, it's completely unacceptable. And many others in that video are also being affected. You mentioned digital resources; not everybody's got access to digital resources in their own homes, even, in Wales. So, aren't we giving a significant disadvantage to those learners who might need the traditional 'swotting up from a textbook' method of revision and benefit from that?
We do ensure that those digital resources include things that the teachers can also print. Most of these are resources for teachers so that the teachers can adapt them for their own use, to suit the learners who are in front of them at any given time. But certainly there are materials there. If there are activities, then those activities can be printed off and handed to pupils so that they can take them home. So, I would be sceptical about that comment. We are thinking of the totality, ultimately.
I think you're right that the availability of technology is an important part of this big picture. The young people talk about websites and blogs, and we're talking about digital resources, so being able to reach those resources, I think, is vital in Wales. It's interesting to note two contradictory remarks from the teaching associations in the letters. One praises what's available digitally, whereas another teaching organisation sees this as more work for teachers. As Mike said, we've created those resources that can be adapted. One teaching organisation says that it just creates more work, while another organisation says that the digital resource is something that's very valuable. Of course, the headteacher at the end was praising the fact that, in a situation of crisis or unacceptable timetables, we have succeeded in creating some resources that will be in the textbook later, but available digitally at an early stage. But I agree with your core comment that technology is vital, and access to that, and also the content of a textbook in some form is vital as well.