There is “much to celebrate” about the Welsh education system and “the strong commitment of educators across Wales is a source of pride”, says Owen Evans, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of education and training in Wales.
But his annual report, published today, also says “the shadow of the pandemic” remains apparent when it comes to pupils’ wellbeing and the progress they are making in school.
The report goes on to highlight a wide range of concerns, such as that pupils’ “knowledge and skills remain weaker than pre-pandemic”, including in key areas such as literacy and numeracy.
The report also highlights deteriorating pupil attendance; the rising proportion of children being educated in settings such as pupil referral units, as opposed to in schools; issues with teacher recruitment and retention; and concerns around implementation of the new curriculum.
Welsh government figures published last year showed the proportion of secondary-age pupils deemed persistently absent in 2022-2023 was 16.3 per cent, more than triple the pre-pandemic figure of 4.6 per cent in 2018-2019.
The report also says: “The proportion of learners being mainly educated other than at school has nearly doubled since 2009-2010, with primary-aged children in particular missing out on school in greater numbers.” This is limiting “their access to the full curriculum and the wider social interactions available at school”.
It refers to increases in both fixed-term and permanent exclusions: the rate of fixed-term exclusion (five days or fewer) increased from 39 exclusions per 1,000 pupils in 2018-2019 to 50.6 exclusions per 1,000 pupils in 2021-2022.
Higher rates of absence among school staff are also an issue post-pandemic, says the report, and staff recruitment challenges mean there are not enough “talented and suitably qualified entrants into the teaching profession”.
This “scarcity of suitably skilled staff” is a particular problem when it comes to developing pupils’ Welsh language skills, according to the inspectors. But it is also having an impact on the areas that provide the focus for the Programme for International Student Assessment, such as maths and science, where Welsh teenagers’ performance deteriorated when the 2022 results were published in December.
The report says: “In our interactions with school leaders, one of their biggest concerns continues to be the recruitment of specialist mathematics teachers.”
Implementing Curriculum for Wales
The report also highlights issues with the introduction of Curriculum for Wales (CfW) and the lack of support for schools, especially for secondaries.
It says there is too much focus in schools “on ‘what’ to teach, ie, the content of their curriculum, without giving sufficient attention to ‘how’ it is taught and how assessment and progression are monitored”.
The sector report for primary for 2022-23 says “a majority of schools started to implement CfW well”.
However, when it comes to secondaries, the inspectors say - while “the majority of schools had developed a suitable and well-understood vision for CfW” - “schools’ preparedness to roll out their curriculum was too variable”.
The report adds that where the introduction of the new curriculum was less successful in secondary, it was often because there was not “a strong enough focus on securing effective teaching”.
All secondaries began implementing the new curriculum this academic year, while primaries began implementing CfW in September 2022.
‘Shadow of the pandemic remains’
Chief inspector Owen Evans said: “The strong commitment of educators across Wales is a source of pride, but it is clear that the shadow of the pandemic remains apparent on learners’ wellbeing and the progress they make.
“Weaker aspects of practice are holding back progress for too many learners and self-evaluation in schools and other providers needs to improve to strengthen the system.”
At a press conference yesterday, Jeremy Miles, minister for education and Welsh language, said raising literacy and numeracy standards was his “top priority”.
He said that today (Wednesday) he would host and chair an education leaders’ summit to discuss how to “drive up numeracy and literacy standards across Wales”, as well as improve attendance and deliver the new curriculum at the same time as “fundamentally excellent teaching”.
He said a national task force, which would provide advice on improving school attendance, had already been set up and that a consultation would be launched this week on the creation of a database of children who are missing from education - those who are not registered at school, not in receipt of education other than at school, or who are not known to the local authority as being suitably home-educated.
School funding in Wales
Mr Miles also emphasised the challenging funding situation in Wales. He said the Welsh government faced “the most stark and painful budget decisions in the devolution era” and its overall budget in 2024-25 was worth £1.3 billion less in real terms than when it was set in 2021.
However, he said that Covid recovery funding for schools would remain in place and that councils would receive an additional £3.3 million to support the rollout of free school meals. He said this was to “insulate” local authorities as much as possible from rising food costs.
Asked how he planned to continue to attract people into teaching, given all the challenges in the Estyn report, Mr Miles said schools were continuing to have “a fantastic impact” on the lives of young people and to do “incredible work”.
Teachers, he said, were uniquely placed to give thousands of young people “the best start in life”.
He added: “Any young person who wants to make a significant contribution to the lives of people in Wales would do well to consider teaching as a means of doing that.”
