The colour coding of schools in Wales from green to red based on their performance is to end, the Welsh government has announced.
The new school improvement framework published today means that national categorisation - which had already been suspended because of the pandemic - will end and be replaced by “a robust self-evaluation system”.
Under the new system - which will begin from September but will not come into full force until September 2024 - schools will have to publish their improvement priorities and development plans and “be open about the support they need”. Schools will be supported to complete self-evaluations by improvement advisers, with information and support available through Hwb, the digital platform for learning and teaching in Wales.
Inspection, however, is set to become more regular and from September 2024 the rate is expected to double.
In Wales, there is a backlog of inspections because of the pandemic but from 2024, schools inspectorate Estyn will inspect schools twice every six years. Currently, it aims to inspect schools once every six years.
How much notice schools will get ahead of an inspection and how long inspections will last for has yet to be decided.
The new framework says that in the future, inspections will have “a stronger focus on schools’ capacity to self-evaluate effectively and self-improve, and on how they are implementing curriculum reform”. As well as inspecting schools, Estyn will regularly inspect local authority education services to ensure they are supporting schools effectively.
Inspection reports are also going to look different: the new framework says “summative judgements” - such as “excellent”, “adequate” or “good” - “will be removed from inspection reports” and these “will be replaced with deeper evaluation of a school’s work”.
Overall, the Welsh government says the goal is to move away from judging schools and towards supporting them to continuously improve.
The changes are being driven by the introduction of the new curriculum, Curriculum for Wales, which will officially start in all primaries and nearly half of secondary, middle and special schools in the new school year that starts this September.
The previous approach to school improvement “blurred” the lines between assessment and accountability, said minister for education and Welsh language, Jeremy Miles, which could “have a detrimental effect on teaching and learning”.
Mr Miles added: “By bringing national categorisation to an end we are doing two things. First, replacing it with a framework which sets out clear expectations so that every pupil is supported properly.
“And second, providing better, and more up-to-date information on each school’s improvement plans, so that the focus is on learner progression rather than on headline descriptions. I’m confident that this framework will encourage more collaboration between schools, which will deliver high standards and aspirations for all our learners and support their wellbeing.”
In his review of Estyn published in 2018, the former senior chief inspector of education in Scotland, Graham Donaldson, said: “Graded inspection reports and follow-up categories reinforce the association of inspection with an externally driven approach to improvement, and can distort some schools’ practices to the detriment of their pupils.”
High-stakes accountability, said Professor Donaldson -who also wrote the 2015 report that provided the impetus for the Welsh curriculum reforms - could “distort the educational process in undesirable ways”. This might include schools giving “undue attention” to pupils “whose marginal improvement will affect performance figures” or attempting to exclude “young people with the greatest needs”.
Owen Evans, chief inspector at Estyn, said it supported “the move away from schools being evaluated with a disproportionate emphasis on a small number of performance measures”, adding that this was reflected in the body’s new approach to inspection for schools and pupil referral units (PRUs).
He added: “We will continue to inspect schools and make judgements based on a wide range of evidence and information, covering the breadth of school activity. We are here to provide accountability across education providers in Wales and will continue to work rigorously to ensure all learners get the education and training they deserve - monitoring schools through follow-up if standards aren’t high enough.”
Mr Evans said: “We are confident that this approach will offer meaningful insights which will help providers to improve without shining the spotlight on a judgement.”
