Agreement between parties on need to raise school standards in Wales

Martin Shipton

In the run-up to the Senedd election, there’s an emerging consensus between the parties about the need to boost school standards in Wales, according to an analysis undertaken by the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank.

A report from the IFS states: “All the manifestos emphasise the importance of boosting school standards in Wales. There is quite a lot of commonality about the best ways to approach this problem too.

“The Labour, Conservative and Green parties all propose a focus on evidence-based approaches to literacy and numeracy in a general sense. Both Reform UK and Plaid Cymru are more specific, and emphasise the importance of synthetic phonics for teaching reading. There is certainly a strong evidence base showing the effectiveness of synthetic phonics approaches.

“Despite this evidence base, the Welsh Government has not consistently promoted this approach and, until recently, appeared open to schools using cueing strategies that encourage pupils to guess unfamiliar words using context, pictures or other cues rather than decoding them through phonics.

“Both Plaid Cymru and Reform also emphasise the importance of reforming the new Curriculum for Wales, though in slightly different terms. Reform UK proposes greater focus on core subjects such as science and maths and removing ‘vague’ purposes from the curriculum (the new curriculum is centred on overarching purposes, such as all children becoming ‘ambitious, capable learners’ and ‘ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world’).

“Plaid Cymru proposes clearer expectations for pupil progress within the Curriculum for Wales, including what knowledge pupils are expected to have acquired by each stage. Both sets of proposals would be in line with evidence suggesting the importance of including specific knowledge and benchmarks within curriculum design, as emphasised in reviews of the curriculum in England and Northern Ireland.

“There are also proposals from the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru to make greater use of standardised tests. In the case of the Conservatives, this is described in relatively general terms, whilst Plaid Cymru propose making greater use of existing tests to create national and pupil-level targets.

“Both the Conservatives and Reform UK propose introducing school league tables and enabling schools to become academies, as in England where academies and free schools operate outside local authority control. There is certainly some evidence suggesting that ending school league tables had a negative effect on pupil attainment in Wales, though the effects were modest. The effect of introducing academies in England has generally been positive, but there is significant variation across groups of academies. Furthermore, the combination of local authority control and academy trusts makes for a complicated system of governance and accountability.”

Free school meals

Over the last Senedd term, the Welsh Government introduced free school meals for all pupils in primary schools in Wales, as part of a cooperation agreement between Labour and Plaid Cymru. In this election, Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party have all proposed expanding free school meals in secondary schools.

Plaid Cymru and Labour propose extending free school meals to children in households receiving universal credit in secondary schools. We understand this would cost Labour about £20 million per year according to their costs. The Green Party proposes introducing free school meals to all secondary school pupils, which would likely cost significantly more.

The stated goals of expanding free school meals include improving nutrition, easing the cost of living and reducing inequalities. There is certainly some evidence that widening access to free school meals can improve children’s health and attainment, because school meals are largely more nutritious than packed lunches.

However, it is also important to consider distributional effects. Expanding free school meals to children in households eligible for universal credit would extend free meals to children from relatively poor families. Universal free school meals would further extend the policy to children from higher-income families, and at significant additional cost.

Falling pupil numbers

A major issue that is not adequately addressed in the manifestos is that of falling pupil numbers and rural schools.

The report states: “The number of pupils in Wales is expected to decline by 10% over the next decade, mainly reflecting a decline in the birth rate. This follows on from a 4% decline in pupil numbers between 2016 and 2025, which led to the number of schools falling by 7% over the same time frame and the number of teachers falling by 2%. These reductions have tended to be larger in rural areas.

“Looking ahead, policymakers face a major long-term choice on whether to continue to reduce school and teacher numbers, thereby freeing up funding for other services, or to maintain current school and teacher numbers. There are important educational considerations. Smaller class sizes can improve outcomes, though only modestly according to the evidence, and smaller schools are likely to find it more difficult to offer a full range of subjects and curriculum options.

“If we look at the parties’ manifestos, the Greens propose stopping rural school closures. Plaid Cymru support the presumption against school closures, but propose a review of the criteria for closing schools in order to focus on pupil needs. More generally, the best approach to a declining pupil population will likely involve having clear criteria for navigating the trade-offs and effects, including financial costs, the effects on communities, the effects on pupil attainment and the breadth of the curriculum on offer.

“The challenges of a declining pupil population in Wales are even more acute for post-16 education. This is because the nation has seen a significant decline in post-16 participation, with the share of 16- to 17-year-olds in full-time education in Wales down from 78% in 2014 to 64% today. The share is currently steady at 84% in England.

“The reasons for this decline are not yet fully clear. However, a declining pupil population definitely makes it harder to sustain school sixth forms with a full breadth of curriculum options. This has resulted in post-16 reorganisations across Wales that have placed greater emphasis on larger colleges, which has increased travel times to post-16 education.

“In their manifestos, the parties do discuss the importance of boosting post-16 participation, though in quite general terms. Labour specifically discusses learning from a recent call for evidence. Fundamentally, however, there is an urgent need to understand why post-16 participation has been falling in Wales and how to design a high-quality system that is attractive to learners, delivers the skills they need, and is robust to falling numbers of teenagers.

“Finally, all the manifestos highlight the importance of improving mental health support in schools, in the community and through partnerships with the health service. There are commitments from Labour and Plaid Cymru to implement new guidance on behaviour standards in schools, whilst Reform UK and the Conservatives further emphasise restoring classroom discipline. There is also a focus on improving school attendance levels in the Plaid Cymru, Reform and Conservative manifestos.

“Across most manifestos, there are specific proposals on smartphone use in schools. Reform UK and the Conservatives propose a ban on smartphones in schools, which would match the new approach in England. Plaid Cymru propose creating new restrictions, whilst Labour promise to issue new guidance.

“Standing back, it is clear that all the parties recognise the current problems with mental health, behaviour and attendance levels. Addressing these problems is clearly more challenging and will require learning from approaches that have worked for particular types of schools or places. There is clearly a lot of agreement on banning or restricting the use of smartphones, but it is not clear how significant a cause this is of present problems.”

High levels of absence

Luke Sibieta, IFS Research Fellow and author of the report, said: “There are huge challenges facing schools in Wales, including concerns on school standards, high levels of absence, and problems with mental health and behaviour levels. It is therefore encouraging to see an emerging cross-party consensus on the importance of addressing these problems.

“A focus on evidence-led ways to improve literacy and numeracy could help boost core skills. There is also agreement between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK – parties not always in agreement – on the importance of introducing more specific benchmarks and expectations in the new Curriculum for Wales.”