New tool developed to fine-tune literacy assessments in schools

Martin Shipton

Cardiff Metropolitan University has secured more than £400,000 in funding to expand GoFaL, an innovative Welsh-medium literacy assessment tool that helps schools identify and support learners’ literacy development.

The announcement comes two months after international tests showed that Welsh 15-year-olds had slipped further back in reading standards.

The funding will enable researchers from Cardiff Met to significantly widen the reach of GoFaL, extending the assessment from its current focus on Years 7 to 11 to include pupils in Years 3 to 6 and students in Years 12 and 13.

Led by Dr Rhiannon Packer from Cardiff Met’s School of Education and Social Policy, the project will also see the development of a new reading comprehension assessment for learners in Years 3 to 13, creating one of the most thorough Welsh-medium literacy assessment frameworks available.

Currently available to schools through Hwb, the Welsh Government’s digital learning platform, GoFaL provides practitioners with a standardised way of assessing literacy skills in Welsh and identifying areas where learners may benefit from additional support.

A key part of the new project will be the digitisation of the assessment system, led by Dr Esyin Chew from Cardiff Met’s School of Technologies. The new digital platform will allow school practitioners to submit assessment scores electronically and receive standardised results alongside tailored recommendations to support learners at individual, class and whole-school levels.

Dr Packer said: “This funding represents a major step forward for Welsh-medium literacy assessment. By extending GoFaL across a wider age range and developing a new reading comprehension assessment, we will be able to provide schools with stronger evidence about learners’ literacy development throughout their educational journey.

“Our ambition is for GoFaL to transform how literacy needs are identified and supported in Welsh. We want to give teachers practical tools and reliable data that can help ensure every learner has the opportunity to develop strong literacy skills and achieve their full potential.”

The project team will work closely with schools across Wales to standardise the expanded assessment against the Welsh school population, ensuring that the tool provides robust and reliable benchmarks for educators.

Dr Chew said: “Working with schools across Wales will be central to the success of this project. Their involvement will help us create an assessment that is both evidence-based and practical, supporting teachers to make informed decisions that have a real impact on learners’ outcomes.”

The expanded GoFaL assessment and accompanying digital platform are expected to be completed by July 2029, enhancing access to Welsh-medium literacy assessment and strengthening support for learners across Wales.

Educators will hope that the new literacy assessment tool will help improve reading standards in Welsh schools.

In September, the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results showed that Wales had slipped further behind other parts of the UK in a major international assessment of school performance, highlighting continuing concerns over standards.

Welsh 15-year-olds performed significantly below their counterparts in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in science, while longer-term results show declining performance in reading and mathematics.

Reading score

Wales recorded a reading score of 459, compared with 466 in 2022. This remained significantly below the scores of 483 recorded in 2018 and 477 in 2015.

Cabinet Minister for Education and the Welsh Language Anna Brychan acknowledged that the results were not where the Welsh Government wanted them to be, but said there would be no knee-jerk response.

She said: “Let me be clear, these results are not where we want them to be. But in many ways, they reinforce what we knew already and highlight our need to improve standards of reading and maths, as a priority. We must also do more to ensure our highest-achieving learners reach their full potential.”