New reading, maths and attendance targets to boost school standards

A plan setting out new national benchmarks for reading and maths standards has been published, a week after international test results showed Welsh teenagers lagging further behind their peers across the UK.

The Welsh government's foundational literacy and numeracy plan also commits to improving attendance levels which have still not fully recovered after the pandemic.

Education Minister Anna Brychan said the Plaid Cymru government had "inherited an education system that lacks clarity, coherence and a sure sense of direction".

The Welsh Conservatives challenged the government to learn lessons from England and Reform UK's Helen Jenner said teachers had been let down by politicians in Wales.

"As a former teacher in Wales myself, I can tell you that what teachers need are not more plans and reviews, they need action," said Jenner.

"A generation of youngsters have been failed by Plaid and Labour, and frankly you owe them all an apology."

In a stark assessment of last week's Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) results, the education minister's introduction to the new plan said the tests in maths, reading and science showed Welsh learners were on average "performing significantly below those in other comparable countries... and we cannot - and will not - carry on as we are".

"Let us be clear, this is not the fault of schools or teachers," added Brychan.

"A sustained period of reform has taken its toll, and literacy and numeracy have been lost in the noise."

The plan commits to a baseline understanding of children's literacy and numeracy when they start school as well as a target for the level 11-year-olds should reach when they get to Year six - the last year of primary school.

It also introduces a national target to increase attendance by 0.5% year-on-year while reducing the gap in attendance between the most disadvantaged pupils and their classmates.

Provisional data for attendance for the last academic year was 90.7%, slightly down on the previous year and significantly below the 94% seen before the pandemic.

There is also a target to reduce persistent absence - missing more than 10% of school - by 2% a year.

Targets for the literacy and numeracy measures will be drawn up once the baseline information had been established, the government said.

Brychan said the indicators would "provide a national picture of progress" and "not the creation of [school] league tables".

The plan would not mean publishing school-level data, allowing parents to compare performance across schools.

However, Brychan added that the new benchmarks would give parents information about how their own child was progressing.

"That's what's important to all parents - how is their learner coming along.

"It will be easier to have those conversations with a clearer expectation on literacy and numeracy in our plan."

Trystan Edwards, head of Ysgol Garth Olwg in Rhondda Cynon Taf, said the foundational literacy and numeracy plan would "give us clarity and consistency in the way that we teach the essential skills of literacy and numeracy across the system."

Alongside the plan, the minister has promised to review the Curriculum for Wales with "additional year-on-year detail giving absolute clarity about what learners need to know and when".

She said parents, childcare settings, teachers, school leaders and bodies such as local authorities and the inspectorate Estyn were all "cogs in a wheel" to help bring about improvements.

Parents would be encouraged to read to and support their children's learning, she added.

The plan also refers to the controversial topic of how the youngest children are taught to read.

It promises "unequivocal" guidance on the importance of schools using Systematic Synthetic Phonics, after experts argued that Wales' approach had not been based on evidence.

In addition, there was a pledge to begin work this autumn on Plaid Cymru's promise to provide a library space in every primary school by 2030.

First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth said he was "desperately disappointed" by last week's Pisa results.

"It is scandalous the way that we have allowed standards to drop here in Wales, with our proud record of education achievement," he told First Minister's Questions in the Senedd on Tuesday.

"The measures that we are putting in place are all about raising outcomes.

"I hope that one of the results of that will be increased Pisa scores.

"We'll be unapologetically ambitious for every learner, setting clear targets, holding ourselves accountable for delivering them because raising standards has to be a priority."

Welsh Conservative leader Darren Millar said the results were evidence that Wales had "the worst education system in the whole of the United Kingdom".

His colleague, Sam Rowlands, said: "Wales is falling behind every other UK nation in maths, reading and science, with the gap particularly stark with England.

"Why don't you learn from England as to how they are doing so well with their education outcomes, when compared to our children here in Wales?"

Ap Iorwerth acknowledged that pupils in England had "bucked the trend" of a "global downturn in PISA scores", adding that his government was "making plans to learn from England".