8. Debate: The Estyn Annual Report 2016-17

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:31 pm on 6 March 2018.

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Photo of Mark Reckless Mark Reckless Conservative 5:31, 6 March 2018

If I may just take an example—it's an area where I think my view and perhaps the view of many, at least in the Conservative group, may be different from yours, Cabinet Secretary, and from the Labour Government, but it's about accountability for schools and transparency over how they are doing. We have Estyn's own assessment and the rating it gives. We then have this red, amber and green, which I think comes from Welsh Government. And the messages coming from those two measures—at least for some schools—I find sometimes contradictory. Then, there is the harder evidence of what schools are getting in terms of their results. At least relative to England, there is less transparency about what those results are. There seems to be this huge fear of there being league tables whereas, to me, it is obvious that, if you are transparent and if you are accountable, and if you are open with information rather than suppressing it and hiding it from parents, then that is likely to assist your school system in becoming better. I speak with a certain degree of frustration, as a parent myself, in seeking to compare schools.

But what I don't understand is the sort of mixed system that we've ended up with where, since 2014, Estyn has changed its approach and, in its inspection reports on individual schools, has become more transparent in how much it tells parents and others about what results those schools are getting. Before 2014, there were very vague comparisons of key stage 2 results. It was a family of schools, and it wasn't clear how it went to the nation as a whole, and it didn't tell you actually what the results were for a particular school. Since 2014, that policy has changed, but I'm just a little puzzled by it because I don't see any evidence of the approach of Welsh Government particularly having changed or our having won the argument in Wales that schools should be more transparent and we should be open about this data. It just seems that Estyn took a decision. Perhaps this was approved by Welsh Government. Perhaps the Cabinet Secretary can tell me, but since 2014, you do have this information on individual schools, but then if you try and compare it to other schools, the information is taken at different dates, making those comparisons less reliable for parents. I just don't understand what is the purpose of that or how that helps anyone.

Two areas I just want to comment on, briefly, about the report is the increased emphasis that Estyn seems to be putting on the need to give better support to able and talented students, and particularly the absence of this at primary level in many schools, and particularly those schools that are performing particularly poorly. To some extent, it may be understandable, if a school is doing very badly in terms of its results, that it focuses on lifting the floor or trying to get perhaps the average of those results up, but if at the time, through doing that, that perhaps a number of children who are able and talented in that school really aren't getting support and aren't having their particular needs met, I think that is a concern, and if you are able and talented and are in a school that is doing poorly, things are going to be so much worse because of that lack of focus. I hope Estyn will also look at how it can, at the secondary level, link in support for able and talented students with the Seren network, and ensure that schools engage with that properly and actually push and encourage their pupils to link into Seren on a more consistent basis.

Finally—and excuse my cough, Llywydd; I think others may be suffering from that too—just looking at the career and the future educational advice that children get, Estyn seems to be relatively satisfied with what's happening in year 9, but there are some more criticisms of what happens in year 11. While Welsh Government seems to be sort of pushing against school sixth forms and encouraging mergers and amalgamations and a focus on further education colleges for A-levels to a degree—I may perhaps just be talking about some local examples in my south-east region—Estyn as a whole seem to be suggesting that schools are biased, or some schools at least, to pushing children to go to their own sixth form. Of course, I understand why a school would want to promote its own sixth form, but we also need to ensure that young people are getting proper advice and an ability to consider other options on a fair basis. I would welcome, Cabinet Secretary, if you could say a few words on perhaps what more we could do to ensure that young people do get that.