Amendment 1—Julie James

Delete all and replace with:

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Welcomes:

a. that the proportion of pupils being awarded top grades at A*-A in GCSE and A-levels has increased;

b. an increase of 50 per cent in the number of entries for GCSE Science, with more entries gaining A*-C;

c. an increase in A*-C in GCSE Mathematics and Mathematics-Numeracy when recognising best outcome obtained by 16-year-olds across November and summer series; and

d. that 76.3 per cent of A-Level pupils gained A*-C, the highest since 2009.  

2. Notes:

a. Qualification Wales’s warning that with the scale and complexity of recent changes, care should be taken when drawing any conclusions from comparing summer 2018 GCSE results and previous years but overall performance remains broadly stable;

b. that the OECD reported progress in several policy areas and a shift in the Welsh approach to school improvement away from a piecemeal and short-term policy orientation towards one that is guided by a long-term vision; and

c. the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ conclusion that school spending per pupil has fallen by more in England than in Wales over the last eight years, virtually eliminating the gap in spending per pupil between the two countries.