The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Darren Millar, and amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Item 7 this afternoon is a debate on the Estyn annual report of 2017-18, and I call on the Minister for Education to move the motion—Kirsty Williams.

Motion NDM6969 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the Annual Report for 2017-18 of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales that was laid in Table Office on 11 December 2018.

2. Welcomes that the 'shift in culture towards a more collaborative and self-improving system continues apace'.

3. Notes that standards are good or better in 8 in 10 primary schools, an increase on last year.

4. Notes that whilst standards remain good or better in about half of secondary schools, variability remains a key challenge.

Motion moved.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I open this debate today by thanking Meilyr Rowlands for his annual report, the first based on Estyn's new inspection arrangements that were introduced in September 2017. This report provides us with valuable information based on Estyn's analysis of evidence from inspections about performance and standards across Wales. As a Government, we will be using this body of data to help monitor performance, inform policy and drive up standards in education and learning.

The chief inspector is right to say that there is much Wales can be proud of. It is particularly encouraging that Estyn have found that the shift in culture towards a more collaborative and self-improving system continues apace. This is vital if we are to continue to raise standards for all of our young people. The report finds that the positive trend is continuing in non-maintained nurseries, maintained special schools and our further education colleges. And it's extremely encouraging that standards are good or better in nine in 10 non-school settings and are improving, at higher than the percentage identified last year.

Standards are also found to be good or better in eight in 10 primary schools—an increase on last year—with more of them going on to be judged as excellent. The improvements in fundamentals, such as attendance and basic literacy over recent years, are to be welcomed and are paving the way for overall improvements across our primary sector. Yet, whilst I note that half of our secondary schools continue to maintain good or better standards, I accept that that means that half of them do not, and I do not believe that that is acceptable, and improvement is needed. I am in no doubt that there is still much work to do.

Five per cent of primary and 15 per cent of secondary schools have been identified as needing significant improvement or special measures. I believe that the challenge for the system is to ensure that schools that need additional support are identified at an earlier stage and that we work closely with schools and the profession to address these issues. The fact that schools are being placed in an Estyn statutory category year on year indicates, as I've said, that more needs to be done to identify schools causing concern earlier, and then, crucially, to provide them with appropriate support to enable them to improve.

I am currently considering how we will tackle this issue and to identify new mechanisms that could be put in place to provide support to make improvements in these schools. I'm encouraged that our policies such as the new professional standards for teaching and leadership, and the ongoing development of the new curriculum, have driven forward progress and improved teaching and learning experiences for pupils. The professional standards, which have pedagogy at their heart, have been designed to support practitioners to develop in a way that will prepare them to meet the challenges ahead.

I'm also pleased to note that schools and colleges have responded positively to changes in GCSE English, Welsh and maths. However, I do acknowledge that provision for the Welsh baccalaureate is more variable. The Welsh bac plays a key part in our national mission to raise standards by improving both the skills and knowledge of our young people. It has been designed to give young people a broader experience than they usually have through their traditional academic education. Enhancements to the arrangements on implementation of the Welsh bac are being actively addressed through the ongoing work of a partnership group that consists of Welsh Government, Qualifications Wales, and the WJEC, including actions on the key area of clarifying expectations for students at different levels.

As we all know in this Chamber, well-being is strongly linked to educational outcomes. I therefore welcome that well-being and attitudes to learning are good or excellent in two thirds of our secondary schools and have been identified as a strength in our primary sector. It is essential that every school develops an ethos to support the broader mental health and well-being of their learners, which in turn will help to prevent other issues from developing or escalating, including mental health issues.

Our national mission is to raise standards of education for all young people. We are currently developing new evaluation and improvement arrangements that will further support school improvement and raise standards. As you will know, I have issued a written statement today about these arrangements. This includes the work that will be taken forward from the recommendations within the Estyn independent report, ‘A Learning Inspectorate’. Moving to this new model of evaluation and improvement will put us more in line with high-performing systems across the world, and it will support the inspectorate in providing assurances that standards are being met whilst also supporting schools to maintain improvement. The policies that we have put in place are helping to drive improvements, but it is important that we maintain momentum to secure further and consistent improvements, as well as support schools through significant education reform.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I am very grateful for the teachers, leaders and managers throughout the sector for their continued efforts and contributions. We all share the same ambition: an ambition to raise standards, reduce the attainment gap, and to deliver an education system that is a source of national pride and enjoys the confidence of the people of Wales.

Thank you. I have selected the six amendments to the motion, and I call on Suzy Davies to move amendment 1 in the name of Darren Millar.

Amendment 1—Darren Millar

Delete all and replace with:

1. Regrets the Annual Report for 2017-18 of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales’s findings that for pupils in half of Wales’s secondary schools, a majority of pupils across all age and ability ranges do not make enough progress.

2. Regrets that in half of schools, the majority of pupils do not achieve in line with their abilities by the time they reach the end of compulsory schooling.

3. Regrets the continuing fall in the number of settings delivering education for 3 and 4 year olds.

4. Calls on the Welsh Government to explain any internal audit processes it may have with regard to regional consortia and to share the results of any internal or external audit that may have been carried out since the publication of Estyn’s follow-up guidance for regional consortia and inspectors in September 2017.

Amendment 1 moved.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I move our amendment.

I just want to say for the record, though, that it wasn’t intended to be a ‘delete all’ amendment, but it is what it is and so'll we move on on that basis.

Could I also echo the sentiments expressed in the first Plaid amendment? Any improvement is to be welcomed for its effect on the individual young people who benefit from it, as well as the staff at the schools.

I just wanted to start briefly with the reduction in the number of settings offering education for three and four-year-olds. I’ve always been disappointed that some councils in Wales have chosen to restrict this offer to council nurseries only, which may account in part for the reduction. But I’m also concerned about the drop in the number of settings at a time when the Government is rolling out its 30-hour childcare offer for parents working more than 16 hours. As well as anticipating a rise in demand there, what about the children who can only access 10 hours of education, because their parents work 15 rather than 16 hours? They still have five hours of childcare to find, preferably in the same setting as the education offer, except, of course, they have to pay for it. It’s also the setting where the seeds of the 1 million Welsh speaker policy need to germinate, so perhaps the Minister could give us her thoughts on that.

Point 4 of our amendment is an opportunity for the Minister to let us in on how the risk profile and financial management associated with policies aimed at school improvement are managed within Government. The consortia and local authorities, working together, are supposed to be the back-room engines of school improvement. They’re only briefly mentioned in this report, although the standout finding there is that, as a result of a range of failings in one consortium, the pace of improvement in secondary schools causing concern is just too slow. But, specific trouble in one consortium doesn’t explain the wild variation in school performance across Wales. You accept that there is variability. It’s within schools as well as between schools—a finding of the OECD in its report in the last Assembly term, and that doesn’t really seem to have changed much. So, in congratulating those schools with well-motivated, well-led staff and happy learners achieving their potential, we cannot let that mask the flipside of the very significant number of learners who've been let down in the way we highlight in the first two points of our amendment. 

Now, as you say, Minister, 5 per cent of primary schools and 15 per cent of secondary schools are in special measures or in need of significant improvement. Those are quite high percentages when we're talking about the nadir of performance, and these concerns are not new. So, how has your audit and risk management within your department helped you improve the monitoring and evaluation of policy design and implementation? In short, what have you changed as a result of that work?

With only 8 per cent of our primary schools considered excellent when it comes to standards, why are 88 per cent of them categorised as green and in need of minimum support? Barely half of our secondary schools are good, let alone excellent, yet 78 per cent of them will only get 10 days or less support. How did we get to a position where only a third of our through schools—the fashionable format for leadership and management now—were found to be good at leadership and management, let alone standards, and teaching and learning—only a third of them; there were no excellents. 

This report shows that despite the demographics and other challenges at our schools, any one of them can be excellent across the five inspected areas, so why exactly do so few of our primary schools achieve that, and how can we have such extremes between success and failure in the secondary sector? It doesn't tally with the categorisation. It doesn't tally with half our schools needing inspection follow-up, and despite some very, very pleasing results, as you said, around well-being, that doesn't necessarily tally with higher standards, because Estyn says you only see that where the schools are exceptionally strong on well-being.

But where I think the urgency now lies is with self-evaluation. The OECD said we had problems with this previously, and it is patently clear that far too many schools and school leaders are still struggling with this even now—half of secondary schools. These are the schools you're asking to take on new qualifications and a new curriculum, a new curriculum questioned yet again today in the Times Educational Supplement, which is dependent on self-evaluation and self-improvement within the schools to achieve its aims, and you said that was vital.

If, as claimed, a shift to a self-improvement culture is moving at pace, why aren't standards improving at pace? Estyn says that despite various initiatives, including banding and categorisation, it remains the case that these schools—the poorer performing ones—are not identified early enough, and not enough is done to support them. You said that in your opening remarks, and you said that you're currently considering how.

Minister, you have the powers of intervention to shake up these schools and councils and consortia, who continue to fail children. Please use them.   

Thank you. Can I call on Siân Gwenllian to move amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth?  

Amendment 2—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion:

Notes the continued dedication of teachers and support staff in our schools as they work to improve standards and pupils' attainment.

Amendment 3—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion:

Notes the Donaldson report on Estyn, A Learning Inspectorate; an independent review of Estyn, that was published in June 2018 and has not yet received a response from the Welsh Government.

Amendment 4—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion:

Notes the Cardiff University report 'Cut to the Bone?' which confirms that school spending in 2017-18 was £324 less per pupil in real terms than the corresponding figure in 2009-10.

Amendment 5—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion:

Notes ASCL Cymru's open letter and its comments that there is a severe funding crisis in Welsh schools that is having a detrimental effect on Wales's young people.

Amendment 6—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion:

Calls on the Welsh Government to consider fair funding from the budget that would lessen the current pressures that exist on our schools.

Amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 moved.

Thank you very much, and I move those amendments.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss the findings of the Estyn report for 2017-18. The situation in our secondary schools is a cause of great concern, with pupils in half of our secondary schools, so, around 100 schools, being let down. That is, the children aren't reaching their full potential by the time they leave school.

Now, this is sobering for every young person who reaches that point, and it's also disappointing in terms of the prosperity of the nation as a whole. Wales needs an education regime of the highest order for the benefit of the nation and of future generations. Now, there are only 195 secondary schools in Wales. This isn't a huge number, so there has to be something major wrong if we can't ensure higher attainment rates across Wales. So, the important question is: how can we improve the situation?

The chief inspector of Estyn noted in the Children, Young People and Education Committee in December of last year that three things need to be done. First of all, we need to identify earlier those schools that are underperforming. Second, we need to ensure that they receive better support and, thirdly, we need to co-ordinate the support that they receive at present better.

I'm going to focus on the third point, which is vital, I think, and does deserve attention. At the moment, there are so many layers within the system—the schools themselves and their management teams, the governors, the local authorities, the consortia and the education department at the Welsh Government—so who's taking responsibility? Is it a responsibility for all of them, or for none of them, ultimately? This is a concern. We need to improve accountability in the system as a whole and, as a matter of urgency, we need to review the arrangements, and the need for all of these layers in order to co-ordinate the support better, which was one of the objectives of the chief inspector.

Now, turning to the Donaldson report on the learning inspectorate, the main thrust of it was that Estyn should have more of a role in terms of supporting the process of improving schools—namely, that Estyn should be more active in its response rather than just being part of the diagnosis. There are arguments in favour and against that, and this morning we had a statement from the Government stating that they did accept the recommendations in that report.

But one announcement today that has frightened everyone is this: there will be more inspections, and Estyn, not Donaldson, has talked about this. It has succeeded in raising the hackles of everyone involved in education. There was no reference to this in the Donaldson report, as far as I can see, and, if anything, the report says that we need to move in the opposite direction, with a focus on self-validation and inspection, not on greater inspection itself. But the Government has accepted the recommendations of that report, so if the Government wants to see Estyn giving greater support to our schools, then we have to ask the question: what's the point of the consortia? We need to look seriously at their role if Estyn is going to be taking some of the responsibilities over.

Another of the Estyn findings was this: that leadership is adequate and needs improvement in four out of 10 schools, and is unsatisfactory in about one out of 10 schools. Now, the intervention that comes from different directions makes the job of the head very difficult, and this is another reason for creating fewer layers in the system and for greater accountability throughout. And I don't think that we can look at the problems that are pointed to in the Estyn report without looking at the wider context that faces our schools and our teachers. There's no doubt about it—that the profession is under a great deal of pressure at the moment, and we can't talk about raising standards without talking about funding and resources. According to the Government itself, there is a deficit in the budget of two out of five schools inspected. We need to deal with the situation and the Government needs to hold an urgent review of funding the schools. Are the funding levels sufficient? And what about the slice of the cake that goes towards education? Does enough of it go to our schools? I hope that the debate tomorrow will point to some of these problems and that the work of the Children, Young People and Education Committee will feed into that discussion.

I conclude on this: the work of this Government is to look long and hard at the evidence and to come to conclusions and take action according to that evidence.

I'd like to thank Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales for his annual report. It's a report card on the performance of Wales's education system, and it appears that we are not doing well enough. While eight in 10 primary schools are deemed good or better, only 8 per cent of Wales's primary schools are classed as excellent schools. Every child in Wales deserves to go to an excellent school, and the standard of your education shouldn't be dependent upon where your parents choose to live, if they even have a choice, which many families do not.

And the outlook for our secondary schools is much bleaker—only around half of Wales's secondary schools are judged to be good or better, and half of the secondary schools inspected in the past year needed follow-up action, and two were placed in special measures. The problem, according to Professor David Reynolds, former education adviser to both the Welsh and the UK Governments, is because we are introducing a new curriculum at the same time as trying to drive up standards in a system that is not all that wonderful by international standards. Standards have improved slightly, and of course that's very welcome, but we still have one of the worst-performing education systems in the world. We are letting down future generations and condemning us to languish at the bottom of the economic league tables. We are preventing half of Wales's young people from achieving their true potential. We have known for years that we weren't helping our brightest, but, as highlighted by the chief inspector's report, we are letting down pupils across all abilities and all age ranges.

I had the pleasure of attending the official opening of Ysgol Carreg Hir in my region, a new primary school resulting from the merger of three primary schools: Bryn Hyfryd and Ynysmaerdy, and one which was in special measures, Llansawel. I have to say that I was very impressed with the new school buildings, the staff and the pupils. The pupils seem to thrive in the new environment, which was conducive to learning, and I have no doubt that the new school will be much better than the sum of its parts, and it will, thanks to the staff, pupils and parents, be judged as excellent when Estyn inspectors visit the school.

However, not all our children and young people are lucky enough to have state-of-the-art learning environments. Many, many pupils are crammed into crumbling classrooms, filled with broken and out-of-date equipment. Teachers and pupils alike do their best, but massive underinvestment and budget cuts have taken their toll. I recently met with the headteacher of Ysgol Gyfun Cymraeg Llangynwyd to discuss the future of Welsh-medium education in the Bridgend county borough. His school had a good rating from Estyn and scored five stars in the 'Real Schools Guide', but he has explained that it is getting harder and harder with the budget to make it stretch as far as it needs to to maintain these standards. The crumbling buildings and chronic underinvestment are taking their toll, and his experience is far from unique. Spending per pupil is much lower than in England or Scotland and has fallen by over £300 in the last decade. No wonder ASCL Cymru were forced to write about the severe funding crisis and its effect on Welsh schools.

Unfortunately, unless we address the funding crisis, more and more schools will be doomed to failure. Every young person in Wales deserves to attend an excellent school like Ysgol Carreg Hir, deserves to receive a world-class education and deserves to be nurtured and challenged to find their true potential. So, this Estyn report should serve as a wake-up call, because we are failing Wales's young people in many areas, and the report card reads 'must do better.'

I now call the Minister for Education to reply to the debate—Kirsty Williams.

Can I begin, Deputy Presiding Officer, by thanking Members for their contribution this afternoon? If I could begin by addressing some of the comments made by Suzy Davies, I'm not the one who's claiming that the culture of co-operation and self-improvement is moving apace. That's what is reported back from the chief inspector himself, and it is that move towards teachers working with other teachers within their own school and schools working with other schools in that culture of collaboration and self-improvement that will really drive the results. It is not top-down intervention from the Government alone that can move the system and move the needle in the way that we have to do.

Now, the Member is right to say that we are providing a greater emphasis on self-evaluation, and in the past it has been noted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that this has not been a strength of our system. And that's why Estyn are working with the OECD to design a self-evaluation toolkit to ensure that there is a consistency in approach to self-evaluation across the Welsh education system and that consistency is also a robust approach to self-evaluation. And the purpose of a reformed inspectorate is for Estyn to be able to validate a school's self-improvement work. If Estyn are confident that that school is doing it well and that their self-evaluation is robust and driving change, then that school will have a greater sense of earned autonomy before Estyn will come back. If Estyn have concerns about that approach, then they will be back at the school more frequently, and that's how we will drive the system forward.

Now, the Member made the point around non-maintained settings, and the report itself doesn't say whether the drop in numbers is a good thing or a bad thing. What it does say—and the Member is right to point out—is that it is not simply the preserve of the maintained settings to offer excellence to our youngest learners. In fact, the quality of our non-maintained sector is commented upon by the chief inspector, and the non-maintained provision for our youngest learners is one of the strengths of our system.

You will know now, and you referenced it, that we are working with colleagues in the health and social services department to ensure that there is a greater joining up of the childcare offer alongside foundation phase, with an opportunity for co-location to make it easy as possible for parents, and you will also be aware that Estyn and Care Inspectorate Wales are now working on joint inspections for those establishments as well, which, again, I think is a better way of moving forward.

If I could turn to Siân Gwenllian, she talked about accountability: where does accountability lie in the system and whose job is it to be accountable? Well, the reality is that accountability lies at different levels, and so it should. Accountability begins with the professional accountability of every single person working in our education system—that professional accountability that drives so many of our educators to ensure that they strive every day to do a fantastic job for the children they work with. The first line of accountability, then, after that, lies with our school governors who, on a day-to-day basis, on a weekly basis, are there to hold the senior management of their schools, of which they are governors, to account. Of course, our regional consortia, our school improvement services and local education authorities have a responsibility for individual schools in their areas, but also on a regional basis. Estyn is there to provide independent assurance for the system as a whole, and Welsh Government are accountable for the quality of the system as a whole.

Now, we do need to move to a situation where Estyn does provide more support for school improvement where a school has been found by Estyn not to be as good as it could be. Let me give you an example of why this is so necessary. I think back to a school in my own constituency, which, over many years, was deemed to be a school in need of special measures. Each time Estyn came to that school, they reported and they disappeared only to come back several months later with a different set of inspectors who asked the schools to jump through a different set of hoops. And when the school was unable to do that, they went away again, only to come back months later with a different set of people again. Now, that's not the way I want our inspectorate to behave. We need to have Estyn, our inspectors, around the table with our school improvement services, with our LEAs, to create a plan for that school and to work with others to ensure that that plan is delivered and that that school moves out of a category more quickly than some of our schools do at the moment. And it's a vision that I share with the chief inspector, because I think Estyn has more to do than it is currently doing at the moment.

With regard to frequency of inspections, the issue lies in the fact that you can put your child into the Welsh education system at the moment, and your child can go through the education system through the entirety of their career and not be subject to a school inspection. What we do know is that some schools that are in a category can improve really, really quickly, but we also know that the good schools can go down really, really quickly, and this system that is being proposed today and will be consulted upon gives us the opportunity to provide parents with better real-time data and information about what is going on in their schools. Plaid Cymru might not want—. They said they want greater accountability—Plaid Cymru may not want that accountability, but I think parents want to see more timely, up-to-date data about what's going on in their children's schools than is currently available. And we have to get away—. Plaid Cymru have to acknowledge that we are moving to a different type of inspection system, and we're doing it to help us make sure that all of our children get a fantastic education.

Can I just say, about Caroline Jones—? She says that we have the worst system in the world, but I'm very glad that then she went on to clarify that by giving some examples of fantastic schools in her own region that are doing a great job. She says we're not doing enough for our more able and talented students. We have introduced a more able and talented programme, we are extending our Seren programme not just to sixth formers and post-16 learners, but to younger learners. And with regard to school buildings, band A, which is coming to an end, and band B, which is shortly to start, will see the biggest investment in our school and college building programme since the 1960s. Can I—

Will you take an intervention? Thank you very much. I was listening to what you've just been saying, particularly in relation to Caroline Jones's contribution. I still don't think you've given us an answer why we still have so many persistent failing schools—and I use 'failing' advisedly. There is a certain cohort of schools that is still not moving out of special measures and so on, despite years and years of intervention. What is it?

I agree with you that there are certain schools that appear in red categorisation and in Estyn categorisation too often, and we could probably all, between us, name those schools, which is why I made reference in my speech to changing the role of Estyn so they're not simply there to make a judgment—they have to be part of that school improvement, they have to be more proactive in school improvement than simply making a judgment—and why I have said that we will be reviewing how we can make more effective interventions for those schools, because it is not right that those schools are left in those situations, sometimes for a period of years. We have to have a more effective way of moving those schools more quickly than we currently do at the moment, and I acknowledged that in my opening speech. And that is about challenging local authorities about their powers of intervention, and, where they're not willing to use those powers of intervention either to remove governing bodies, to remove delegated financial regimes or to have other interventions, then we, as a Welsh Government, will have to do that.

If I can conclude, because I'm just about to run out of time. I was going to cover in my closing speech, instead of responding to questions, some of the issues that were raised in my written statement this afternoon. There are significant education reforms taking place. Estyn cannot escape those reforms. I'm glad to be working with the chief inspector to implement the findings of Graham Donaldson's review into a reformed inspectorate, which I believe are crucial to delivering on all of our aspirations to ensure that every child has access to a first-class education system. But as the chief inspector says himself, Deputy Presiding Officer—and I wish that more of our Members would have acknowledged it this afternoon—there is much to be proud of in our system.

Thank you. The proposal is to agree amendment 1. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Thank you. You are going to have to shout 'object' faster and a lot louder as well. 

Voting deferred until voting time.

Okay, so we will now move to voting time on this.

Presiding Officer, just to make a comment, my system has crashed for about the third time today, and I'm happy to vote manually.

I'm being reliably informed as long as your lights are working when we come to voting, you don't need the system. So, unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I am now going to move to voting time.