Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:54 pm on 25 June 2019.
First Minister, your Liberal Democrat Minister published on Thursday a statement further watering down school accountability in Wales. Her new measures will remove the emphasis on the level 2 inclusive measure for GCSE, despite that grade C to D boundary being so important for school and university, particularly in maths and English, when people consider future employment. Measure-specific targets will be removed and, instead, schools will determine their own non-specific targets. We're told that your Government, or at least the Liberal Democrat element, believes that these changes will provide greater autonomy for schools to self-improve. Don't they also give schools more scope to deteriorate without parents being able to hold them to account?