Item 5 on the agenda this afternoon is the motion to annul the School Performance and Absence Targets (Wales) (Amendments) Regulations 2019, and I call on Suzy Davies to move the motion—Suzy.

Motion NDM7106 Suzy Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales in accordance with Standing Order 27.2:

Agrees that The School Performance and Absence Targets (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2019, laid before the Assembly on 6 June 2019, be annulled.

Motion moved.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I move the motion.

I tabled this motion today for two particular reasons. The first is that these are pretty important changes to the current system of assessing the performance of a school, and the second, which isn't a matter for this Minister in particular, but, I hope, for Government generally—I hope, Minister, that you will forgive me for using this particular example to make the point.

The Minister has previously explained to us that the current system of school performance assessment can lead to unintended consequences. Every year, school governors have to set targets for pupil performance in the second and third key stages in the core subjects of maths, English, Welsh and science and there is a similar process, I understand, for students reaching 16 and facing external exams. They also have to set performance targets in two or three other subjects, which are non-specified. The school can then be judged on the performance according to its success or otherwise in reaching those targets— something that becomes particularly visible at the end of year 11, where the comparison is not made between targets and teacher assessment, but between targets and exam results. And that, as we've heard, can lead to schools putting a disproportionate effort into timetabling for the core subjects and gaming the system by entering students for exams that can only ever produce a grade C GCSE equivalent.

As part of wider reforms, and to deter this behaviour, the Minister's moving towards new evaluation and improvement arrangements. We've already got some interim key stage 4 performance measures, I think, which we'll see worked through for this summer’s exams. And the current setting of targets process doesn’t align with this new-look performance measure and doesn’t bring anything to a school’s self-evaluation and improvement. Furthermore, governors are being asked to set targets on what will be an obsolete set of requirements. I think that’s core of the Minister’s argument, but, if I’ve got it wrong, I’m more than happy to be corrected.

Now, these regulations still require governors to set targets; it looks like it’s still six. But the requirement for any of those to be the core subjects of English, Welsh or maths will go, as will the need to report on the percentage of pupils who achieve those targets. Now, we may have an issue with the idea of a school being set targets by its own governors and not knowing how close or far away from those targets its pupil results were. But the first purpose of bringing this motion to the Chamber is not to challenge the Minister’s general direction of travel but to give you, Minister, an opportunity to explain to us directly why you're content for schools to be able to avoid setting targets in these three subjects in particular.

English and maths and, increasingly, good Welsh-language skills, are still considered essential requirements in any job application. And, even if the new performance framework is about self-evaluation and self-improvement, and even if pupils are doing well in these core subjects, isn't there an argument for keeping these three subjects as a point of focus in every school, bearing in mind their particular status for moving on to further education, training or work?

Now, I accept there's an argument that an individual school may decide that it is in six entirely different areas that it needs to improve. But I can see nothing in the existing or the new regulations preventing setting targets in more than six areas. Until we get into the new curriculum fully, and we can see how the maths and numeracy and languages, literacy and communication areas of learning and experience present, I'm asking Members just to consider that governors must keep these three subjects as annual target items until the new curriculum has worked its way through a little bit, and—unless the Minister can persuade us why not—to support the annulment of these particular regulations.

The second reason for tabling this motion is because it was the only way of getting this issue to the Chamber. This is not the fault of the Minister, but a perfect example of why we as a legislature should exercise caution about leaving too much to secondary legislation where the exercise of Welsh ministerial powers can go unnoticed. Now, these regulations arise from Westminster statutes, but the point applies to our primary legislation too. Here is an important change to the overview, and possibly the status, of English, Welsh and maths within our current education system, introduced via the negative procedure, which I wouldn't even have known about if I hadn't happened to be in a Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee on a given day.

And I'm asking: is it right that we as a legislature are asked to legislate, in the case of the negative procedure, by dint of deemed consent, if we don’t know that these regulations are coming through? And so I'm asking Welsh Government to consider a more proactive way of directly publishing its secondary legislation to spokespeople at the very, very least. The legislation Act is all about the accessibility of law and us as Members having to randomly trawl through the national archives on the off-chance that we might find something really doesn’t count as accessible. And while I repeat, Minister, this is not a matter for you uniquely, I think it is something that the Welsh Government should take account of because it's hindering us doing our work. Thank you. 

Plaid Cymru will abstain on this issue, not because we are sitting on the fence in terms of these regulations, but as a signal of our dissatisfaction with the process. The regulations do scrap the statutory need for schools to set particular targets, because the circumstances have changed. That is sensible, and we do agree with that change, and the move away from that narrow focus on borderline grades, which is that narrow focus on increasing grades from D to C. Now, generally speaking, I think schools welcome the change, and it will give them the ability to develop real meaningful targets that will help to raise standards for all pupils. So, we don’t abstain because of the particular issue covered in the regulations. The reason that we will abstain is to make the point that Suzy Davies has already made as her second reason for tabling this annulment motion—that this is the only way of getting a debate on this in the Chamber. It is important that we don’t use secondary legislation and the negative procedure too much. There is a risk that Ministers will use their powers and make changes without much discussion at all. That isn’t healthy for our democracy. Government needs to be as open and as transparent as possible, and it is important that the legislature can scrutinise fully issues of importance. Certainly, that is one reason why we believe that we need to move urgently towards having more Assembly Members in the Welsh Parliament, so that that scrutiny can happen properly. I agree with Suzy also that it would be beneficial for the Government to adopt a transparent method of introducing secondary legislation. I know that this isn’t specifically a matter for the Minister in terms of the second part of what I’ve just said, but I do hope that this discussion will engender that change that is so necessary. 

I'd like to thank Suzy Davies for raising this issue, because obviously 6 June was a Thursday when we weren't sitting, and it was a written statement, so it could very easily have passed us all by. And I think that the subject under consideration here—it looks very dry and it's quite difficult to understand exactly what governors are going to be expected to do. But, fundamentally, this is a really, really important issue. So, I think it's very much worthy of discussion in the Senedd.

I think we have to avoid teaching to the test, which is what has been going on—certainly in some schools. There is nothing served by learning by rote, because it won't serve the young person well in the future, when the jobs that they're going to need to do in the future simply don't exist. So, we have to have something that's in line with the new curriculum and the areas of learning and the ability of students to adapt their learning to suit unforeseen circumstances. It seems to me that is really, really important.

So, I can see the value of enabling governors individually to be able to look at particular targets in their school. For example, if Estyn has highlighted that music or the dual language offer is weak, then clearly that governing body may want to set a target for how the school is progressing in addressing those weaknesses. But I think what we need to get away from is this narrow focus on the C/D borderline, which does not serve most pupils well. I want to see all schools being judged by the value they add to the learning of each and every individual, rather than the previous method, which was simply allowing schools to tread water in the proverbial leafy suburbs, where it was pretty easy, on the whole, to achieve the targets we were setting them, and simply wasn't judging them against the raw materials that were coming into the school in the first place.

So, I very much welcome this debate. I think it's one we can and should come back to. So, thank you, Suzy Davies.

I'd like to congratulate Suzy Davies for bringing this motion to annul today, and also for alerting me to this motion in the Chamber when I raised this, I think two weeks ago, at First Minister's questions, when I did bring it to the Chamber in another context. Generally, I support what Suzy has said about making it easier and more accessible for spokespeople and, indeed, other Assembly Members to note what is proposed, particularly when what is proposed is significant. In this case, I was aware of these regulations, hence why I raised them with the First Minister. I don't actually recall what it was I read, or what I saw that happened to make me aware of them—I'm very pleased I was. But I also support arrangements to make it easier for us to be aware of the important issues that we really should debate in this Chamber, as we are today, thank you to you, Suzy.

I disagree, though, I think, with a couple of points that you raise—or I at least have a difference in emphasis. I would challenge the overall direction of travel from this Government in terms of school performance targets. I think there is a real issue in Wales, and a real issue—whether it's a Labour-led Government, or having a Lib Dem in the post, there may be differences of opinions. But there is a lack of accountability, there is a lack of ability for parents to make meaningful comparisons between schools, in a way that is taken for granted in England. And when you compare the trajectory and overall performance of the school system in England versus Wales, and note that that has taken place against a background where there has been significantly more information published in England, and presented in a way that parents and others, including elected representatives, can compare, to hold schools and Government to account—I think that is too much to consider that to be a coincidence.

Suzy put the emphasis on the English or Welsh and the maths. And yes, that's part of the threshold too, but it's also five good GCSEs at grade C or above, including English or Welsh and maths. And it is that threshold that's perhaps been the key driver in terms of the targets that have been set in England, and have seen such performance in overall performances against those targets, but most especially in London. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that in Wales. And to move away from this, the one area where schools are required to set a target, on a specified threshold, where we can actually compare them, where there can be pressure put on different schools as to how they are doing, and why it's not better, or how it compares to other schools—. If we lose that, we lose a hugely important lever in driving up, hopefully, school performance. It hasn't been happening in Wales, and I fear that the key reason it hasn't been happening is the refusal to publish information on a consistent basis, to set targets on a consistent basis and to hold schools to account.

I also think that the C/D threshold is a very important one. I have sympathy with arguments around gaming and I think particularly the early entry and the steps that the Minister has taken to at least limit that compared to what we were seeing are good. But actually if you get a C or a D it is very, very significant for that individual. In many jobs, you are required to have at least a level C pass at English or Welsh and maths, and if you don't have that, opportunities may not be available that otherwise would. So, actually, if there is a significant emphasis on schools on trying to get children through that to get five good GCSEs and make sure they're at least the level they need to have in those key subjects, then I think that's something to be welcomed. It is a target that we should have for schools. I greatly regret that the Government is proposing to do away with at least the compulsory setting of that target, and we look forward to supporting Suzy Davies's motion to annul. 

Thank you. Can I now call the Minister for Education to speak? Kirsty Williams.  

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome very much the opportunity to respond to this motion and to clarify the need for these regulatory amendments. I appreciate that the progress of education reform in Wales, as set out in our national mission, is moving at pace, and I always welcome scrutiny at every stage. Over the past year, I have made no fewer than five oral or written statements on matters relating to our new system of school accountability. These have provided updates on policy changes that form part of the implementation of the recommendations arising from 'Successful Futures', something that has received mostly—I'm not quite sure what the Brexit Party feels about it—cross-party support in this Chamber. 

Let me first be clear that annulling these regulations will not reverse the changes I actually announced in May 2018 to key stage 4 performance measures, which were developed through collaboration with headteachers and key stakeholders. It would, however, create an unreasonable situation in which schools would be expected to set targets for achievement measures that will no longer be reported upon. The target setting regulations, as they currently stand, do not align with the key stage 4 performance measures that we will be reporting on—quite rightly, Suzy—from this year. 

The outcome of the consultation on these amending regulations showed that stakeholders, which included schools, local authorities and teaching unions, are generally in support of the proposals and the policy intentions. Requiring schools to set targets based on a narrow set of highly prescriptive indicators has generally been deemed unhelpful by schools and those that have scrutinised our education system, and has driven a very specific focus on elements of quality at the expense of more rounded self-evaluation and reflection.

Mr Reckless might be quite happy with that focus on the C/D boundary, and I don't have any argument with him if a child is on that boundary—a C, of course, is helpful to them. But what about the progress of the child who should have been getting an A* or an A, whose school perhaps had said to that parent, 'I'm going to enter your child for a certain tier of maths paper or English paper', knowing that the maximum that they could get was a C? Now, that's fine for the school's performance measures, but if that child could have gone on to get a B or an A or an A*, they have been denied that chance, and the system that has helped the school achieve what it wants, but doesn't necessarily help the child achieve—[Interruption.] I'll give way. 

So surely, then, what we need is accountability, measurements, targets, ability to compare those, rather than rounded self-evaluation that might otherwise be termed schools marking their own homework?  

What we will have instead, from this summer, is a points-based score system, where every child's achievements—every child, from the highest achievers to those for whom actually getting a D is a massive achievement for them—will be counted. And we will still have headline measures for counting English, maths, as well as science. We're not getting rid of accountability. We're moving to a smarter accountability where every child matters in our system, the performance of every child matters in our system and, crucially, we measure the impact of that child's progress through the education system. So, if you came in expecting a certain grade at year 7, then we can track that child's progress and the impact that that school has had on that particular child.

What we know is—. And, Suzy, I think, in your response to my statement last year, you recognised that the unintended consequences—whether they should have been foreseen by previous Governments or unforeseen—have led to a narrowing of curriculum, and indeed, timetabling that has led to subjects such as history, geography, drama, art, music and French being driven out of the curriculum, as teachers concentrate their timetabling lessons, sometimes for entire half terms, simply on English and maths to the exclusion of everything else I think we want our children to learn and achieve in our schools. 

Now, the purpose of these amending regulations is not to remove quality control from our school accountability system. Schools will continue to be inspected; parents and guardians will continue to receive reports on progress of learners; schools will still be required to set targets for improvement and local authorities will continue to quality assure those targets; and Estyn will also inspect local authorities and regional consortia and judge the arrangements in place in each region, to ensure rigour and consistency. And it is a fallacy to say that parents don’t have access to information. You only have to go onto the ‘My local school’ website here, this afternoon, in the Chamber, and you get a very, very full and rich picture of what is going on in individual schools.

Now, our national mission sets out our vision for an accountability system that is fair, coherent, proportionate, transparent and is based on our shared values for the Welsh education system, and not market values, Mr Reckless. The new evaluation and improvement arrangements will help bring about the cultural change that is ultimately needed to support the realisation of our new curriculum.

Will the Member give way? No-one is suggesting a market—it's just parents having to pay merely being able to compare how well schools are doing, to inform their judgments of (1), where they want their children to go to school, and (2), then how to help those schools get better by holding them to account.

It pretty much sounds like a market to me, Deputy Presiding Officer, and that’s fine. The Member is perfectly entitled to have those values underpinning his approach to education policy. That’s absolutely fine. The reality of living in our country, Mark—the reality of living in this country—is that, actually, children don’t have the ability to move around—[Interruption.] The reality is that we need every school to be a good local school and not to be able to have a situation where parents who can afford to move into the right catchment areas are able to do so. All schools need to be good schools regardless of where they are. And we do not move schools forward by setting them against each other.

At the heart is robust and continuous self-evaluation for all tiers of the education system and not teachers holding their arms around what’s good practice in their school. We need to break that open and share that good practice, and you don’t do it if you create a market system where schools compete against each other, and there is self-interest in not sharing that good practice.

Now, we also need to use these targets, along with professional dialogue, to support learning and improvement, embed collaboration, as I’ve just said, build trust in our profession, drive self-improvement and raise standards for all of our learners. Outside accountability will continue to be a feature of our system, but we will provide greater autonomy for schools to self-improve and develop genuine targets that contribute to raising the quality of education in schools and the standards of their learners’ achievements specific to their needs in their schools.

The requirement for schools' governing bodies to set performance- measure targets at key stage 4 will be removed in favour of increasing the number of non-specific targets that must be set, based on schools’ evaluation. So, actually, we’re asking them to set more targets than they’re actually setting at the moment, but they will have the autonomy to reflect on their own performance and judge where they need to make the improvement. Our plans are about making sure that the way in which we assess schools’ performance represents performance of the school in the round and more trust will be given to our educational professionals who are there, day in, day out, in our classrooms and those who lead our schools to identify the matters that mean the most to them in their local context.

I ask Members to vote against the motion today and not take a step back on an important, practical step in helping to bring about the cultural change that I believe is ultimately needed within our schools and will be needed to deliver on our national mission. I take the point that Suzy Davies makes about procedure. I’m very happy to reflect on the way in which we undertake those procedures in the context of the department for education, and I’m sure that colleagues in wider Government will reflect on the points that have been made today. The procedure has not been there to avoid scrutiny, but I shall reflect on that with any other further legislation or regulations that we bring forward in the education department.

Can I now call Suzy Davies to reply to the debate?

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you very much to all Members who took part in this debate today, and I'm glad, Jenny Rathbone, you thought this was important enough to discuss. Perhaps I can just begin with the Minister's points. This has been brought at a higher level to the Chamber before; it's not complete news to us. But the very specifics of English, maths and Welsh, we hadn't had a chance to discuss those. Even though I agree with what you said in your response to this debate, that we have been told about this before and something needs to change, I don't think you did cover off the English, maths and Welsh part particularly, because those particular subjects, in our current system—not our current education system, but in our current economic system, our higher and further education system—have a unique status. They're always asked for, and I would be very worried if schools were given the opportunities not to make those three subject areas one of the six or more that they're going to be setting targets in the new way on, and that's why I chose these particular regulations rather than any others. So, perhaps you can reflect a little bit more on that.

Teaching to a test—yes, we agree with you there, Jenny, but, as I say, these three subjects are priorities, I think, for any school, however good it is and however well it's been performing in those three areas up until now.

More Members—now then, that won't solve the problem if these regulations are hidden. We can have 160 Members, but if we can't find these regulations, they still can't be scrutinised by anyone. So, I'm grateful to you, Minister, for the final points that you made there.

Will you take an interevention?

Yes, of course.

Having more of us would mean that there are more of us to look for the regulations or anything that is hidden. My problem is that there is a lot that we don't know about, and because there are so few of us, we haven't got time to actually delve into the lack of transparency that Government seems to like.

It's a perfectly good answer, Siân. 'We are AMs, not detectives,' I suppose would be my response to that, but it's not a reason for not having more AMs, incidentally.

Mark Reckless—school performance and how to judge it. Actually, I think this is worthy, perhaps, of a full debate at some point. I'd be very happy for the leader of the Brexit Party to table that. My thinking at the moment is that something has to change, and I'm more than happy to give the Minister's new look a chance to see how it works. It may be that they'll be fantastic and we'll have a really good idea about school performance, or they may not work. We need to give them a chance, and we need to have the opportunity to see if they do work. I hope they do, obviously, for the sake of our children and our teachers and staff. The Welsh Conservative jury is out on that at the moment, but we've got to give it a fair chance. So, thank you to everyone who took part today.

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we will defer the voting on this item until voting time.

Item 6 on the agenda—[Interruption.] I don't mind, I heard 'object', so—[Interruption.] No, no, I heard 'object', and so we defer the voting under this item. I don't care who calls 'object' out; I've heard it.

Voting deferred until voting time.