5. Statement by the Minister for Education and Welsh Language: Evaluating and Improving Education and Learning in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:20 pm on 28 June 2022.

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Photo of Vikki Howells Vikki Howells Labour 4:20, 28 June 2022

Thank you for your statement, Minister. I think there is certainly a lot to welcome in this new approach. I appreciate the need for transparency and openness, but when our schools, our learners and our communities are so varied, with widely different challenges, there were elements of the old system of categorization that could be somewhat reductive, and that was something that I saw and felt myself in my many years in the teaching profession. So, I was particularly interested to read the section of the guidance around learner progression for individuals, groups and schools, going back to the notion of value added, which was a very good way, I felt, of measuring pupil progress and school attainment several years ago. So, the exploration of value added is a useful way of measuring the extent to which attainment gaps have been closed for our eligible for free school meals pupils and our additional learning needs pupils, for example, capturing the individual journeys of learners, focusing on their needs and also levelling the playing field. Minister, would you agree with me that this is perhaps the most accurate way of measuring and locating good teaching, and how will this new approach that we see evident here then aid in the sharing of this type of learner-focused best practice?