 |
| What the welsh education system won't be producing anytime soon. |
One policy that is said to be a "National Priority" by the Welsh Government and its inspectorate, Estyn, is that relating to more able and talented pupils.
Despite the hyperbole, only rarely - and these are Estyn's own words - is there evidence of an able pupils policy working in anything like an ideal way. In many cases, it doesn't operate at all. How's that for a national priority?
Even reaching a definition of the terms 'able' and 'talented' immediately leads to utter confusion. One agency will use one definition, a school somewhere else will lift a definition of the first internet site they consult and mindlessly adopt that. Inevitably, there are even workshops to thrash out what a consensus definition might be.
The statistics bear out the confusion. At the end of the Foundation Phase, you have attainment or outcome levels 1-6 (with a few tragic categories below 1) and then an 'A'. Let's look at the definitions from 5 onwards:
(5) The expected outcome for most but not all children. Everyday language: average ouctome.
(6) Outcome above average. Everyday language: not very clear, but doing very well might be good.
(A) Outcome significantly above average. Everyday language: more able pupils.
Category (A) should mesh nicely with the 10-20% upper achievers in any cohort. To be clear, that's because 10-20% means the child is performing above 80-90% of their peers. 'Significantly above average' matches this perfectly.
But. What happens when we look at real world data? I take the example of a very well-respected school that shall remain anonymous. It, like just about all schools, seems to stop reporting anybody attaining above level 6. It's not clear - at all - why that is.
Indeed, it doesn't make any sense.
If we expect 10-20% of pupils will fly above the rest, where on earth are they in the yearly outcome figures? Absent, is the only available answer. For the Wales average, it seems a tiny number of schools do report level (A), coming in after averaging with the overwhelming majority that don't bother, at between 0.2 to 0.3% of the end of Foundation Phase year.
The system is a Welsh mess. It needs sorting out as a matter of urgency. Not only are kids unable to work their maths out, the very people setting their education system in place are lost.
If you are a parent having the misfortune of trying to explain all this to a headteacher, God help you! You will be met with some bland and usually senseless explanation as to why their school does things differently or not at all. Otherwise, the school will simply see itself a victim of the 'way things are done', and shrug its shoulders. If you persist in trying to get the best for your able child, I predict that you will quickly find yourself frustrated and possibly falling out over obvious errors of logic within the education system.
The sad reality at the moment in Wales is that there is both a philosophical antagonism and lack of resources to provide the support high flying pupils need and are expected to be given. It is a toxic mix of factors that in pretty much all schools means able pupils are simply left to rot.
Far from being a National Priority, the implementation of the Welsh Government's Able Pupils Policy is a National Disgrace.
