Original Summary

As you dip into the valley on the way into Merthyr Tydfil, a new earthy-toned building dominates the view. It's the new site of Saint Carlo Acutis Catholic School. With its rooftop science garden, solar panels and floor-to-ceiling windows, it's an impressive sight. Excited staff and 940 pupils moved into the £50m complex at the start of September. But they did so just as the Welsh education system was being painted in a less positive light, with Wales once again ranking the worst of UK nations in global tests. "It casts doubt over a system we're proud of and children that we're proud of," says Sarah Hopkins, who's been a headteacher here for eight years. She says it doesn't tell the full story but admits "it is disappointing". Welsh parents are currently thinking about the next steps for their children, with application deadlines for secondary school places at the end of this month. That comes at a time when the test results pose difficult questions about why Wales has so clearly underperformed relative to its closest neighbours. And with Wales's devolved government now run by a party other than Labour for the first time ever, can the new Plaid Cymru administration do what it's promised and improve standards? A growing gap Sarah Hopkins started teaching in 1998 - a year before the Welsh Assembly, now the Senedd, took over responsibility for education in Wales from Westminster. In that time she's had to navigate many system-wide and school changes. The latest challenge has been managing the big move from the old mishmash of 1960s-built classrooms to the vast new building. But buildings alone do not drive excellence, and the gap between Wales and the other UK countries is getting wider. Sarah Hopkins describes the Wales Pisa results as "disappointing" Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) measures teenagers' skills in reading, maths and science. Sat by a sample of 15-year-olds – 3,406 in Wales in 2025, including some in Sarah Hopkins' school - it provides a snapshot of how education systems are performing. On the day results were published, Wales' education Minister, Anna Brychan, euphemistically said they were "not where we want them to be". Others called them catastrophic. The graphs are stark. Wales first took part in the tests in 2006. There have been upticks along the way. But when the pandemic affected scores across the board in 2022, Wales fell back furthest. And the gulf grew in the latest results. The OECD, the global economic development body which runs Pisa, says that 20 points equates to roughly a year of learning. That would mean Welsh 15-year-olds are about two years behind England's in reading, science and maths. In reading, they also trail teenagers in Scotland and Northern Ireland by a year. The tests alone don't capture everything schools do to support pupils, "whether that's a clean jumper, whether that's having a pen and a pencil" says Hopkins. And there are long-standing debates about the methodology of the tests. But nobody in Wales is pretending there's nothing to worry about. Clear, red water Soon after the devolved administration was established, the Welsh Labour government of the early 2000s used its powers over education and other public services to go off on a different course to Tony Blair's Labour government at Westminster - creating what the then Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan called "clear, red water". Secondary school league tables and standardised tests at seven, 11 and 14 (SATs) were scrapped. A new learning-through-play approach for the youngest pupils was an early flagship policy. Poor Pisa results in 2010 brought about a drastic reappraisal. Plain speaking Education Minister Leighton Andrews called the results a "wake-up call" for a "complacent" system and introduced a new raft of reforms. Alongside a literacy and numeracy drive, Andrews re-introduced accountability measures with annual reading and maths tests for seven-to-14 year olds, and a new school performance regime, called banding. Pupils at Saint Carlo Acutis Catholic School are studying in a brand-new building There were some parallels between the political styles of Andrews and the man in charge of England's schools system at the time, Conservative Michael Gove, who was on his own controversial education mission with an emphasis on high-stakes accountability. The two seemed to relish their occasional public spats over policy. But policies introduced by Andrews lost their bite over time. The school banding system was changed and eventually dropped altogether during the pandemic. Tests later evolved into personalised assessments. And the focus moved to developing a new curriculum in Wales, something which Andrews recently said was a "distraction" from efforts to drive up standards. Sir Nick Gibb, a former schools minister at Westminster who worked under Michael Gove, believes the main reason for Wales' Pisa woes is weak accountability. He says "schools are spending billions of pounds of public money and they're not being held to account for the results that they produce". He argues that focusing on the "science of learning" paid dividends with England's move up international education rankings. Primary schools in England were told they had to use a structured form of phonics to teach young children to read. This was reinforced with a phonics screening check for six-year-olds. Sir Nick claims education standards in Wales and Scotland suffered because they didn't do the same. A new plan In general, education ministers in England have been more likely to set direction for teachers, highlighted by the approach to phonics. In Wales, for the most part, the mantra has been to trust the profession. And though that freedom sounds good in theory, it has pitfalls. It's the thinking at the heart of the new curriculum for Wales - dubbed the biggest reform to Welsh education in a generation. There's widespread support for the core purposes of the curriculum which aim to create well-rounde

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  • 发布时间：2026/10/15 08:01:46