Education: System measuring Wales’ school performance scrapped

A color coding system to measure school performance in Wales will be phased out.

The national school categorization system rated schools as green, amber, amber, and red based on the need for assistance needed.

The Welsh Government said it would be replaced by “a robust self-assessment system” but Welsh Conservatives called it “change for the sake of it”.

Some principals and parents have welcomed the move.

Launched in 2015, the process was evaluated for recognizing schools and promoting the competition.

However, it was paused during the pandemic.

Education Secretary Jeremy Miles said the change would give parents “better and more up-to-date information” from a summary of each school’s improvement priorities and development plan, which will be published on their websites.

He said the focus will be on student progress, “rather than headline descriptions.”

Tories have argued the color-coding system is “a very useful way of tracking a school’s progress” but said it could be improved.

“The problem was how to communicate why your school is going from green to red and red to green,” added the party’s education spokesperson, Laura Anne Jones.

“I think the way it communicates needs to change, but I think the system itself has been very, very good.”

She said it not only provides useful information for parents, but also for politicians and local government to support schools.

“We need to get the system working instead of just scrapping it and replacing it with something new.”

At the Amaze Playz Play Center in Cardiff, most parents are just beginning to think about where their young children will go to school.

Ellis, mother of an 11-month-old daughter, said word of mouth, the quality of care and afternoon clubs are more important to her than academic standards.

“Since I’m only looking at elementary schools, I think the rankings for how the kids are doing aren’t quite in my head yet because it’s more like ‘is she being looked after?’ and ‘will she enjoy it?’ and ‘Are the teachers nice?’” she said.

Former teacher Sam, who has a three-and-a-half-year-old son who will start kindergarten in September, said: “Personally, I don’t take very much notice of all these things [school ratings].

“I think from within, as a teacher and I know how they work.

“It’s often because of the area and the intake and all those things and it doesn’t always reflect how good the actual school is.”

The new system comes with changes in the way Estyn inspects schools – away from giving grades of excellent, good, fair and unsatisfactory to looking at areas of development and strengths.

From September 2024 there will also be more frequent inspections, the Welsh government said.

The end of categorization was welcomed by the Headmaster at Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy Secondary School in Llanrwst, Conwy County.

“Obviously, to see a school that was in a red category versus yellow or even green was seen as a negative impact on that school,” said Owain Gethin Davies.

He felt that this could affect parents’ choice of school and the data could be misinterpreted. Parents also wanted to know how their school was doing, but there should be much more emphasis on how a school promotes the well-being of young people, he added.