Education in Wales works!

It’s another of those myths that education in Wales isn’t as good as in England. You’d also think reading the newspapers that it would be a good idea to bring Free Schools and Academy’s to Wales, but there’s no evidence that they make any difference!

At Key stages 2 pupils in Wales performed better than their counterparts in England in Maths and Science.   The difference in performance was greatest in Science: in 2013, 90 per cent of pupils in Wales achieved the expected level compared with 88 per cent in England.  For the second consecutive year, pupils in Wales matched their English counterparts in English.  In 2013, pupils in maintained schools in Wales achieved higher results than all GORs in England in Science. Results for Wales were one percentage point below the highest performing GORs* in both English and Mathematics.

At Key stage 3 in 2013, pupils in Wales performed better than their counterparts in England in Science for the first time since 2005.  English pupils continue to perform better than their Welsh counterparts in English, however, the difference decreased by 2 percentage points since 2012.  Results for pupils in Wales were lower than all GORs in England for English. For Mathematics, the Welsh figure matched the average for England and was one percentage point behind the highest performing GORs. Wales matched the highest performing GORs in England in Science. *GORs: Government Office Regions

Evidence, and facts. That’s what we seem to receive so rarely, and what it seems so easy to find these days with so much information on available on the internet.

The NFER report, A Guide to the Evidence on Academies, concludes,

‘attainment progress in sponsored academies compared to similar non-academies is not significantly different over time when the outcome is measured as GCSE points, excluding equivalent qualifications such as BTECs. This suggests that sponsored academies either use more equivalent qualifications, or that their pupils do better in them’.