Thematic Report: Developing pupils’ Welsh reading skills from 10-14 years of age
Executive summary
Following the publication of a report on pupils’ English reading skills from 10-14 years of age by Estyn in May 2023, we set out to produce a report on how Welsh and bilingual schools develop pupils’ Welsh reading skills across the curriculum. In autumn 2023, we visited twenty Welsh-medium and bilingual primary, secondary and all-age schools, in addition to a few immersion units, to evaluate pupils’ Welsh reading skills across the curriculum in Year 6 and Years 7-9 and look at what schools were doing to develop these skills. Schools were selected based on their size, type, geographical location and socio-economic context to provide a cross‑section of schools in Wales. In each school visited, meetings were held with senior leaders, literacy co-ordinators, teachers and pupils. We observed sessions where reading skills were being developed or consolidated. We looked at pupils’ work and any documents the schools had on developing reading skills and on transition arrangements. A pupil survey was carried out in the Urdd Eisteddfod in June 2023 and a pupil questionnaire was distributed to those schools within the sample and over two thousand pupils responded. We also drew on evidence from primary, secondary and all-age inspections of schools outside the sample during 2023-2024.
Our report on Welsh reading skills highlights a number of strengths and areas that need to be addressed to ensure improvements. In addition to the examples of good practice in schools, we have included suggestions within each chapter to help schools strengthen their practices in developing pupils’ reading skills. The first chapter, ‘Pupils’ standards and attitudes’ focuses on the development of pupils’ reading skills across the curriculum and pupils’ attitudes to reading. The second chapter has two parts. The first part, ‘Teaching and learning experiences’ considers the offer provided by schools to strengthen pupils’ reading skills whilst ‘Leadership and planning for improvement’ notes how leaders prioritise reading in their schools. The report also looks at provision within immersion units. The third chapter, ‘Promoting a reading culture’ describes the way in which effective schools create a reading culture successfully and engage pupils’ interest in full. Appendix 1 lists the responses to the pupil questionnaire that was distributed to those schools within the sample and over two thousand pupils responded.
It is unsurprising that the negative impact of the pandemic remains clear on the standard of pupils’ Welsh reading skills in general, with a minority of pupils having lost the confidence to communicate and read in Welsh. Nearly all pupils from the sample of schools visited and who responded to our survey understand the importance of reading to support their learning and future life chances. However, for a majority of pupils, their enjoyment of reading decreases from the age of 10 to 14.
Many young people from 10 to 14 years of age used basic reading skills, such as annotating, locating and scanning information successfully to find the main messages and key information. Overall, a higher proportion of Year 6 pupils are making good progress in developing their advanced reading skills than in Years 7-9. This is partly because of the challenges of co-ordinating the progressive development of reading skills consistently across the range of subjects and teachers in the secondary phase. Our findings show that the most beneficial opportunities to develop reading skills could be seen in Welsh lessons or language sessions and within the humanities subjects. However, the advanced reading skills of a majority of pupils in Years 7-9 did not develop as well due to the lack of purposeful opportunities to develop their reading skills across the curriculum.
Many of the strengths and shortcomings we found in the English reading thematic were also evident in Welsh medium and bilingual schools. Whilst leaders in nearly all schools visited recognised the importance of prioritising the development of pupils’ reading skills, often this didn’t translate into effective provision across the curriculum, particularly in the secondary sector. Coordinating provision to develop pupils’ reading skills was in its early stages in a majority of secondary schools. Leaders in a minority of primary schools and a majority of secondary and all-age schools did not use a wide enough range of evidence to identify the exact aspects that need to be improved and plan relevant actions. They were over-reliant on data only, rather than combining it with first-hand evidence of pupils’ progress from lessons and books. Only a minority of leaders monitored and evaluated the effect of reading strategies across the school robustly enough. There were very few reading schemes or platforms available through the medium of Welsh compared to English to help schools to monitor pupils’ progress in reading.
Our findings show that very few clusters of primary and secondary schools planned together effectively to develop pupils’ reading skills from Year 6 to Year 7. This was also the case in many all-age schools, which teach pupils from both the primary and secondary phases. A barrier to this planning is the size of the cluster and the fact that a number of primary schools are within the catchment area of more than one secondary school or, at times, are cross-county.
The immersion units and Welsh language centres we visited worked effectively in developing the Welsh skills of pupils who transfer from English medium‑ education at a late stage. Teachers used subject terminology and vocabulary correctly and consistently which allowed pupils to develop as fluent speakers. These pupils made swift and successful progress in their Welsh reading skills.
Many primary schools and a few secondary schools promoted reading for pleasure successfully. However, overall, experiences to promote reading outside the classroom were seen to have decreased significantly since the pandemic, particularly in the secondary sector.