Thematic Report Archives - Page 2 of 16 - Estyn

Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


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Executive summary

This report considers how well schools work together to support pupils’ transition from primary into secondary school. It focuses on how well schools work together to ensure that their curricula and teaching develop pupils’ knowledge, skills, understanding and learning behaviours effectively across transition. It considers how schools support the well-being of learners at this important transition point.

It is based on engagement with a sample of 23 primary schools, 13 secondary schools and 3 all-age schools, and evidence from our inspection and follow-up work since September 2022. We also took evidence from three regional school improvement services and three local authorities.

Our findings show that headteachers or senior leaders from most clusters of schools meet regularly to discuss Curriculum for Wales and how to support pupils’ transition from primary to secondary school. In nearly all cases, leaders focused well on ensuring that there were beneficial induction arrangements to support pupils’ well-being and implemented strategies to support pupils with additional learning needs (ALN). However, in many cases, and for a range of reasons, transition work is not effective enough in supporting the development of a continuum of learning for all pupils that ensures that they make systematic and continual progress in their knowledge, skills, understanding and learning behaviours from primary into secondary school.

In a minority of cases, clusters have set up groups of teachers to consider examples of pupils’ learning, to help them begin to develop a shared understanding of progression across their schools. However, these practices are in their infancy and, in most cases, there is still not a strong understanding of what progression looks like in most clusters of schools. As a result, these practices have not improved how well learning progresses from primary into secondary schools strongly enough.

During our visits, leaders pointed to a range of issues that made cluster work on developing curriculum progression difficult, including co-ordinating the work of multiple primary schools with one secondary school, different interpretations of the curriculum within the same cluster of schools, or having the time and resources to release staff to work together. They identified the broad nature of the descriptions of learning as something that the staff in their schools were still grappling with. Secondary school leaders often identified that changes to GCSE qualifications were adding to the difficulty of making decisions about their curriculum, but in more effective schools they also recognised that improving teaching was vital to ensuring that pupils gained good qualifications.

In a few cases, clusters of primary and secondary schools have worked together positively to map out knowledge, skills and experiences across all areas of learning and experience (AoLE) and have used this to begin to develop a shared understanding of progression. However, even where this is in place, secondary schools do not always use it to take account of pupils’ prior learning well enough. As a result, learning in Year 7 and beyond did not always support pupils’ continuous and progressive development.

In all-age schools, despite the potential of the all-age approach to learning, curriculum coherence and planning for progression were not always strong. In the best cases, schools were working purposefully to develop one progressive continuum of learning from age 3 to 16 and were beginning to use this to ensure that they supported pupils’ progress. However, a minority of all-age settings had made limited progress on developing a coherent approach to the curriculum and still considered learning in separate primary and secondary phases.

Many schools have provided teachers with a range of professional learning to support the introduction of Curriculum for Wales. However, in only a few cases had clusters of schools shared approaches to teaching or considered how they could ensure that teaching strategies supported pupils to make effective and continuous progress from primary into secondary school. Many were embedding strategies to support pupils to be more effective learners and recognised the importance of ensuring that pupils developed skills to monitor, regulate and assess learning.
However, in only a few cases had schools considered how they could ensure that pupils continued to develop these skills and dispositions effectively when they move into secondary school.

In nearly all cases, primary schools passed on a broad and varied range of information about pupils’ learning and progress to secondary schools prior to transition. A minority of clusters were beginning to consider how to share information on pupils’ progress, in line with Curriculum for Wales. However, in nearly all cases, there was little clarity about what expectations of learning and progress were, even within the same cluster. As a result, these processes did little to support continuity in pupils’ learning. In nearly all cases, primary schools shared the outcomes of the
Welsh Government’s personalised assessments with secondary schools. However, nearly all schools focused on sharing the standardised score only. They were not considering well enough the wide range of information about pupils’ learning available from the assessment or how this might be used to further support teaching and learning.

In nearly all cases, schools supported pupils’ induction into secondary school well. They often arranged face-to-face meetings between leaders or teachers from primary schools and staff from secondary schools that allowed for a beneficial sharing of information. Primary and secondary schools worked together conscientiously to support the transition of pupils with ALN. Often staff with responsibility for pupils with ALN began working with their feeder primary schools when pupils were in Year 6 or in Year 5. These processes helped secondary schools understand and cater for
these pupils’ needs supportively.

In most cases, clusters of schools supported many aspects of pupils’ well-being effectively as they moved from primary to into secondary school. In many cases, staff from secondary schools visited their feeder primary schools to speak to pupils early in Year 6 and in a very few cases when they are in Year 5. In nearly all cases, clusters of schools identified pupils who could find transition more difficult than their peers and put in place a useful range of supportive activities and visits that helped these pupils transition to secondary school. In the best cases, schools worked
together to plan and put in place strategies based on individual pupils’ needs.

Many leaders were aware of the updated guidance on, and requirements of, transition planning, and used this to plan pupils’ induction into secondary school appropriately. However, in many cases, transition plans lacked clarity on how schools would support continuity in pupils’ learning, and how they would achieve this through curriculum design and planning for learning and teaching.

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Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


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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.

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Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


The report focuses on the risks of disengagement for young people accessing lead worker support at the point of transition into post-16 education, training, and employment.

Recommendations

Welsh Government, Careers Wales, local authorities, and all other partners involved in supporting young people through lead workers should:  

  • Improve post-16 transition support by ensuring continuity of a young person’s lead worker until 31st January following a young person’s move into their post-16 destination, whether this is in school, at college, with a training provider, or employment  
  • Develop ways to measure the success of work to prevent young people becoming NEET that are based on longer-term evaluations and do not over-emphasise the value of initial destination survey data  
  • Support better data sharing about the circumstances of individual young people to facilitate stronger collaboration between all partners, including education and training providers, and enable young people to receive relevant and timely support  
  • Support the professional learning needs of lead workers in all agencies and share effective practice in the provision of lead worker support  
  • Improve practice in line with the effective practice featured in this report and address the shortcomings highlighted in this report  

Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


Recommendations

Schools should: 

  • Provide comprehensive and timely impartial advice and guidance to all pupils and their parents or carers about all 14-16 curriculum options, including junior apprenticeships where these are available. 
  • Work collaboratively with colleges and local authorities to evaluate opportunities for developing or extending junior apprenticeship programmes in order to broaden their curriculum offer in the best interests of learners.

Further education colleges should: 

  • Work closely with schools to make sure that responsibilities for safeguarding arrangements are clear and that individual risk assessments are undertaken for all junior apprenticeship learners.
  • Share and agree timetable arrangements with partner schools and local authorities for all junior apprenticeship learners and keep them updated of any changes affecting individual learners, such as pastoral plan arrangements.

Local authorities should:

  • Clarify and communicate future funding arrangements for junior apprenticeships with schools and colleges.
  • Work collaboratively with all their local schools and colleges to evaluate the potential for introducing or extending junior apprenticeship provision to enhance suitable learning opportunities for Year 10 and 11 pupils struggling to engage with existing mainstream provision in schools.

The Welsh Government should:

  • In light of the establishment of the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (CTER), clarify and publish details of ongoing responsibility and continuing arrangements for junior apprenticeships and their funding.
  • Review specific curriculum requirements for junior apprenticeship programmes as set out in the Welsh Government programmes directory, particularly in relation to English, mathematics and numeracy qualifications to ensure qualification aims match needs and abilities of individual learners and reflect the new national 14-16 qualifications in place from September 2027.

Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


Recommendations

Schools should:

  • Strengthen planning to strategically improve attendance, including making effective use of data to identify trends and in planning long term approaches to improving pupils’ attendance
  • Strengthen their approach to monitoring, evaluating and improving attendance
  • Strengthen their work with parents/carers to explain why good attendance is important
  • Develop more effective methods to gather the views of pupils who do not attend school regularly
  • Ensure that teaching and the curriculum offer engages pupils in learning

Local authorities should:

  • Provide schools with regular and effective challenge and support to improve pupils’ attendance and help evaluate the impact of their work
  • Ensure that local authority interventions build on work already carried out by schools
  • Work with schools to support them to work with parents/carers to understand the importance of good attendance

The Welsh Government should:

  • Develop a national campaign to promote the importance of good attendance with parents/carers and pupils
  • Consider how pupils living within the three-mile radius who are not eligible for free transport could be better supported to attend school more regularly
  • Publish core data sets for attendance twice a year, including regression analysis, residuals for persistent absenteeism and year group attendance to better support schools’ own evaluation processes
  • Continue to provide weekly analysis of school level attendance to provide more frequent information and improve the quality of this data
  • Consider how funding can be allocated more effectively to support schools to improve attendance
  • Consider how reform of the school year might better support pupils to attend school more regularly
  • Carry out research to identify the factors impacting on poor attendance and to discover the most effective methods of improving attendance

Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


Recommendations

The Welsh Government should:

  • R1    Work with Qualifications Wales and the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research to review the use of Essential Skills Wales qualifications in apprenticeships
  • R2    Refresh the Wales Essential Skills Toolkit (WEST) and resources
  • R3    Working with partners, develop opportunities for professional learning to enhance practitioners’ understanding of the pedagogy and capacity to deliver essential skills

Work-based learning apprenticeship providers should:

  • R4    Develop partnership working approaches to ensure that:
    • learners have meaningful opportunities to study and take assessments bilingually or through the medium Welsh 
    • learners’ additional learning needs are promptly identified, evaluated and appropriately supported
  • R5    Ensure that learners who have already attained the required ESW qualifications or are exempted by proxy continue to develop their literacy, numeracy and digital skills
  • R6    Offer professional learning that develops tutors’ and assessors’ pedagogy to deliver essential skills

Lead providers should:

  • R7    Ensure that self-evaluation reflects on the effectiveness of the delivery models in use across the provider’s partners and sub-contractors and takes action to reduce the potential disadvantages identified in this report

Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report


Recommendations

Schools should:

R1      Improve the quality of information provided to, for example, parents, and clearly state what the school regards as additional learning provision

R2      Ensure that ALNCos have sufficient time and resource to carry out their duties

R3      Ensure that the professional learning of school staff has a sufficient focus on high quality teaching for pupils with ALN

Local authorities should:

R4      Ensure that all schools are aware of their duties under the ALNET Act

R5      Provide clear, accurate and up-to-date information to stakeholders, in particular in relation to:

  • what constitutes additional learning provision in its schools
  • those IDPs that are to be maintained by the local authority and those to be maintained by schools

R6      Continue to quality assure and review practice and additional learning provision to ensure funding and professional learning supports roll out effectively for:

  • person centred practices
  • individual development plans
  • Welsh-medium services, resources and provision

R7      Develop and publish their strategy for post-16 learners with ALN

The Welsh Government should:

R8      Ensure that all settings have a clear understanding of the legal definitions contained in the ALNET Act and the ALN Code and provide practical examples to aid understanding

R9      Fully evaluate the impact of additional funding allocated to local authorities

R10    Ensure that future guidance and funding is provided in a timely fashion to allow both local authorities and schools to plan sufficiently
 

Improvement Resource Type: Thematic Report