Estyn outlines sector priorities and encourages self-improvement

Building on last year’s approach to ensuring the Annual Report’s findings are easier to read, digest and are available  to all as early as possible, Estyn has today published sector specific summaries across seventeen sectors including schools, colleges, work-based learning, the Jobs Growth Wales+ (employability programme), and initial teacher education among others outlining what’s working well and what needs strengthening.

The summaries, which have been pulled together from the findings of Estyn inspections during 2022-2023, also include a concise set of reflective questions for each sector, aimed at helping providers to consider the best way of making progress against one of the priorities identified for the sector. 

To further support improvement, the sector summaries point towards inspection reports and case studies from providers that were inspected and were found to be doing particularly well. 

Ahead of his full Annual Report, which will be published in January, Owen Evans, Chief Inspector, says, “Estyn has visited over 400 education and training settings over the past year. Our findings are a good indicator of what’s going well and where we need to improve and have been designed to make understanding our common challenges easier. I hope practitioners use these materials as we all strive to improve our practice. The sector summaries will allow providers to gain an insight into the key themes and challenges identified for each education and training area in Wales over the past twelve months of inspection activity. 

“My full annual report will be published in January and will include further detail about the findings of our inspections together with an analysis of a number of wider themes that will provide further insight into our current education and training priorities here in Wales.”