Minister voices concern about schools needing most support
WALES’ Education Minister has expressed concern about the number of schools needing the most support as the latest Welsh Government colour rankings were released yesterday.
Each secondary and primary is labelled with one of four colours. The system was launched by the Welsh Government in 2014 to drive up performance after criticism that the scrapping of league tables had led to school standards falling.
Schools rated green are already doing well and are deemed to be in need of the least support, while schools in the red category are those needing most support. Each colour triggers a different support package.
A range of information is looked at to give a picture of how schools are doing, including assessment and exam results, attendance and leadership and assessment by school improvement consortia.
In a written statement, Education Minister Kirsty Williams said: “I remain concerned about those schools, particularly the proportion in the secondary sector, which continue to require the highest levels of support.”
She revealed she will be considering the future of the controversial system, which has been criticised as unhelpful by teaching unions since its launch in 2014.
She said a new “multi-agency” approach to help schools in the lower bands is being trialled with a small number of secondary schools, and revealed: “In assessing the effectiveness of these new arrangements, we will also consider the future of categorisation.”
Categorisation, now in its sixth year, has met with a mixed response but the Welsh Government insists it is not a league table of the best schools.
This year there are 24 secondary schools in the red band, needing most support, amounting to 11.7% of secondaries. But more secondaries have risen to the highest “highly effective” green. A total of 72 are now ranked the highest green, eight more than in 2018-19 and an improvement of four percentage points on last year. A total of 39 secondaries are amber, compared with 41 last year.
Nearly half of all primaries are now rated in the highest green category. A total of 609, or 49%, of primary schools are in this band. That’s a six percentage point improvement compared to last year, when there were 543 green primaries.
Only 20 primary schools are in most need of up to 25 days’ support in the lowest red category. This is just 1.6 per cent of primary schools and a tiny 0.4 percentage point decrease compared to last year, when there were 25 red primaries.
There are 505 primaries in the yellow band, compared with 570 last year and 113 are rated amber, down from 121 last year.
The head of the Association of School and College Leaders’ Cymru dismissed colour categorisation as “simplistic and blunt”.
Eithne Hughes said: “We are deeply disappointed that Welsh Government continues to categorise schools in Wales by colourcoding. This simplistic, blunt and high-stakes measure of a school’s performance is at odds with the education reform journey. This is an old and punitive system which has the effect of encouraging competition rather than developing a self-improving school system through collaboration. We continue to press for a more mature accountability system.”
Teaching unions and school leaders’ representatives say colour coding does little to improve standards. Critics say schools are overloaded with “myriad” performance and accountability measures, from today’s traffic-light categorisation to Estyn inspections, local improvement consortia and school tests and external exams.
Rebecca Williams, deputy general secretary of teaching union UCAC, said: “Although the national school categorisation system serves a purpose in identifying levels of support to be provided to schools, it is unfortunate that its simplistic colour-coding gives a false impression of its purpose, and can be misleading in terms of the messages it gives about individual schools.
“It is hard to escape the conclusion that it is just one of the myriad accountability measures that create confusion and angst within the education system. UCAC looks forward to seeing the Welsh Government’s commitment to rationalising the accountability system put into action as soon as possible.”
David Evans, Wales secretary for the National Education Union Cymru, said the categorisation scheme is flawed: “The school categorisation system was initially introduced as a means of identifying where support was required which could then be targeted appropriately. Unfortunately the purpose of the categorisation has been consistently misinterpreted as some form of ranking system hindered by the inherently flawed colour-coding process.
“NEU Cymru strongly believes that all schools should get the support they require. However, we have consistently raised issues about the use of publicly available colour codes.”
Neil Butler, national official Wales for the Nasuwt said: “Schools are extraordinarily complex institutions with multiples a variables that impact on all aspects of their community life. To boil that down to a simplistic colour code based on limited criteria is inaccurate and damaging. It is not a serious comparative tool.”