Teachers in Wales are working hard to help children learn to read, but they are being failed by the confused guidance and poor policies of the Welsh Government.
That was the stark message I shared with listeners to BBC Wales’ Sunday Supplement last weekend, which was subsequently reported on the BBC Wales website and television news.
I don’t enjoy speaking out against the Welsh Government, or criticising the work of ministers or civil servants, and it is not something that we as a business actively seek to do.
But the education of our children is far too important for us to keep quiet out of fear of causing upset or controversy – on occasion ‘rocking the boat’ is a necessary act.
The simple fact is that literacy levels among pupils in Wales are poor, and much lower than in the other home nations. We’ve seen this in the international PISA test results over several years, and it was put into sharp perspective by a recent report from a Tory-linked thinktank, which said that by 2040 Wales could be overtaken in attainment by Romania.
While the Welsh Government is right to say literacy levels are improving – and this is certainly to be welcomed – for pupils in Wales to catch up with standards in the rest of the UK, their progress needs to be a lot faster than the marginal improvement seen in the latest national tests.
Reading is a crucial skill for education and for life. Poor literacy levels among early years pupils will lead to poor GCSE outcomes and poor life chances. Nationally, this will translate into an ineffective and uncompetitive workforce in the future.
As I said at the start, teachers in schools all over Wales are working hard to help children learn to read. The problem is that not every teacher knows the best way to do it, and that’s the Welsh Government’s fault. Teachers are not being given the guidance they need to understand how to teach reading effectively.
Indeed, ITV recently revealed how primary schools were being encouraged to teach reading using discredited methods. While the Welsh Government has since addressed this, the current guidance around early years reading is still complicated and confused.
What’s needed is clear, straightforward guidance from the Welsh Government. The simple solution, as we’ve said many times, is for the Welsh Government to mandate systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) like the Department for Education does in England.
Until the Welsh Government does that, it will continue to fail both teachers and pupils.
Finola Wilson is a Director of Impact Wales