This week, Fin interviewed the new Minister for Education, Anna Brychan, on the Impact Podcast. In this blog, Fin examines what the minister said and what her words reveal about her plans for the future of education in Wales.
The role of education minister in Wales has been held by four MSs in the last 10 years. Starting with Kirsty Williams from May 2016 until just after Covid in May 2021. Jeremy Miles then held the post for almost three years up until March of 2024, with Lynne Neagle taking over for the final two years of the Welsh Labour administration. At the time of writing, Plaid’s Anna Brychan has been in post for just 39 days.
In that time, she has already engaged directly with the media, doing interviews for both BBC Radio Wales and ITV News. And, this week, she joined me on the Impact Podcast, where she discussed her plans for the role and answered questions from teachers. You can listen in full here. This already feels like a very different approach to the role in comparison with her predecessor Lynne Neagle, who seemed to be far more reluctant to engage openly with the media, and only came on the Impact Podcast as a Labour candidate in the 2026 Senedd Election campaign.
The Impact Podcast has had the privilege of interviewing all four minsters for education in the last ten years, which gives us a unique opportunity to compare our new Plaid Cymru minister’s language, style and engagement approach with that of those she follows.
I want to examine Anna Brychan’s interview for three things: How much control she currently feels she has of her portfolio, her conversational style and approach and finally what exactly she has committed to acting on.
As you would expect from a new Education Minister, only weeks into her role, there was much that Anna Brychan described as under development. Using phrases such as “I’m looking at”, “I’m keen to”, and “we’re working on” areas including attendance, behaviour, ALN, teacher pay and the systems for data collection and sharing. So, all of these education topics are still very much about our new minister setting a clear agenda rather than controlling how her chosen actions are implemented. In other words, Anna Brychan knows which direction education in Wales should be travelling, but not yet how she will get it there.
A great deal of her language was strategic rather than operational, but what was clear was how extensive and detailed her understanding of education already is. Her years of experience within Wales’ education system has allowed her to hit the ground running. She understands the concepts, ideologies and some of the research already, which is a massive advantage for a newly appointed minister who needs to effect change as quickly as possible.
One area of policy that stood out from the rest was educational standards. Anna Brychan’s language here was one of “clarity” and strength. In the interview she stated, “My view is that a government is responsible for putting a national target [in place] and then supporting the system to achieve those.” This reasserts government as central to defining standards and moves away from Welsh Labour’s rhetoric which emphasised school autonomy and subsidiarity. The suggestion is that Plaid Cymru’s education policy, certainly around standards, will be more interventionist than the previous administration, using age-related targets alongside national test data to set a clear target for attainment for all pupils across Wales.
Anna Brychan’s conversational style is, I believe, a sign of her significant experience and skill honed by her previous roles. As a former leader of the NAHT trade union in Wales, the success of her communication would have relied on building influence without direct authority. She now has significant authority, but her style still focuses on building consensus rather than defending or directing. She wants to listen, understand and wants to do this “with the profession”. These types of phrases were utilised by Lynne Neagle, but it may just be her newness as the minister, or her skill as a communicator, but they sound far more genuine than Welsh Labour’s rhetoric ever did. Anna also uses strong relational language in her use of words like we, us and ours. There is no doubt she wants a partnership with the profession rather than conflict.
Indeed, when she is directly challenged, her response is to avoid direct conflict and aim for consensus building, which could go either way. We need an education leader who has the strength to tell it like it is, to not prioritise comfort over truth, as so many ministers have before her. So time will tell if her focus will be on cosy working relationships or doing the right thing, no matter how difficult that may be for those in favour of retaining the status quo.
Anna Brychan has positioned the Plaid Cymru education department as “informed by the best knowledge out there”, including an openness to learning from England on ALN, as she says “I’ve already had one meeting”. It will be interesting to see if this willingness to look across the border to England translates into policy actions.
There are several concrete actions that Anna Brychan has committed to taking.
All schools should be teaching early reading using Systematic Synthetic Phonics and there will be more guidance and information coming on how this will be supported by the work of CAL:ON Cymru.
“A national level target”, age-related and linked with the national tests, will move education in Wales back towards clearer performance standards.
On the use of data, there will be a better school readiness assessment, tracking through transitions, greater data sharing between schools and LAs and an emphasis on using existing data rather than creating new accountability systems
Ms Brychan aims to retain experienced teachers in the system by creating a clarity of expectation around teaching to reduce teacher workload, exploring the possibility of greater flexibility for teacher’s contact time and protecting the time for teachers to access professional learning
There was also explicit reference to a forthcoming framework on behaviour and attendance, as well as a review of Curriculum for Wales, but as refinement rather than additional wholesale reform.
One area she skilfully sidestepped was the question of funding for schools. When asked how she would justify not ringfencing the £555m SEND consequential from the UK government for schools in Wales, Ms Brychan chose to focus more on the ALN agenda in Wales, rather than the knock-on effect of a missed opportunity for more money in schools.
Overall, the dominant voice in Anna Brychan’s interview was not that of a politician seeking to win an argument but of a former education leader seeking to build a coalition. As her experience in ministerial office grows and she encounters the realities of turning policy into practice, both her language and approach may change. For now, however, she has set a clear direction of travel for Welsh Education. The question is whether her ambition and conviction will be matched by the resources needed to deliver it.