Since devolution in 1999, Wales has sought to implement a distinctively Welsh approach to education policy. While policymakers in England were rolling out academies and market-based reforms over the 2000s, Wales maintained a local-authority-led comprehensive school system and abolished performance tables and Sats.
In 2010, Wales experienced “Pisa shock”, when it learned it had much lower average scores in reading, numeracy and science than other UK nations in the Programme for International Student Assessment.
This led to the creation of a traffic-light-style school categorisation system and new literacy and numeracy tests for 7-14 year olds. More recently, Wales has again taken a different path from England on GCSE and A-level reforms, and a new Curriculum for Wales will be implemented from September.
Reforms to GCSEs make it particularly hard to compare performance over time between Wales and England. Our recent Education Policy Institute (EPI) report overcomes this by using our tried and tested methods for examining disadvantage gaps in GCSE results. Unfortunately, our work shows that educational inequality in Wales remains high and is reducing at a snail’s pace.
The disadvantage gap in GCSE results between Welsh children from rich and poor families is equivalent to 22-23 months of educational progress. This is larger than the disadvantage gap of 18 months in England, which is itself concerning. More worryingly still, these gaps relate to 2019, with evidence suggesting inequalities have widened further during the pandemic.
Why is there a higher disadvantage gap in Wales? Back in 2011, the disadvantage gap in Wales was about 24 months and about 20 months in England. Since then, progress in narrowing these gaps has been modest in both nations. It therefore seems highly unlikely that different reform paths since 2010 explain the difference.
Clear differences exist in the demographic and socio-economic backgrounds of children in England and Wales. For example, there’s a large share of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds in England, who tend to have higher levels of educational performance. It’s likely that this explains why the disadvantage gap is lower in London. Nonetheless, the disadvantage gap is larger in Welsh local authorities than in most parts of the North West and North East England, which have similar demographics and levels of deprivation.
Indeed, across England and Wales, the five hotspots with the worst disadvantage gaps are all in Wales, with the gap in excess of 25 months in Wrexham, Merthyr Tydfil, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen and Rhondda Cynon Taf.
As there are many local authorities in England with greater levels of disadvantage, but lower gaps in GCSE results, Welsh local authorities should be learning more from these areas of England.
All of this suggests that the explanation for higher disadvantage gaps in Wales predates 2010. The reasons could include differences in policy over the 2000s but potentially also longstanding socio-economic differences.
To his credit, the minister for education and the Welsh language, Jeremy Miles, recently acknowledged, in a speech to the Bevan Foundation, that “there has been too little progress over the last decade in closing the attainment gap”. Fortunately, a wide body of empirical evidence on narrowing the gap exists.
For instance, targeting extra funding at schools with more disadvantaged pupils can lead to a significant reduction in such gaps. In Wales, deprivation funding is currently allocated through the Pupil Development Grant (similar to the Pupil Premium in England) and a complex set of local authority formulae.
However, overall levels of deprivation funding are lower than in England. As recommended in my 2020 review of school spending for the Welsh government, deprivation funding should be increased.
A focus on teacher quality is also crucial. This may include policies designed to improve teacher recruitment and retention in more deprived areas, such as salary supplements and access to high-quality professional development.
Additionally, there are clear practices that have been shown to reduce the attainment gap, including a focus on frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage one-to-one and small group tutoring, increased instructional time and maintaining a culture of high expectations.
The Welsh government recently abolished the traffic-light school categorisation system, replacing it with more self-evaluation by schools. Alongside this, the government should be publishing more consistent data on the attainment gap and the performance of disadvantaged pupils at the school, local authority and national level. Without this, it will remain effectively impossible to assess progress towards narrowing the attainment gap on either a national or local level.
Finally, it is important to recognise that schools cannot singlehandedly close the attainment gap - a wider focus on combating child poverty is necessary. Schools do, however, have a significant role to play. A Welsh government focused on combating poverty and inequality can and should be doing better.
Dr Luke Sibieta is a research fellow at the Education Policy Institute and co-author of the EPI analysis published earlier this month, Inequalities in GCSE results across England and Wales
