Uncertain times for teaching profession

WHEN we first launched our education consultancy, Impact Wales, 10 years ago this month, the education landscape in Wales was very different.

- Edited by Abbie Wightwick

Professor Graham Donaldson's Successful Futures report into curriculum and assessment arrangements had just been published, setting the scene for a radical overhaul of education.

The unpopular school banding system had just been scrapped and replaced with a colour-coded categorisation system, designed to help schools improve with extra support and we were about to see Wales’ “best ever” set of GCSE results, which would be warmly welcomed by education minister Huw Lewis.

Today, three education ministers later, much has changed.

Curriculum for Wales, the Welsh Government's response to Donaldson’s review, has been implemented in all schools, transforming teachers into curriculum designers.

Categorisation has been scrapped altogether, removing another level of accountability from the education system.

Academic outcomes, from GCSE results to the international PISA tests, have continued to fluctuate but have generally trended downwards.

In fact, much has trended downwards in education in that time. School funding has decreased, literacy and numeracy levels have dropped, attendance has fallen, and the disadvantage gap has widened.

Of course, you can’t talk about the last decade without mentioning one of the defining events of our time, the Covid 19 pandemic.