Guest Lecturer Assignment.

Our very first guest lecturer was Professor Ken Jones who talked to us about the local authorities in Wales as well as Wales' educational progress and standing across the world.   Although the content he was speaking about could have been seen as dull had it been presented differently, I feel he really pulled us into the topic and made it very interesting for us. He also included general background knowledge of Wales, which is always very useful.  He told us that 50% of people living in Wales, either live in the south or south-east, and because of this, there are many rural schools in the north, central and south-west Wales. According to the statistics given in this lecture, only 20% of Primary schools and 15% of Secondary schools use Welsh as a main language. He went on to say that there is also a shortage of Welsh-medium headteachers with the NPQH. I believe this shows that sadly, the Welsh language is slowly dying out, specifically in the south. Personally I think this is something that desperately needs to be addressed both in our schools and everyday life. The Welsh language is a big part of our individual culture, something we should be eager to preserve.


Prof. Ken Jones also provided information on Wales' Local Authorities. Where previously, in 1999 there were eight Local Authorities within Wales, there are now twenty-two. According to the Welsh Assembly Government's Annual Schools Census released in 2010, there were twenty less Local Authority maintained schools than in 2009 with 2,500 less pupils, there were also four more independent schools than in 2009. This maybe down to the vast number of Local Authorities within Wales. With so many Local Authorities trying to work together, mistakes are going to be made and standards are going to fall somewhere. Through evidence that Welsh education as a whole can improve, it has been proposed that the twenty-two local Welsh authorities should change into four consortia. 

After finding out a few years a go that Welsh children were not performing as well academically compared to children of the same age all over the world, there was large focus on the education system in the country. In the 2006 PISA report (A report produced by the OECD every four years which makes children across the world sit the same test) it was showed that Wales did make progress, but it was uneven and needed to be further advanced. However, when looking at these results,  it is important to take into account that Wales does not publish league tables, unlike many other countries, so the schools chosen to do the PISA tests in other countries may well be towards the top of their league tables and therefore not necessarily on a par with the Welsh schools chosen. Despite this, the Welsh education systems aim to improve the curriculum and teaching, leadership, working with others, networks of professional practice, intervention, support, improvement and accountability.

We also had a lecture taken by an employee of Estyn, Russell Grigg.  Estyn inspects quality and standards in education and training providers in Wales and provide advice to the Welsh Assembly Government on the quality and standards of educational environment. Mr Grigg made a point too, of informing us that quality and standard are not the same thing. Standard is seen as the level you reach whereas quality is your experience, both very different things.  Their main goal is to spread and promote good educational practice inside Wales. According to Estyn, the three main things to consider when inspecting are accountability, ways to improve and to inform. Most of Estyn's employees are ex-teachers as they have experience of educational settings and would not look at an educational establishment solely through the eyes of an inspector. These Estyn employees write two types of reports, reports on individual educational institutions and Thematic reports, which are on Wales as a whole.
   When inspecting there are three things to consider which are also known as the common inspection framework:
1) How good are the outcomes?
2) How good is provision?
3) How good are leadership and management?
Through these three main assessments, the inspector can produce a good conclusion about the school or educational institute. Like OFSTED, Estyn use a ranking system to assess different aspects of a school. For example attendance would be classed as 'excellent,' 'good, 'adequate' or 'unsatisfactory.' It was interesting to see their use of adequate, Russell told us that the word was not very liked, yet, still, Estyn chose to use it, as it encourages the educational institute to do better.This lecture has led me to believe that Wales having our own inspection board is a very good thing as it helps us focus on how we are doing internally as a country, rather than comparing us with the rest of the United Kingdom. I believe a system that did this would be less beneficial as, England for example, have a ranking system for their schools, something Wales does not. A system where we were comparing our schools to those of the likes of England would have the same effect as the PISA tests, it would force us to compare some of our less well performing schools with the better performing, higher ranked schools within England. In turn, this would cause us to lose focus on our progress within Wales itself. Through having our own inspection board, Wales as a country can clearly see and focus on even the smallest improvements in our educational systems which in the long run will help us to improve our standard of education as a whole.

Jane Davidson AM, ex Minister for Education and Life long learning, also came in to give us a lecture. She gave us a history of education and the National Curriculum. She told us how in 1983 Margaret Thatcher introduced the National Curriculum, which meant that children attending state run schools all over the United Kingdom were taught the same thing. However, independently run schools can still set their own curriculum.  This also brought with it the introduction of Standard Assessment Tests (SATS).  They were taken at the ages of seven, eleven and thirteen and were used to asses the progress of children of the same ages all over the country.  
   1993 brought with it Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools (HMI). These inspectors could turn up to a school at any time. This was needed as with the whole of the state run schools in the country following the same curriculum, it was important to ensure the National Curriculum was being taught to a satisfactory standard all around the country. Children were currently being put into "streams" of ability at the age of 11. This would determine where they would go onto study for O levels or CSE's later in their school career with O levels being the better, more academic option.  These qualifications would determine what sort of work you would go into and whether you could go onto higher education or not, it is in my opinion that 11 is far to young to decide this much as many children may be "late bloomers" and may go on to settle in and become more academically inclined whereas other children may peak to early and not do as well in their exams as first expected. 
1997 brought Labour back into power and with it the promise of 'education, education, education'.  Labour promised to improve education across the country, however, their strategies made many people angry as it was believed that they were simply "teaching to the test". This in turn, caused a referendum in Wales for the National Assembly so that the people of Wales would finally be responsible for the Education within Wales.  In 1999 the Welsh National Assembly was established. It had both a pre and post 16 committee with an Education Minister for  each. This was later changed to both committees being brought together under one minister. This seems like the better option as then there could be more fluidity between both committees and less confusion for young people during the journey from one to the other.
 I believe that I have learnt a lot from these lectures about how the education system within Wales works.  These lectures have shown me how, although Welsh education may not be the best within the world or even the United Kingdom, it is improving all the time. As a result of these lectures I also now strongly believe that the act of comparing our education system and standards to those of other countries may do more damage than good as it will only succeed to highlight the failings rather than the improvements.  Overall, these guest lectures were very beneficial to us as they gave us the first hand knowledge of people who have worked and who are working within our education system.