Written question WQ96358

As announced by the then Minister for Education and Welsh Language in January 2023, the Welsh Government resumed reporting on Key Stage 4 outcomes at a school level on the My Local School website from the academic year 2022/23, using the approach adopted in 2019, which includes the following headline qualifications-based measures:

· Capped 9 points score (interim measures version)

· Literacy indicator

· Numeracy indicator

· Science indicator

· Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge Certificate indicator.

This approach is for an interim period while we progress the development of future reporting arrangements related to 14 to 16 learning under Curriculum for Wales.

Earlier this year we held a consultation on using data and information in the school system to support learning and improvement and the 14 to 16 Learner Entitlement Indicators Framework. Within it we outlined our proposed approach to data and information across the system. This will ensure that there is a shared understanding of how data should be used to allow genuine insight and effective accountability mechanisms as part of our new school improvement arrangements, keeping the learner at the heart of decision making and not returning to the high-stakes arrangements of the past where the breadth of a school’s provision is reduced to a narrowly-focussed metric. A set of guiding principles reflects our continued move towards an approach that empowers our schools, leaders and practitioners to focus on supporting individual learners’ needs, their progression, and securing the best outcomes for each of them.

The proposed Indicators Framework for reporting at a school level reflects the policy set out in the statutory Curriculum for Wales 14 to 16 Learning Guidance, supporting a balanced understanding of 14 to 16 curricula and learner achievement in schools. This is planned to replace the Key Stage 4 interim measures in 2027 when we report on the first awarding of reformed, Wave 1, GCSEs.

We are currently analysing the consultation responses received and will publish a summary of the responses, along with a confirmed outline of our reformed approach to using data and information in schools and the 14 to 16 Learner Entitlement Indicators Framework, in the summer.