Welsh teenagers 2 years of education behind English teenagers

Are you hinting they might backtrack now that the PISA scores for Wales are out?

Well it’s not going to help when it is introduced is it?

The one that hasn't actually been introduced yet?

I moved from Wales to England this year with my 2 children who have been Welsh speaking from birth. They have BOTH had to drop back a year at their English school as they are so woefully behind.

The teaching in their Welsh school was just terrible. The Welsh language and anti-English teachings came above all. Estyn, which is Ofsted in Wales, doesn’t rate schools so it’s very easy for bad schools to hide.

In my children’s Welsh school, TWO members of teaching staff were not qualified for their positions, but as they were the only Welsh speakers who applied they were recruited with some kind of learning plan in place for them to gain qualifications (which didn’t happen).

I am absolutely not surprised by these results. Children in Wales are being massively failed, and I say this as a Welsh speaker.

If GCSE Science is down to just 1 GCSE

I'm still yet to see evidence that Welsh schools are only offering Single Award Science.

I am very much in favour of the Welsh language being taught and I am happy that my family have become bilingual. I don’t think for a minute that it’s a waste of time but I do think we need to take a good look at how it’s actually being implemented and make sure children in Wales particularly in areas like North West Wales where I live get the same type of teaching of the English language as children in England do. Same goes for science .

Yes.

I am an English person living in North Wales.

I live in a very Welsh village where approx 60% of the people speak welsh as a first language. When we go into shops, a huge amount of the conversation is in Welsh but all speak English too.

I LOVE that my children are learning to speak welsh. Three out of four of them were born in england. Youngest is very proud to say she was born in wales.

I hate that my welsh is so very basic and if I had more time I would absolutely learn Welsh. It woukd be an absolute shame if the language was allowed to die out, which it will if not pushed in schools. Many of my friends here who were born and lived in wales do not speak anymore welsh than I can because for years, the language was not pushed or taught in schools. Now they cant teach their own children, so if schools dont, the language will die. My children go to an English medium school because they had already started school before we had moved here. Had we been here before that or they had been born in Wales, I absolutely would have chosen welsh schools. Fortunately, my children's school do use as much welsh as possible in the school day - the teachers greet them in welsh in the mornings, they answer the dinner register in welsh. They write the dates in their books in welsh so they have picked it up really quickly b3cause they sre quite immersed in it

I make an effort to use the very basic welsh that I do know whenever I can.

Sorry haven't read all the comments but yes personal experience moving from england-wales and back to England has proven this. It's shocking. Although I also think that early years education in England is too pushy so 🤷

I doubt it's even 18%. I'd like to know the criterion for "speaking Welsh". If I can say bore da, does that make me a Welsh speaker? And why does all paperwork come in English and Welsh? Just let people choose which language is their preference. Such a horrendous waste and burden for businesses.

But why is it mutually exclusive? Why have you extrapolated learning Welsh to not being able to get a job?

I do think there’s far more to education than getting a job. After all my education in history, French, re, art, did bugger all to “get me a job” but thank god I have that learning

Well my (grown up) children would find living on benefits rather limiting, so I think they are happy that their education led to a job.

What do you suggest those cultured ones do in the absence of getting a job?

As per Ireland, they don’t chose to do it outside of hours. Don’t you think society has an obligation to preserve culture?

Don’t you think there is more to education than getting a job?

Well not my teenagers, they were educated in England . Unselfishly I think that other people's teenagers shouldn't be disvantaged. And absolutely anyone could choose to learn Welsh out of school hours.

Tragic. There are between 1500 and 5000 Welsh speakers in Patagonia.

irish nearly became a dead language because it wasn’t taught in schools. That’s all that would happen to Welsh. Is it really worth losing a native language so your teenagers can compete for jobs?

I don't think anyone has suggested that learning a very minority language is a waste of time if it's learned in out of school time. What is a waste of time is using part of a school teaching week to learn a language for purely 'heritage ' reasons when the learners of said language are lagging tragically behind pupils in other parts of the UK WHO THEY WILL ULTIMATELY HAVE TO COMPETE WiTH for university places, jobs etc. It's borderline neglectful, pathetic and ridiculous.

In our small Welsh village we have one adult who claims to speak Welsh. At a recent meeting we ran out of agendas, but never fear, we had a supply of agendas in Welsh as I think we are required to. We gave one to our Welsh speaker, who was unable to read it. As all the claimed numbers for Welsh speakers are self reported it's probably best to take them with a pinch of (Welsh!) salt.

One of my children didn’t have any difficulty at all, the other one took a long time to sort out English spelling and did no English at all until year 3.
I am in favour of encouraging bilingualism but I think we have to look at how it’s done and to look honestly at all the factors that are leading to lower achievement.

I was born in the early 60s, Welsh speaking home, educated in Welsh medium schools throughout including nursery. Learned to read Welsh and English at the same time, never struggled with either as far as I recall.

I also found that English isn’t introduced in many primary schools until age seven by which time a lot of children are reading some English and they never do the basic phonics. Blaming dumbing down of the curriculum and Labour politicians is too simplistic but could be a factor among many others

There are some interesting nuances which need looking at and I am not sure what to make of. Children doing the exams through the medium of Welsh tend to come from families of a higher social economic status but unexpectedly they are achieving lower grades when they would be expected to achieve higher grades.
I’m all for encouraging the Welsh language but this needs looking at. Children who don’t speak Welsh at home are increasingly being encouraged to sit the exams in Welsh.
I have thought this was a good thing .
Also for the size of the population Wales has significant social deprivation.
I think this is more complex than it initially looks.

My DN is at a Welsh medium school. His parents’ mother tongues are Welsh and German and he is fluent in both of those as well as English. He got 7 A* and 3As in his GCSEs and is doing Chemistry, Physics, Maths and Economics at A level.

There is research indicating that being bilingual can slow down the progress of dementia in later life (though not prevent it completely).

I'm torn, my children are happy in their Welsh schools. The youngest is year 5 quite an anxious child and very dyslexic, and I'm always grateful there isn't the focus on tests and school is a safe place. The oldest is year 9 and again loves school, I don't know whether she'd be as happy in England as nothing to compare too. I suspect they could be pushed more, but I don't know if I want them pushed. As I've got older I've started to put less weight on education anyway. I've known some kids who weren't academic thrive in life.

It's so depressing to see how few people know about the benefits of being multilingual. It isn't as much about the specific language as the neural pathways it creates, the grey matter it produces, the benefits to short and long term memory.
It is shocking to see how many people naturally jump to "it must be the Welsh language" rather than the far more obvious link to poverty. Wales has the highest poverty rates in the UK, and 31% of children in Wales live in poverty. The link between poverty and the failure to achieve academically is long proven.

And another thing, if North Walians have such a poor grasp of English, how come so many English people claim to hear them chatting away in English in pubs and shops, and switching to Welsh as soon as an English person comes in?