Welsh teenagers 2 years of education behind English teenagers

There is no evidence that starting school later contributes to finlands high pisa scores (and Finland has fallen in the ranking, replaced by S Korea, Poland) and it’s not Scandinavia that performs pretty well, it’s Finland.

also there are many schools with very poor education systems that also formally start at 7 I.e. Russia

There’s not much to be said for almost 30 years of devolution but it has allowed for a massive real-time experiment in school systems.
Starting with Thatcher, continued by Major, Blair and Brown, given huge boost under Cameron-Gove-Gibb, English schools saw major reforms — academies, free schools etc.
Scottish schools stayed totally comprehensive under the dead hand of socialism/nationalism. No variety in state system. But lots more money.
Ditto Welsh schools.
Results are in and they couldn’t be clearer — English state schools have powered ahead, Scottish and Welsh schools have fallen back into mediocrity or worse.
Scottish/Welsh pols too blinkered to learn the lessons so more decline beckons.
What is unforgivable is that the current Labour government under two appalling education secretaries — Lucy Powell and Bridget Phillipson — want to roll back all the progress that’s been made in England to appease the hard-left teaching unions and the left-wing Blob.

I worked in Welsh Education in schools
and ITE. It is grim.

The curriculum was decided by consensus. I spent many hours in conference rooms with post-its. The result is non-sensical. The changes to English and science GCSE will make Welsh learners less competitive.

Teacher training is ideological. There are efforts to promote research, but ‘research’ is considered Welsh government reports. I’ve authored some some of those reports. The civil servants know what they will say before they are commissioned.

My kids have done well, in spite is their schooling; which was mostly indifferent and occasionally excellent or terrible.

These results do not reflect the new curriculum, though, they're of students who were taught under the prior curriculum.

Because our education system starts them very young. Scandinavia is recognised as being pretty successful at education, and they don't start formal education until much later than we do. The jump from reception to year one is widely acknowledged as being a big struggle for many kids in England, because five year olds simply aren't ready or able to benefit from a bums on seats approach to learning. By being play based for longer they are moving around and using their bodies and so better able to engage in activities as well.

It’s not just wales though the same thing has happened in Scotland (the headline was “English school children in top 10 whilst wales and Scotland slump”) indicating it’s not about learning the language but that yes, devolution could well be a factor

Provide a curriculum that caters for all and is engaging. Children are struggling in school
because the curriculum’s unbearably dry
and demanding, there is also little in it for SEND with provision stretched to the bone
and the arts have been shoved out.

Why do you think the play based system in early years is a positive?

But what would you do? We can't just say well we won't teach anything so children will be happy, that won't work. There is also a strong correlation between a lack of education and poor health, is that what you want? I suspect a lot of children struggle with school because they are bored because so little is expected of them.

I think people are getting confused - Welsh medium schools teach all subjects in Welsh, but they are in the minority. Most schools teach Welsh the way that French or Spanish is taught in England. However, at secondary the syllabus has changed to reduce English language and literature to one subject, and science to one GCSE. This hugely depletes the content level, and means that if kids want to go on and study at a higher level they are at a big disadvantage against their English counterparts. It's a relatively new change so it's hard to see the affects yet.
When you add in that teachers need to have a grasp of Welsh in order to apply for jobs you are again hugely reducing the number of people who can apply for roles, and ruling out some excellent staff and leaving quite a few not so good ones.
The play based aspect of early years is a positive, but it's not a surprise that Wales is lagging behind based on PISA.

No, it’s what years of a totally unfair funding settlement, which does not take into account the particular geographical and demographic challenges of Wales, does to a country. And that’s why Wales voted Plaid Cymru in, for a government that is not in the pocket of the Labour government in Westminster and will actually fight for Welsh interests.

No idea; I know very little about the Welsh education system.
My point mainly was in relation to finding ways not to sacrifice the national language. I’m from a country with a first language which could also be in danger of dying out and I’m happy to say that there’s always uproar when there is any governmental chat about potential relaxing its importance in the curriculum. I hated it at the time as it’s a difficult language to learn, but I’m glad I did learn it and it’s a huge part of our national heritage and identity which I suspect Welsh also is for Welsh folk.

At what cost? Our mental health stats are horrific, we have high numbers of children not even in school and SEN provision is dire. Schools are miserable places, staff are leaving by in their droves, the arts are just punted out. Those above us in the list have higher teenage suicide levels . But of course no one cares about that.

Such as?

Having seen the pressures English schools are under as regards fitting things in god only knows how Welsh schools manage Welsh too!

Afaik Welsh medium schools are in the minority so that’s unlikely to be the major factor, but this (from 2020) suggests it may be part of it:
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/welsh-medium-school-pupils-underperform-in-tests-despite-more-advantaged-backgrounds

They would have done, were it not for systemic attempts to eradicate the language in previous generations where, like other groups, there were punishments for being heard speaking their home tongue.

I must say I completely disagree with this. The national language of any country should remain part of the curriculum. Removing it would mean that Welsh would die out within a generation. There are efficiencies and improvements that can and should be made but removing Welsh is not one of them.

Obviously history is not your strong suit......

Here is a link to the rankings in case anyone is looking for it- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgy6n0l4rdo

it is taught outside school as well?
you're really embarrassing yourself here!
Maybe do the barest modicum of research before you start suggesting concepts that already exist!

I actually don’t think you are wrong about the SEN aspect although a great deal more is wrong than Gove reforms are responsible for. Under staffing due to lack of capacity in school budgets being the main one imo. Schools have absolutely no money and it annoys me that this is not part of the national conversation.

This is interesting. I admit I made the earlier comment a bit flippantly, so I will expand: I keep hearing that they are a disaster in relation to SEN, because they make schools too stressful and are too rigid, so pupils who are struggling for whatever reason find it difficult to cope and it is widely suggested that this is a large part of the behavioural/attendance difficulties schools are facing.

Also that particularly in Foundation and KS1 the educational targets are no longer linked to child development so more children are showing up as not achieving expected levels simply because they are not advanced in their development.

However all this could be BS, it just seems to be repeated a lot in SEN circles.

I was going by the '2 years behind' so trying to make it up logic, not widen the gap even more.

Wrong. The total number of Welsh speakers is closer to a million, half of whom speak it regularly at home (i.e. it's their first language). Source: ONS Annual Population Survey

At a town not far from me, the proportion of native speakers exceeds 80%.

Welsh-medium education isn't what is holding kids back.

You know that Welsh isn't the first language of half a million people, there are half a million people who speak some Welsh. It's of no consequence to me if people want to prioritise Welsh, but fairly unbelievable that they are prepared to do that while their children are lagging two years behind academically. I suggested a way that some teaching time could be freed up to try to help them catch up, that's all. But it seems judging by the replies on this thread that people are prioritising heritage over academic success, and that is absolutely their right, even though their children will be disadvantaged outside their tiny enclave of 3 million people.

Have you thought that Welsh could be taught outside school? If it's so useful and important it would no doubt be popular at Saturday classes.