Welsh teenagers 2 years of education behind English teenagers

It should have been, though - but the language was systematically discriminated against in a deliberate decision to try to eradicate it, meaning that Welsh children of earlier generations were denied the right to learn and speak their own language and therefore could not do the same for their children.

DD8 (y4), last term she stopped getting sent home with English books to read, after a bit I asked DD what was going on and she said that she had "run out of books at level 9 and they didn't know what to do with her because she was already a level above the next best reader and several levels above the rest of her year" (small school 8 kids in year). I messaged school, not sure if DD had got this quite right. The reply I got was

"I have read with and moved her to stage 11 in English. I have discussed with her that it is possible to read without fully understanding what we have read. She appears to understand stage 11 however if she struggles please let me know."

At parents evening we have been repeatedly told she is an excellent reader, doing great etc etc.

But level 11 is what English kids are expected to be achieving by end of year 2, not end of year 3. DD is bilingual, but her reading level in Welsh is a far bit lower. So she's doing okay, but not "excellent" by any standard.

Her school is a really great little primary school, the staff are wonderful and DD LOVES going to school, and they get them outside loads and give them wonderful experiences and support. The staff are incredibly dedicated, so I feel the problem lies in their training and the entire ethos and curriculum, not with the individual staff.

But something is fundamentally wrong that they are holding kids back because they are ahead of other kids or because they might not fully understand every word (surely that is how vocabularly is built). She's been slowly reading Harry Potter and the philosiphers stone over the summer (she is very familiar with the story from being read to and the film), which is way above level 11.

Maths is another challenge, because she chooses what difficulty level she tackles herself and won't push herself through fear of getting it wrong. Child led is nice, but not always.

Maybe they are just a bit thicker?

My DDs school is incredibly middle classed. I feel like an under achiever as a Band 6 in the NHS and 2 undergrad degrees. There are a significant number of PHDs amongst the parents, and it's a wonderful happy school environment... BUT... read my previous post about reading issues with DD.

It's definetly not simply a social deprivation issue.

They (Michael gove I think) changed the teaching methods for Reading in England and that greatly improved results.
For some reason Scotland and possibly Wales are not adopting it.

But something is fundamentally wrong that they are holding kids back because they are ahead of other kids

We had this. They informed me that my DC was in the gifted and talented bracket after tests, and when I said ‘oh fantastic, what will this mean for his schooling, how will we nurture it?’ they said ‘oh no we won’t be making any changes, we were just telling you as we thought you’d be pleased. But you can’t expect us to differentiate between the children, it wouldn’t be fair to the other children if he’s got work they can’t do.’

I was gobsmacked but this is pretty typical of the Welsh system from what I gather.

Also there are no SATs in wales. Which in some ways is nice, but means that poor schools find it incredibly easy to hide.

This is shocking that it is clearly ingrained in education, was this just at primary school level or throughout? If it's just primary I figure I can ride it out with some extra input at home.

My cousin is a year 4 teacher in England, she advised me to start DD on Oxford reading tree when she was little and we were starting to become concerned at the total lack of inertia, I may need to message her regarding next steps and particularly maths.

Do maths tutors for primary school age exists? We live near a uni with a teacher training department so I wonder if I could find a student who wants to earn some extra money.

I'm also concerned about this, and I've just opened a Khan maths account. I did Kumon as a child but it's not cheap, so if this helps (it's free) I'll be pleased.

Just found a maths tutor who covers KS2 through to A level who lives down the road from me and has really good reviews, so have messaged exH with a link, and will take it from there. I'm think maybe a block of 5 weekly sessions each term just to push DDs maths on.

You could also just purchase the Collins and CGP 11 plus book series in Maths and English. CGP is very good and explains it all quite well.

I'm surprised that some are suggesting kids learning Welsh is a reason Welsh kids are behind? Surely the universal consensus is that languages and music help learned from a young age helps the brain to develop? Where my dd lives, Welsh is the first language. Its spoken on the streets, in the shops and is mandatory in some public facing roles. I'm trying to learn it, and I have to admit it's tricky!
In many respects Wales do an amazing job of looking after their young people. They have no prescription charges, a higher minimum maintenance loan for students, I think £10k, which enables students to focus better on their studies. What it hasn't been able to do is replace the industry gap that was left when mining etc was ripped out of the valleys, leaving pockets of deprivation, which is directly linked to educational attainment.

And Bond for English comprehension used to be good too. If you have a motivated child, you can just set them some homework yourself.

I speak a few languages, some of them minority (my family immigrated to the UK). It's never held me back at university or in my career. In fact, research shows bilingual children outperform their monolingual peers on many tasks.

I'd love to take that approach but my DD is a little darling when other people teach her things and a pain in the arse and entirely resistant to me teaching her!! Home schooling her would be pure anarchy!!
I always thingk we should do kid swaps to teach our kids key skills or sports because they always seem to respond much better to someone elses parents!!

That is fine at @Periperi2025 - but my friends who used tutors still had to supervise plenty of homework anyway and practise X times a week and mark it. So you can do 5 sessions a term but if you want her to progress then it will be homework anyway and often it will be going through that type of book (at least in England).

I'm not sure what it is, but i think the bilingual education my contribute indirectly to the problem though.

I think Welsh schools hide behind the fact that there is a period when bilingual kids are behind linguistically as part of learning two languages, but the Welsh education system is using this as an excuse to ignore the obvious failings.

There also seems to be a pattern of dumbing down rather than pushing kids on, and a bit two much 'child-led' learning, my DD does the 'Chilli's' system for Maths and whilst capable of doing the harder red Chilli's she doesn't because she'd rather get 100% correct than risk making mistakes, and she is left, at 8, to make this decision for her education. She needs have that choice taken away and to be pushed to her capabilities, make mistakes and realise that it's fine and make progress in her Maths at the same time.

I also have big concerns about teaching STEM via Welsh. Whether the Welsh first crew like it or not Science is a global concept best understood through majority languages and STEM subjects needs to be taught via English otherwise we are putting our children at a disadvantage.

I'd like to see a Welsh education system that teaches arts and humanities via Welsh (because the Welsh culture is rich and proud) and teaches STEM subjects completely through English - best of both worlds.

Okay, I'll look in to it. She is suprisngly good at doing her homework unprompted when it has been set by school, but if i asked her to do something...well!!!

Oh God I attended a child led infant school in the 70s. I loved it but it was terrible. I remember going up to junior school and being in awe of the "really clever kids" who had come from the more structured school. I never did catch up.

Blaming the poor quality education on the Welsh language is a red herring that allows everyone to overlook the ideological ITE training, ridiculous curriculum, poor funding, and lack of accountability.

It's scary, it feels like i need to change my mindset and treat school as childcare and socialisation and home as education, but I don't want to be a home educator, I'm too busy, I'm starting an MSc, and she is with her Dad 50/50 who would never get on board with it. But I don't want to fail her, she is so bright and determined she wants to be a vet.

Just to add, I grew up in north wales too (where I still live and have DC in secondary school) and can see little difference in mine and my DDs education with regard to the Welsh language. I went to a Welsh school in a Welsh area and we spoke and learnt Welsh at school. We were taught through Welsh medium in secondary school.
The decline in standards compared to England has been increasing over the last few years, a recent problem. It can’t be because of the Welsh language because that has been around in schools for decades.
Of course we need to understand what’s going on but just blaming it on learning Welsh is lazy.

I don’t think you can blame the closure of mines. I grew up in Wales then and a whole heap of us got out of Wales and found work elsewhere. Also the educational level of my university educated friends’ children is abysmal compared their home life. Great home life, poor attainment. That is down to the education system.

Blaming a second language for poor results is daft when you think how fluent European countries are in English.

The welsh language has nothing to do with the poor results in my opinion. My kids go to a bilingual school but its English first so welsh is taught more like a second language and I can honestly say it has helped them with picking up other languages as well.
I do worry greatly about maths provision though. My dd especially I feel like she is behind where she should be at her age and over the last year I have been taking steps to help her as she is a bright girl who lacks in confidence and the fact she could choose her worksheet level through out primary school meant she wasn't pushing herself even though she was definitely able.
I do reading with the children in the primary school and it is shocking how some of them can't read and its not because the teachers don't try. They will admit their parents do not read with them and they only have a couple of books at home. I live in a fairly poor area of north wales and I do think socio economics play a major part in this. I wonder what the scores would be in comparison to places in the north of England for example.

Maybe if Wales hadn’t been hamstrung by the Barnet formula over the last 50+ years where we get less per head than Scotland then maybe we stand a chance.
There is massive deindustrialisation and when we make head ways with other technology, Uk national government won’t give any Lee way on Crown Estate so yet again we are asset stripped and Westminster doesn’t care enough.