Welsh teenagers 2 years of education behind English teenagers

[Ablondiebutagoody]

Latest Pisa research has Welsh kids up to 40 points below English kids, which corresponds to two full years of education.

AIBU to say this is due to a dumbing down of the curriculum by Welsh Labour and that Phillipson is eyeing up the same for England?

YANBU: It's down to Government meddling
YABU: Other factors are responsible for Welsh kids poor performance

Learning another language is self evidently useful, but learning one with more speakers than Welsh will be a lot more useful. There are about 75 million French speakers in the world, and about 519 million Spanish speakers. Using up the time available for teaching a second language to learn one spoken by half a million people is quite a lot less useful. Added to which all the Welsh speakers can speak English, so communication would not be a problem.
.

it's only not the native language of the majority of the population because it was actively discouraged and even legislated against by the english for centuries. If anything the fact it survived should be celebrated. If all schools in wales moved to only teaching in welsh and had english as a second language, within 2 generations it would no longer be a minority language.

I love the way that if someone suggested the populations of malta or croatia or mongolia, were taught in english rather than their native language you'd be accused of being racist but for welsh it's fine!

also MFL are ALSO taught in welsh schools! It doesn't have to be one or the other.

Like everything else in Wales, Welsh outcomes, health, wealth and education are way behind England. Thats what years of Labour control and socialism does to a country. And still people vote them

Are you aware of the outcome of the recent election in Wales?

Well they could just be taught Welsh. With no English Literature or English Language lessons. That would free up the timetable space and make Wales more Welsh.

Of course teaching minority languages is a negative

Have you any evidence to back this up? Irish children are doing better than their peers in NI, England, Scotland and Wales and learning Irish is a huge part of their curriculum so I'd like to see your evidence that it's a negative. They're ranked first for reading in the EU. And of course they learn another foreign language too, sometimes two if they choose to. Amazing what a well rounded flexible curriculum can achieve.

And it's hardly their 'native language ' if they need it teaching to them in school. I would have thought native speakers would be chattering away like budgies from babyhood if it really were their native language,
You're just showing your ignorance here

You're just being ridiculous. They can learn Welsh, English lit and a foreign language. Why limit them? Students in other European countries often learn two or three languages. Very English centric attitude.

Admittedly a very long time ago but I attended a school in Wales where I was taught Welsh, French and German alongside English lessons. Why do some posters think being taught Welsh in Wales of all places limits students?

Are you seriously describing the first language (one of only two language groups actually native to the British Isles, the other being Gaelic) of half a million people as a "hobby"?

Apart from anything else, being bilingual from an early age helps children with reasoning, memory and problem-solving skills.

My children learn everything through the medium of Welsh - even French! Discussions on English books in English literature classes will be in Welsh and it is absolutely the normal everyday language for people where I live - and yes, that includes babbling toddlers. Typical mumsnet to assume Welsh is a token language that nobody uses. Not learning Welsh when it is mandatory for public sector roles puts children at a huge disadvantage.

It's really disappointing that this potentially interesting thread has been derailed by the usual bickering about Welsh language education, which probably determines 1% of overall outcomes but seems to occupy 99% of the conversation.

It's also worth noting that some of the Welsh-medium schools in Cardiff (a place where few speak it as a first language) are very sought-after. Clearly even English-speaking parents recognise the value of language education.

But it’s very rare for Irish students to learn maths and science in the Irish language and the PISA will be done in English. There aren’t many purely Irish medium secondary schools.

In Wales, students in Welsh medium schools do the PISA in Welsh not English. If Irish students were quizzed about algebra in Irish they would likely do far worse than the Welsh.

The Welsh and Scottish curriculum changes that happened post devolution are similar and are having similar results. Learning of knowledge has been downplayed and learning of soft skills has been centred more. The Gove reforms to English education has a strong knowledge-rich emphasis.

Feel free to make of the results what you will. I know which system is rather have my kids learning under.

Changes to the Welsh curriculum taking it in line with the Scottish happened after the decline in standards in Scotland was observable. I watched it happen with dismay and was pleased to be able to send my children to school in England (we live on the border). The emphasis on skills rather than knowledge is disastrous. Nothing to do with Welsh teaching though, teaching another language from a young age is beneficial.

It’s very interesting that a previous poster thought that Gove’s reforms were a universal disaster. They really were not, even if some bits weren’t ideal.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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!

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

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

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.

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.