Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, all. In your report you talked about in early settings where skills development is less effective, that children begin to feel at a very early age that they can't do certain things. I don't know whether that is anecdotal evidence or is that specific outcome-based evidence—whatever, it's quite worrying. But what do you think the long-term effect on a child's development has in that respect?
Claire Morgan: It's probably worth saying that skill development is a strength in about three quarters of our schools—primary schools and early years settings. But in a minority of schools and settings, as you've picked up, children are often introduced to things too early. So, they're introduced to phonics, they're introduced to learning to read, when they're not at that developmental stage. And really, long term, it means the children lose confidence, because if they're introduced to these things too early they don't succeed, they tend to need additional support, and it can give them a negative impression, it can give them negative thoughts about their ability. So, we need to address that, and really it's about—
Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, what sort of age range are we talking about here?
Claire Morgan: These would be children from three to five.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay.
Claire Morgan: So, this is very, very early on.
Dawn Bowden AM: And is there something, then, in that—and I don't think there's much we can do about that, but it may be in terms of the way that the schools or the early learning settings address this—you will have children at a very young age that have almost a year's difference in their age group, so they're born just before 1 September or just after 1 September? So, that's a huge gap, isn't it, at that point in their development?
Claire Morgan: Yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Is that not being addressed in a way that those children are being taught and approached at that age?
Claire Morgan: Yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Right, okay. That's fine. In terms of reading and literacy skills, we still remain quite low in the Programme for International Student Assessment ratings for reading, and I know there is a particular concern about the impact on boys in that regard. What do you think are the most pressing priorities that face them around reading and literacy?
Meilyr Rowlands: I think literacy has been, and still is, and still needs to be a top priority. I mean, literacy clearly is something that underpins the rest of education, so it really does need to be a top priority. I think it has been a high priority, but we need to continue prioritising it. We've seen some improvements over the years. For example, we've given a lot of attention to writing over the years, and making sure that children get the opportunity to write in an extended way, not just short sentences, but having the opportunity to have extended writing, and there's some evidence that that now is beginning to have an effect. But almost ironically, the same sort of issue is true of reading. So, it's not just reading small little snippets—we need to encourage children to have a love for reading and read whole books. So, I gave a little bit of attention to that in the annual report—that that needs attention. I think the other thing I would emphasise is that this is not just for the foundation phase, it's not just for very young children—it's really important at key stage 2 and in secondary school. One of the things we have been worried about, and I think there was some reflection of this in PISA, is that there are strengths in reading in Wales. So, PISA, for example, said that children in Wales are very good at comparing lots of little snippets, but what they're saying, and they're saying this themselves, is that the love of books is decreasing, and the number of children who read regularly whole books. So, I think there is something there for teachers to set and model a good example, to show their own interest in reading, to encourage children to read themselves.
Dawn Bowden AM: It's probably a wider societal problem as well, isn't it? I'm thinking about gaming, electronic gaming, computers.
Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely. I think there is some sort of link with the digital world, and the way people read—the actual technique of reading, is evolving. But I think reading is so important, and developing a complex vocabulary is so important in being able to communicate, in order to get a good job, to have enjoyment out of life—all of those things are so important. We ourselves are going to give this quite a lot of priority in future, so we're doing a major piece of work on language acquisition, which will cover some of this next year. Every year one of our thematics is the major bit of work we do, and we try to support that with a conference. So, that will be the focus that we give to our work next year—it is on language acquisition.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you for that. Just one other supplementary on that, I guess, is whether you have a good idea of how many young people are coming out of school at 16—so, those that are not staying on to do A-levels—and are coming out with an inability to read or white. Do we know what the figure is for that?
Meilyr Rowlands: I can't tell you that off the top of my head, but I'm sure that there will be evidence. That's not something we inspect as such.
Dawn Bowden AM: No, no, but there should be evidence around that. Okay.
Jassa Scott: There has been a shift in that there's been continued emphasis in post-16 education and training around literacy and picking that up. For example, anyone who's studying in a further education college will have to do resits. There's an aim to try and get everyone to a basic level. In apprenticeships they'll use essential skills and so on to try and get that basic level of literacy as well, so there is an emphasis. I think one of the worrying indications, maybe, that post-16 sectors find is that sometimes even when learners are coming out with a basic qualification in a GCSE, potentially in English or a literature subject, they don't necessarily have a really good foundation of some of the basic skills as well. So, there is a lot of work to do in this area.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, all right. Could I just move you on—? Sorry—
Meilyr Rowlands: The only thing I would add to that is, I guess, it's quite small, the number of people who don't have basic reading. I think one of the things we need to emphasise is that learning reading is something you do throughout your life, and what we need to do is to develop, in particular, pupils' higher level reading skills. The fact that they can just read isn't the end of the story; they need to be developing those higher level reading skills and continuing to widen the range of things they read, and be able to develop their vocabulary at a higher level.
Dawn Bowden AM: And their comprehension, I guess.
Meilyr Rowlands: Sorry?
Dawn Bowden AM: And their comprehension as well.
Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely, yes—those higher level skills of comprehension and inference and those sorts of things.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, okay. Can I just move you on, then, to numeracy and whether you can tell us if you're satisfied with the progress in numeracy, because I think we were doing better on the PISA results in maths in Wales than we did previously? So, what are your thoughts on that?
Meilyr Rowlands: I think there is a fairly clear good news story here. PISA shows improvements and a lot of that can be attributed, I think, to the new GCSE mathematics numeracy. I think there's much less predictability in that work; you can't approach it in a formulaic way, either the pupils or the teachers in terms of teaching it. There's much more problem solving. It's about applying what you've learnt in the core mathematics lessons to new situations in subjects across the curriculum. I think that that GCSE numeracy has built on the work that's been done lower down on the national numeracy framework, which has the same philosophy of applying that mathematics knowledge in a problem-solving situation. That has been a really good news story, really.
Dawn Bowden AM: That's something to be positive about, anyway. That's good. My final question, Chair, is: in your view, to what extent is Wales on track to meet the target of 500 points in each of the domains in the 2020-1 cycle for PISA?
Meilyr Rowlands: I think that that target is somewhat arbitrary, but assuming that we continue on this journey that we are on—the current change programme of the new curriculum and so forth—I think we would expect to see those improvements we've seen in science and in mathematics to continue. We've talked about reading and I think we will be giving more attention to reading. I think the education system more generally, hopefully, will give more attention to reading. So, I would hope to see improvements there as well. The only other thing I would add is that there is some research that indicates or suggests that the effect of schools is greater on mathematics and science than on reading, and the reason for that is you don't do a lot mathematics or science in the home. But the attitude towards reading is very much dependent on family and community factors, more so, maybe, than mathematics and science. So, I think that's another reason why I think a community-school approach is really important. You need to get everybody on board; it's not just what the teacher does in the classroom—it's important that the whole family and the community thinks that reading is important.
Dawn Bowden AM: Just on numeracy, it was interesting because one of the schools in my constituency have actually contacted my office and a number of other organisations across the constituency to ask us how we use maths in our work. So, they're obviously trying to relate that now to everyday life and working, which I thought was quite good.
Meilyr Rowlands: That's good.