The Education & Skills Service Transformation Committee met to discuss reading and numeracy in Swansea schools, and to review the committee's work plan for the remainder of the municipal year. The committee reviewed a report on reading and numeracy, and agreed that the council should consider options and actions to transform the service to address challenges and make improvements, culminating in a self-evaluation manual that supports schools.

Reading and Numeracy in Swansea Schools

The committee reviewed a report on the current provision for reading and numeracy in Swansea schools and how support could be improved. The report set out the local and national perspective on reading and numeracy outcomes, the current professional learning offered by Swansea's School Improvement Team (SIT), and an officer assessment of what support schools need to make improvements.

The report explained the distinction between mathematics and numeracy, and between language and literacy, stating that:

Mathematics is the discipline itself. It involves abstract thinking, logical reasoning, and the use of symbols to explore and prove relationships between concepts. It includes areas like algebra, geometry, and statistics, and is taught as a subject with its own body of knowledge.

Numeracy, on the other hand, is the application of mathematical skills in real-world contexts. It's about using numbers to solve problems in everyday life—like budgeting, interpreting data, or measuring space.

A similar distinction was made between language and literacy:

Language refers to the study and use of specific languages, including Welsh, English, and international languages. It includes learning about grammar, vocabulary, structure, and cultural context. Language development is typically led by specialists and is taught within the areas of learning and experiences (AoLEs) as a subject discipline

Literacy refers to the skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing. It is a cross-curricular responsibility, meaning all teachers—regardless of subject—are expected to help learners develop these skills. Literacy is about how learners communicate and make sense of the world, and it underpins learning across all areas

The report noted that in the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Wales has never outperformed the OECD mean average in reading or numeracy and has consistently lagged behind England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and that the performance of Welsh learners in 2022 marked the country's lowest ever performance.

The report also referred to Personalised Assessments, which schools are required to use to support understanding of learner progression in the mandatory cross-curricular skills within the Curriculum for Wales¹. The outcomes of these assessments are required to be shared with parents and carers.

The report highlighted the main patterns that stand out from the analysis of Personalised Assessments:

• In procedural numeracy, the performance of boys is consistently stronger than that of girls of the same age.
• In procedural numeracy, learners eligible for free school meals² (eFSM) consistently perform worse than their peers.
• In procedural numeracy, pupils with ethnic backgrounds of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups perform less well than White British pupils.
• Reading assessments indicate that girls consistently demonstrate stronger reading skills than boys and this gap increases as the pupils get older.
• When considering the reading skills of eFSM pupils, the pattern follows numeracy assessment outcomes, but here the gaps are larger.

The report also summarised reflections from Estyn³ inspections, noting that while the provision for developing basic numeracy and literacy skills has strengthened in schools, learners do not always make enough progress in the latter years of the primary phase and beginning of the secondary phase to ensure that they develop more advanced literacy and numeracy skills.

The report included an evaluation from Swansea’s Performance Specialists, which found that:

• Too many schools do not evaluate the impact of the provision on improved skills.
• Quality assurance is not used as effectively as it could to support the self-evaluation and strategic improvement planning of cross-curricular skills.
• The level of seniority afforded to skills coordinators varies greatly across schools. As a result, the quality of leadership is too variable.
• In many schools, plans to support the professional learning for staff with low confidence, are at early stage of development.
• Too many numeracy activities do not require pupils to make their own decisions on the mathematics needed to engage and progress.
• Too many data handling activities do not require pupils to reflect upon their analyses and draw appropriate conclusions.
• Activity planning does not often enough strive to involve a local or authentic context.
• Assessment and feedback to pupils on numeracy work is often underdeveloped and has too little impact
• In secondary schools, there is often a lack of recognition that Maths departments have an important contribution to make in the planning and delivery of authentic activities which contribute to the pupil progress in line with the Numeracy Framework.
• Lack of staff confidence in phonics and reading pedagogy
• A significant number of pupils leave primary school without secure reading skills which impacts their ability to develop knowledge across the curriculum, especially in secondary settings.
• Schools often prioritise reading schemes; some reading materials are outdated, which can affect students' engagement with reading for pleasure and the relevance of texts to their experiences or identities.
• Quality assurance Inconsistent use of assessment information. Some schools gather comprehensive reading data but do not consistently apply it to guide planning or interventions.
• Inconsistent reading instruction, with unclear expectations for regular group sessions, daily phonics, individual reading, and frequent reading aloud to children.
• Some pupils experience difficulties with comprehension, which may relate to limited emphasis on tiered vocabulary and challenging questioning by practitioners.
• Reading for pleasure is not emphasised, and reading is regarded as a challenging and time-consuming activity rather than an enjoyable pursuit.
• Home reading routines and reading resources are inconsistent, and schools often struggle to engage families in supporting literacy development beyond the classroom.
• Pupils often lack confidence in structuring sentences and understanding genre conventions, which affects both reading comprehension and writing quality.
• Insufficient opportunities for pupils to develop their advanced reading skills across the curriculum.
• Emphasis on writing in primary schools may impact timetabling and reduce time allocated for reading opportunities.

The report also detailed Swansea's professional learning (PL) for schools, explaining that PL acts as a catalyst for positive change by supporting improvements and enhancing professional knowledge, skills, and understanding.

The report concluded that the cross-curricular skills of numeracy and literacy (reading) are mandatory elements within the Curriculum for Wales, and that planning for the delivery of these skills is the collective responsibility of all practitioners within a learning organisation.

The report suggested a number of options to support service transformation, including:

• Strengthening leadership and strategic planning
• Improving self-evaluation and quality assurance
• Enhancing Professional Learning (PL)

The committee agreed that the council should consider these options and actions to transform the service to address the challenges and make improvements, culminating in a self-evaluation manual that supports schools.

Work Plan

The committee reviewed the work plan for the remainder of the municipal year.