I agree with Leighton

For once I agree with Leighton Andrews – no don’t worry I haven’t had a knock on the head or been taking any banned substances.  I agree with the headline attributed to him in the Western Mail that an ‘adequate’ education system is not good enough for our children.

There is huge scope for improvement in Local Authorities across Wales – yet they have not been helped by constant changes of direction and frankly some crackpot schemes from Labour Cabinet Ministers.  Janey baby before her transfer to the environment department and her mission to save the planet spent some considerable time running around the world bringing back ideas which were then part implemented, usually without adequate financing.

Curriculums change at the drop of a hat depending on the latest idea to waft around the ether at the Bay.

And now we have Leighton.  Possibly the most hated figure in education today.  His single minded arrogance is quite extraordinary and whilst the headlines say all the right things – education needs improving, it is not good enough, we need to do better, etc.,  his actions give little hope to those of us working at school level.

His much criticised banding system has attracted much media attention.

What has attracted less attention is his plan to change the measurement of core subject indicators.  The core subjects for some years now have been maths, English (Welsh in Welsh medium schools) and science.

In future only maths and English will count.  This could well lead to a downturn in science standards.  Schools will no longer have to push that subject in order to keep their base standards measurement up.  There is a new measure of the best 8 GCSE results attained by each pupil.  There may then be a tendency to settle for pupils sitting exams in ‘softer’ (easier to pass) subjects.

The knock on effects of this could be substantial.  We will not be turning out scientists.  Where will our engineers come from? How does it match up with Edwina’s plans for enterprise zones based on energy and engineering?

Joined up thinking appears to have gone out of the window.

Adequate is not good enough for our children.  But until the likes of Leighton start taking on board some proper professional advice instead of trying to make a name for themselves it will not improve.

Arrogance that knows no bounds

It is certainly no secret that I have no time whatsoever for Leighton Andrews - the man's arrogance knows no bounds.  He is always right in his eyes, and no matter how high the level of outcry against him he, like good old Maggie T, is not for turning.


His newly introduced banding system has met with criticism from all sides, even the teaching unions, who normally shy away from criticising Labour Ministers, have come out against him. My thoughts on the Secondary school bands when they initially appeared were published in the local press and certainly favourably received by our Headteacher and at least some of my fellow Governors (Labour Councillors were not as forthcoming with praise).  The letter is repeated below.


Yesterday the BBC published the response to an FOI request which gave the 'scores on the doors' for all schools in Wales.  It only served to reinforce my previous opinion, that the banding bears little relation to how schools actually perform at their real function - educating our children.


Pontypridd High School recently underwent an Estyn inspection and performed very well - it is given a Band 5 rating.   Cynon Valley schools by and large do not perform as well as they should - that was much of the reasoning behind the Labour Party's plans to close all sixth forms in RCT.


Now he is to press ahead with his crazy system in Primary schools too.  Again there has been widespread critcism, but boys and girls Leighton knows best. Even though, as the BBC reports,  "many schools - around a third across Wales - will be exempt from banding on the grounds of their small size and other factors."


This surely makes a complete mockery of the whole system. 






LETTER TO PRESS
The school banding system is a complete disgrace and will achieve nothing except the further demoralisation of our teaching staff in RCT and indeed across Wales.


It appears that there is only one person who thinks this is a good idea and that is Leighton Andrews. Even the unions who are usually reluctant to criticise any Labour plans have come out strongly against it.


These tables by and large tell you nothing about how well a school is performing with regard to its core function which is to educate children and ensure that each pupil performs to the best of his / her ability. They are weighted according to things such as the number of free school meals pupils and very heavily weighted according to attendance.


The explanatory guidance which accompanied the banding report is about as clear as mud, and I have been involved in education for some considerable time, and as a political employee at the Assembly am used to deciphering Government gobbledegook.


The bands bear no relation in many instances to what is already published information such as Estyn reports and GCSE / A level results. They take no account of the community aspects of many schools.


They do take account of attendance, and as Vice Chair of Governors at a Secondary School I find this very galling. We, like many other schools, have done all we can to increase attendance, including employing our own welfare officer. Short of picking every pupil up and dragging them to school each day there is little else that we can do. Yet we will be 'punished' for this by being placed in band 4.


Yes there are problems in schools, yes some are not achieving the best they could for their pupils, yes we can all always improve - but the time of the Education Minister would be better spent on looking at ways to support schools rather than this.


Karen Roberts

Whose fault is it anyway?

According to the Rhondda Labour website, which like all their others it seems is a work in progress, local Labour members oppose the closure of the Minor Injuries Unit at Llwynypia.

Good for them, in fact I even signed their petition, sure they were very pleased by that.   They state that

·         The Rhondda Labour Party is opposed to the temporary closure of the Minor Injuries Unit at Llwynypia and demands that the Local Health Board reopens it.

·         This is one of Wales's newest hospitals. Taking services away from our community is unacceptable.

Well spotted.  They then go on to ask the following:

·         We understand that this is not a financial matter. But why has the Local Health Board failed to plan for the necessary numbers of doctors and Emergency Nurse Practitioners to staff both facilities?

·         There are many questions to be answered including:

·         What does 'temporary' mean?

·         When does the Local Health Board plan to re-open it?

·         Can you give us a cast iron guarantee that the unit will re-open when you have more staff?

Um, excuse me, but the Leader of RCT Council, the LABOUR leader of RCT Council is one of several Councillors on the local health board.  In fact he is a previous Chair of the local health board, covering a period of time when they should have been planning for this.

Anyone thought of asking Russell?

Or maybe local AM Leighton Andrews who is after all a member of the Welsh Government Cabinet  - surely there is an element of collective responsibility there , this is a problem not only in Cwm Taf but across Wales.

All of the glory and none of the blame – typical Labour hypocrisy.

Education Minister Leighton Andrews admits to failures

 “Education Minister Leighton Andrews has admitted the Welsh Government took its “eye off the ball” in relation to school standards following the devolution of powers to Wales.

In an interview with WalesOnline, Mr Andrews conceded the Welsh Labour-led administration had not done enough when it came to accountability.”

And there was me thinking his head was so far up his you know what that he couldn’t see what has been blatantly obvious to everyone else for ages.

Now if only he could show the same foresight in coming up with some useful solutions for a change.

In the meantime, just don’t mention coco pops.

Will someone get Leighton a calculator for Xmas please.

Education Minister Leighton Andrews has admitted to WalesOnline what we have known all along, that

“The Welsh Government’s radical tuition fee policy requires an element of guesswork and nobody really knows how much it will cost.”

Wow!  Really should have held the front page for that one. 

‘The Rhondda AM said calculations were “really difficult” to make and he is certain Welsh Labour’s tuition fee forecasts will be wrong.’

Perhaps it’s about time that the Labour party stopped using the back of a brown envelope and a well chewed pencil to make their budget calculations.  Because, Leighton, dealing with the budget for a whole country is ‘really difficult’  - you may have to take your shoes and socks off to aid your counting.

On a more serious note, this has always been the problem with the policy in Wales.  Despite what the press would like people to believe, the Welsh Liberal Democrats are still in favour of abolishing tuition fees, but it has to be a policy based on practicalities.  It needs to be properly costed and the funding stream identified.  How can you do that if you have no idea what the costs will be?

Last month Leighton claimed it would cost the Welsh Government £173m a year to subsidise Welsh students studying at UK Universities.  The affordability of the current policy is heavily reliant on English students coming to study in Wales and bringing in money.   In the interview the Minister is, as usual, dismissive of anything that doesn’t fit in with what he is determined to implement, such as data from UCAS which shows a sharp drop in the number of students from England applying to study here.

Apparently tomorrow WalesOnline will carry a further excerpt from the interview on the subject of school standards.  I can hardly contain my excitement.

Leighton's not making many friends

How many Christmas cards do you think Leighton Andrews will be getting this year?

The Labour Education Minister seems to be upsetting just about everyone these days.  Personally I have always found him to be a smug arrogant little man, and he seems determined to prove me right.

Fresh from the triumphant introduction of the school banding system he introduced which nobody seems to approve of except him, he has been busy this week upsetting the Higher Education sector yet again.

In what Media Wales described as a ‘wide ranging speech’ to the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education Conference in Cardiff he “also attacked “parochial small-mindedness” in the higher education sector – giving the strongest hint yet that the merged South East Wales University will happen.”

Why?  Because Leighton says so of course.

Now I don’t pretend to have any expertise in this matter.  There may indeed be convincing reasons why moves to merge certain Universities would make long term sense, but as usual the Minister does not seem to be interested in discussion or real consultation on the matter. His attitude to most things seems to be ‘it’s right because I said so.’

His attitude is reflected in the way in which he chooses to announce changes.  The Assembly is now in recess, so what better time for him to bring forward a whole raft of announcements when there is no chance of him being scrutinized in the Chamber.

He took the opportunity during this speech to announce the creation of a National body to govern and fund education in Wales. And you know what, out of the goodness of his little heart, he is prepared to actually Chair it himself.  How lucky are we to have such a man in charge of our education system?

We also read in the press yesterday that he is to set up a new regulatory body.  Now there are concerns in many quarters about the effectiveness of the General teaching Council for Wales and it is no doubt overdue an overhaul, but yet again this has come out of nowhere during recess.

What’s the problem Leighton?  Afraid of a few questions?  Can’t take the criticism?  Or does it just boost your feeling of self importance making these pronouncements just because you can?

“You’re such a cynic Leighton”

There are plenty of people across the political spectrum whose views I disagree with but who I respect for the way they conduct themselves.  There are others whose views I totally agree with but don’t like personally one bit.  In the case of Leighton Andrews I can find no common ground whatsoever.

On a personal level we have never got along – he ignores me completely unless we are in company where to do so would be rude in the extreme, and that suits me fine.  He has a huge ego that is only balanced by his total lack of personality.  But what really irritates me is his insistence that he is always right and his refusal to let little things such as facts get in his way.

His interview with the BBC’s Ciaran Jenkins today is a classic.  When faced with the bare statistics that show there has been a fall in the number of students achieving the top grades at A level in Wales he refused to acknowledge the fact and instead kept repeating the phrase “Ciaran you’re such a cynic.”

He repeatedly drawled on about the fact that the Welsh Baccalaureate figures were not included.  Correct Leighton – they were not.  But then they never have been so it does not affect the statistics as presented.  Also the Welsh Bacc is only equivalent to an ‘A’ grade – so if included it would have actually made the A* figures look worse.

Now I would never take anything away from all the hard working students who have done their best and achieved excellent results overall.  However, it still remains a fact that they are not performing as well as their counterparts in England.  Through no fault of their own.  And for the Education Minister to refuse to see there is a problem is astounding.  If you don’t admit a problem exists then how on earth can you hope to address it?   Still it should not come as a surprise - it's a methodology common amongst Labour.

Only Leighton can save us now

Leighton Andrews is clearly out of his depth with the education portfolio.  His ego appears to be getting in the way of any real progress and he seems convinced that his way is the only way.

According to the BBC today he thinks that the Welsh Government (yes the Labour one) was wrong to abolish SATS (did he mention that to Janey baby at the time?).   He thinks they ‘may not’ have put in place "sufficient ways of ensuring the judgements that teachers were making were done on a consistent basis local authority by local authority".

Now it is blatantly obvious that they failed to do anything of the sort, but SATS are not the answer.  The abolition of SATS had cross party support, more importantly it had the support of the people who really matter, the teachers!

Mr Andrews is determined to right the wrongs as he sees it of his predecessor. He will no doubt ignore the opinions of anyone else as he rushes headlong into making these random changes, determined to make his mark.

He made his last lot of pronouncements outside of the Siambr which gave no opportunity for scrutiny of or indeed questions on the subject by Assembly members.  His next one is again due to be made outside of the confines of the Assembly at an IWA event next week.

He seems to be missing a major point – testing does not raise standards.  Ongoing assessment which is then acted on does – and I certainly would not disagree that there needs to be a degree of standardisation of assessment methods across Wales.  SATS did not provide that.  Yes the questions were standard, but marking varied greatly and some schools did bend the rules slightly more than others.  As a Governor of a Secondary School I know that SATS certainly did not provide a reliable assessment of pupils’ ability.

Perhaps the Minister should stop rushing around like a headless chicken and take some soundings form the professionals.  In the meantime I’d imagine he’s off Jane Davidson’s Christmas card list.

Let our teachers teach

Foundation phase tests not fit for purpose, say heads

Yet another example of a Labour Minister thinking they know better than the experts in the field.

When are they going to learn to have some trust in the professionals?  Let our teachers teach. Leighton Andrews like Jane Davidson before him is full of his own self-importance and has no regard whatsoever for what he is being told by educationalists.  He knows best.  Wonder what school he learnt that attitude from?

When is a u-turn not a u-turn?

Why is it that whenever the government actually listen to the outcome of a consultation opposition members start screaming ‘u-turn’ - such is the case in relation to the announcement that the plans to close coastguard stations will be reviewed?  Plaid are jumping up and down as they like to do shouting that they have ‘bowed to pressure.’Maybe it is because they cannot understand the concept.  Plaid and consultation have never been comfortable bed fellows in my view.  Several years ago for instance when they ran RCT Council they held a so called ‘consultation’ on what type of council structure there should be – Cabinet / cross party Executive, etc.

They had already made up their minds that they wanted a single party Cabinet structure, but the public thought otherwise.  So Plaid (with the aid of the then Chief Executive) decided that the public, simply ‘did not understand the question.’

Labour of course have a completely different approach, they know they are right in all things and so either don’t bother to ask at all, or don’t listen when they do.  Such was the case with regard to the name change of Rhydfelen School.  Hundreds of pupils, staff, governors, past pupils all said they wanted to keep the name, but the ten members of the Labour Cabinet thought otherwise.

It must be very difficult for them then to come to terms with the concept of real consultation where people’s opinions are taken into consideration.

Perhaps Leighton could give them a bit of a lecture on the value of learning.