Quote Originally Posted by Nelsonca61 View Post
I'm not sure why people want to compare it with any other country, the point was, education standards are failing in Wales and that's concerning, I have no idea why the usual suspects think that spending vast amounts of money are the answer to teaching children to add up and take away, reed and rite and actually turn up for school.
I sit near to the team who deal with pupil attendance and in the last few years the approach has changed from working with families to improve attendance to fine fine fine and take them to court if they don't pay - all due to cuts in funding/capacity, the team simply don't have time to do a proper job. I live in England but I would imagine the same can be said of Welsh local authorities since the government drastically reduced funding in this area. This will only get worse with academisation.

There is a massive (and seemingly unrecognised if this thread is anything to go by) correlation between family wealth and pupil attainment. Look at a map of the UK and in general the poorer areas are the lower achieving. There is an even bigger correlation between parents level of education and pupil attainment, effectively what we have is a never ending cycle - until we find some way enhancing the prospects of poorer children.

edit/ I lost my way a bit there. The point I was making is that funding does matter! Resources cost money, motivated staff cost money, school buildings that aren't falling apart cost money, services to catch those who aren't achieving their potential cost money.