Education continuing to fail under Labour control in Wales

[life on mars]

But Maggie closed the mines so.....

And we got rid of the plague

[Heathblue]

yes it does Eric, just like it applied to them pre 1997 and John Major / Thatcher era. New Labour voted in on some massive promises and everyone then waited for the promises to be delivered (we know how that story ended)

With the Tories it is slightly different as the first Govt was a coalition, the second one was only a half a term - then Brexit and then the 2nd part of it under May.

Iraq and debt were Blair / Brown legacies , Brexit obviously Cameron's one, We wont know May's legacy until we see how Brexit pans out and how much the Lib Dems and Labour try to disrupt (as is their right in opposition).

ps the Original Post said "Education continuing to fail under Labour control in Wales"

So unsurprising it has ended up about Brexit

And despite a few attempted swerves by the usual suspects, no one has managed to counteract this FACT.
Education continuing to fail under Labour control in Wales, repeat to fade.

[life on mars]

And despite a few attempted swerves by the usual suspects, no one has managed to counteract this FACT.
Education continuing to fail under Labour control in Wales, repeat to fade.

Its tough for people to accept failure, and even tougher to possible accept thier favoured political party maybe at fault , it's due to blind loyalty .

[Eric Cartman]

And despite a few attempted swerves by the usual suspects, no one has managed to counteract this FACT.
Education continuing to fail under Labour control in Wales, repeat to fade.

There isn't really much to say, of course the governing party are partially to blame for something as fundamental as education.

I guess a good starting point would be someone explaining what the Welsh government have done differently to the 'English' government. Then we could judge accordingly. I don't live in Wales but I am guessing you lot do so it won't be hard.

[Heathblue]

Its tough for people to accept failure, and even tougher to possible accept thier favoured political party maybe at fault , it's due to blind loyalty .

In a nutshell.

[tommy31]

Godwyns Law states the number of sentences in a debate before someone resorts to mentioning Hitler - there must be an equivalent one for Thatcher?

I understand your point, and my comment was just tongue in cheek, however mentioning a PM from little over 40 years ago is hardly irrelevant when you're talking politics. Especially when she had such a massive effect. And besides, she probably is the reason labour are still in government. 'Never trust a tory' and all that

[tommy31]

I guess a good starting point would be someone explaining that the Welsh government exists

FTFY

[Rjk]

I bet Wales would compare more favourably against a similar region of the UK, like the north east of England for example.
There wouldn't be much surprise if a school in leafy Surrey does better than one in a run down industrial area in Tyneside

[I.8.POLITICAL.CORRECTNESS]

A difficult one to answer as the 3 elections gave them no real power, first was a coalition, second was a small majority, tge last one was a shrunken majority .

The 3 elections have overseen a massive financial crash not of the making, Brexit which was thier making , the disastrous May plan, which is devoid of direction ,the rise and fall of UKIP and the faltering SNP .

In the meantime the opposition staggers from one direction to another to another , ironically sacks anyone with a strong and opposite viewpoint to theirs , DEMOCRACY EH .

[Dr Tim Muff]

Welsh kids have serious amounts of study/learning diverted to the promotion of the Welsh language. Given that time - especially at this age - is of vital importance, isn't it reasonable to expect performance in other subjects to suffer? English kids, effectively, have more lesson time than Welsh kids (in subjects that are not Welsh!) because they are not subject to compulsory Welsh.
Or have I missed something?

[Nick]

Welsh kids have serious amounts of study/learning diverted to the promotion of the Welsh language. Given that time - especially at this age - is of vital importance, isn't it reasonable to expect performance in other subjects to suffer? English kids, effectively, have more lesson time than Welsh kids (in subjects that are not Welsh!) because they are not subject to compulsory Welsh.
Or have I missed something?

So, a WG policy, compulsory Welsh, is the problem?

[Dr Tim Muff]

It must have an impact - don't you think?

[Sgt. Pepper]

I bet Wales would compare more favourably against a similar region of the UK, like the north east of England for example.
There wouldn't be much surprise if a school in leafy Surrey does better than one in a run down industrial area in Tyneside

I've said the same so many times, wherever 'Wales' is compared with 'England'.
I wouldn't want to defend poor standards in Education, nor failing NHS performance targets etc, etc, but the England/Wales comparison is clearly not like-for-like.
Yet political mileage is wrung from it.

[Heathblue]

I've said the same so many times, wherever 'Wales' is compared with 'England'.
I wouldn't want to defend poor standards in Education, nor failing NHS performance targets etc, etc, but the England/Wales comparison is clearly not like-for-like.
Yet political mileage is wrung from it.

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.

[Dr Tim Muff]

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.

So without comparing to another country, what persuades you that Wales is failing?

[Sgt. Pepper]

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.

Apparently you have deliberately missed the obvious point that was made.
The point is - how can Wales be compared with England? Overall they almost certainly very different, socially, economically, demographics, communications, average earnings, health, wealth etc etc etc..

Now if you compared Wales with a combined area of 'similar-to-Wales' counties - say Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Tyne & Wear and Cumbria, you might get a very different set of results. We might not look so 'behind' after all.

Now lets compare both of those with say : Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Sussex and Surrey...

Again, I don't want to defend poor Education standards - not in Wales, nor anywhere!

It is frustrating to see yet more Wales bashing after employing the usual wholly inaccurate 'comparison' model.

[tommy31]

Apparently you have deliberately missed the obvious point that was made.
The point is - how can Wales be compared with England? Overall they almost certainly very different, socially, economically, demographics, communications, average earnings, health, wealth etc etc etc..

Now if you compared Wales with a combined area of 'similar-to-Wales' counties - say Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Tyne & Wear and Cumbria, you might get a very different set of results. We might not look so 'behind' after all.

Now lets compare both of those with say : Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Sussex and Surrey...

Again, I don't want to defend poor Education standards - not in Wales, nor anywhere!

It is frustrating to see yet more Wales bashing after employing the usual wholly inaccurate 'comparison' model.

Why is wales in such a state that it ca't be compared to those areas? Who's run it into the ground?

[Eric Cartman]

Why is wales in such a state that it ca't be compared to those areas? Who's run it into the ground?

Was Wales previously very high performing educationally?

[Heathblue]

Apparently you have deliberately missed the obvious point that was made.
The point is - how can Wales be compared with England? Overall they almost certainly very different, socially, economically, demographics, communications, average earnings, health, wealth etc etc etc..

Now if you compared Wales with a combined area of 'similar-to-Wales' counties - say Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Tyne & Wear and Cumbria, you might get a very different set of results. We might not look so 'behind' after all.

Now lets compare both of those with say : Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Sussex and Surrey...

Again, I don't want to defend poor Education standards - not in Wales, nor anywhere!

It is frustrating to see yet more Wales bashing after employing the usual wholly inaccurate 'comparison' model.

Selective interpretation, I'm not Wales bashing as you put it, but pointing out that, education standards in Wales continual to fall under Welsh Labour, if you are happy with it, then fair doos, Devolution in Wales took place in 1997-1999 and the Welsh assembly has been in Labour control since, the stock response, repeated by their stooges on here is "Blame Westminster and cash starvation" they did try a little swerve last year by putting a Lib Dem in charge of education, Whatever the Labour boyos do, it isn't benefitting the children but the eligible voters still do what their fathers told them, and that is to vote for a turd with a red rosette, I'm a traditional labour voter but Welsh Labour isn't good enough and although would probably go with Dustbin at the next election, would like to see a change of government in Wales, you never know, Wales might prosper because of it and education standards may rise.

[Sgt. Pepper]

Selective interpretation, I'm not Wales bashing as you put it, but pointing out that, education standards in Wales continual to fall under Welsh Labour, if you are happy with it, then fair doos, Devolution in Wales took place in 1997-1999 and the Welsh assembly has been in Labour control since, the stock response, repeated by their stooges on here is "Blame Westminster and cash starvation" they did try a little swerve last year by putting a Lib Dem in charge of education, Whatever the Labour boyos do, it isn't benefitting the children but the eligible voters still do what their fathers told them, and that is to vote for a turd with a red rosette, I'm a traditional labour voter but Welsh Labour isn't good enough and although would probably go with Dustbin at the next election, would like to see a change of government in Wales, you never know, Wales might prosper because of it and education standards may rise.

Seriously, I don't know how you got to any of ^^ that as a reply to what I posted!
I have not said that I think it is good enough.
I questioned the measuring system.

[Eric Cartman]

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.

[life on mars]

As I see it :

Funding is critical ,however its how that fund is managed ,deployed and performanced manager thereafter.

The teaching of Welsh alongside English should show as a positive performance when matched against a single region/country.

The original point is about falling standards ,not just benchmarking , so are we are talking about standards falling from a single point in our history or before devolution .

Like it lump it NHS and Schools in Wales have had its critics,they have been managed by the same political party over that tenership.


I'm no aTory , just wanting the best for my country , so by calling the party I support to account is correct in my view.

[Heathblue]

Hope there is enough left in the kitty for books and equipment.
http://http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/school-cardiff-installed-gender-neutral-13582183

Church perverts!!

[life on mars]

It was interesting to understand the exceesses that the Welsh Goverment applied to thier corporate purchasing cards 7.5 million since 2011.

Last year part of the above figure amounted to 1.8 million for luxury items such as top end dining, flights ,yachting whiskey, uber taxis, limo's.

If one cannot restrain these manageable expenses where does that leave the broader management of services .

I guess someone was monitoring the payment to the lender ?

[life on mars]

Labour Fat Cats gone berserk with the cheque book again perhaps ?
18 years in Govt - they act like they are untouchable - chickens need to come home to roost in Cardiff Bay as soon as possible. Not that it would change much.

Those chickens would be granted asylum and housed in penthouses for free overlooking the bay.