Plaid’s Education Spokesperson Simon Thomas has welcomed the Welsh government’s climb-down over the immediate introduction of banding for primary schools – but described it as an embarrassing U-turn that the Labour Welsh government had been forced to make.
Banding based on data from reading and numeracy tests is now intended to be introduced into Welsh primary schools in September 2014.
The climb-down comes after Mr Thomas called on Leighton Andrews, during questions to the Education Minister earlier this month to defer the publication of primary school banding until a support structure for underperforming schools is available.
The Mid and West Plaid Cymru AM said: “This delay signals an embarrassing climb-down for the Labour Welsh government and a change of tack when it comes to primary school banding. The Labour Minister has been forced into taking this action after it became clear that he had no support for his plans. He should now do the honourable thing and abandon the idea completely. Plaid Cymru has consistently said that banding for primary schools should be scrapped.
“Plaid believes that banding does not provide a whole view of a school’s performance and its use should be limited to securing the necessary support for any school to improve in those areas measured by banding.
“We are calling on the Welsh Government to introduce a constructive evaluation process which leads to targeted support to remedy poor performance in schools.”
