Context

Throughout the history of BERA and indeed the BERA Blog, research on the association between living in poverty and not doing well educationally has been a continuing focus. In Wales, where intensive deindustrialisation in the 1980s led to a growth in poverty in what was already one of the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of the UK, the link between poverty and low educational outcomes became a growing concern (Rees & Rees, 1980). When devolution of government was achieved for Wales in 1999, one of its main aims for education was to narrow the ‘inequalities in achievement between advantaged and disadvantaged areas’ (National Assembly for Wales, 2001, p. 10). Twenty-five years later, however, this continues to be a major priority, which reflects that progress has been limited.

Other countries may have made greater advances in this area of education policy (Cardim-Dias & Sibieta, 2022), but it remains a weakness in most education systems (McKinsey & Company, 2024) and in recent years previous progress appears to have halted (Hunt et al., 2025). What might the case of Wales suggest is the reason for this and what – if anything – might be done to bring about transformational change in future?

Responses

It can be argued that the fundamental weakness of the Welsh response to what patently is a highly challenging and complex problem, has been the lack of a consistent and strategic approach. From the outset of devolution, it was recognised that schools alone could not address the profound issues involved. Support was given, therefore, to a community focused schools’ approach, which aimed to involve families, communities and multiagency organisations with schools to achieve transformational change.

In truth, however, this commitment has waxed and waned, being replaced for a long period by a dominant paradigm focused on school accountability that was driven by the panic over Wales’s poor outcomes in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Although ‘community focused schools’ policy has been revived in more recent years, overall, there has been a lack of strategic organisation and financial investment in the type of communitarian response that has achieved hard-won and sustained success in some international contexts (Bryk et al., 2023).

While the research evidence on community-led responses might be relatively limited and is contested (see for example Gorard et al., 2023), the other key success factor in improving the attainment of more disadvantaged learners is well supported by international research evidence and captured in the outcomes produced by organisations such as the Education Endowment Foundation and the Sutton Trust. It is the importance of high-quality teaching.

Here again, Wales has faced growing challenges in recruiting and retaining teachers (Egan et al., 2024) and as Estyn, the education inspectorate in Wales, has again recently pointed out there are continuing weaknesses in the overall quality of teaching in schools. It is well established that schools facing the greatest socioeconomic challenges also face the most serious problems in teacher recruitment, retention and quality. Numerous interventions and initiatives in Wales, including for a brief period the introduction of the Teach First programme, have failed to achieve sustained improvements. Again, weaknesses in policy consistency, coherent strategy and levels of investment have probably contributed to these failures in raising the quality of teaching.

Ways forward?

So, what should Wales do now, what learning might it draw from other international education systems and how might it move towards achieving the world-leading education system that it aspired to in its Learning Country vision it set out at the start of the devolution journey?

‘Wales needs an evidence-informed, sustained and well-resourced strategy that can operate with political consensus over several parliamentary (Senedd) terms.’

First and foremost, it needs an evidence-informed, sustained and well-resourced strategy that can operate with political consensus over several parliamentary (Senedd) terms. The plan recently published by the Child of the North partnership for ‘addressing poverty with and through education settings’ would be a good starting point for taking this forward. The strategy should operate around two key pillars.

The first would be the development of true community schools where (with priority given to the most disadvantaged areas of Wales) schools are part of wider community hubs where other public services and the voluntary sector are fully integrated. The second should be ensuring that some of our existing teachers and new recruits are attracted and incentivised (through financial and professional development opportunities) to teach in the most challenging contexts as part of a new Teach 4 Wales programme that draws upon the experience of Teach First and similar developments.

Underpinning all of this we need to change the mindset about what is possible and that it is not inevitable that children who are born into poverty will not succeed in education. As one product of the Welsh education system has powerfully pointed out, schools are not the places that produce poverty, but they still tend to be the location where futures are decided in a way that inhibits social mobility (Evans, 2023).

References

Bryk, A, S., Greenberg, S., Bertani, A., Sebring, P., Tozer, S, E., & Knowles, T. (2023). How a city learned to improve its schools. Harvard University Press.

Cardim- Dias, J., & Sibieta, L. (2022). Inequalities in GCSE results across England and Wales. Education Policy Institute.  https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/inequalities-in-gcse-results-across-england-and-wales/

Egan, D., Attfield, K., Rees Davies, R., Young, K., Bristow, E., & Farrell, C. (2024). A future teaching profession for Wales: Recruitment, retention and professional progression. Cardiff Metropolitan University. https://issuu.com/cardiffmet/docs/a_future_teaching_profession_for_wales

Evans, D. (2023). A nation of shopkeepers: The unstoppable rise of the petty bourgeoise. Repeater Books.

Gorard, S., See B. H., & Siddiqui, N. (2023). Making schools better for disadvantaged students: The international implications of evidence on effective school funding. Routledge.

Hunt, E., Tuckett, S., Jimenez, E., & Robinson, D. (2025). Breaking down the gap: The role of school absence and pupil characteristics. Education Policy Institute.  https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/breaking-down-the-gap/

McKinsey & Company (2024). Spark and sustain: How school systems can improve learning at scale. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/education/our-insights/spark-and-sustain-how-school-systems-can-improve-learning-at-scale

National Assembly for Wales. (2001). The learning country: A comprehensive education and lifelong learning plan for Wales. https://www.education-uk.org/documents/pdfs/2001-learning-country-wales.pdf   

Rees, G., & Rees, T. L. (1980). Educational inequality in Wales: Some problems and paradoxes. In G. Rees & T. L. Rees (Eds), Poverty and inequality in Wales. Croom Helm.