Only a Welsh Conservative Government will:
- Improve Wales’ PISA results so we don’t continue to be at the bottom of UK performance tables for maths, reading and science.
- Restore discipline and respect in schools via a crackdown on poor behaviour, including the automatic exclusion of learners who bring knives and other weapons into a school.
- Enable the establishment of academy schools in Wales to encourage innovation.
- Pass a law to ensure both English and Welsh language medium education remains available in every council area.
- Empower schools to ban mobile phones in Welsh classrooms, encourage children to safely use AI and technology and we back a ban on social media for all under 16s.
- Improve accountability via the introduction of more rigorous school inspections.
- Develop a new accessible Welsh school performance database to promote learner and parental choice.
- Improve teacher retention and authority by stamping out pupil defiance.
- Instil rigour in our education system through the mandatory teaching of phonics.
- Ensure a purpose-driven curriculum which supports the formation of essential life-skills, including mandatory home economics and the importance of personal responsibility, healthy eating, budgeting and independent living.
Under Labour and Plaid’s watch, the situation in our schools is deeply concerning with record levels of physical assaults on teachers, a tripling of fixed term exclusions and an increase in knife-related incidents on school grounds. Teachers, students and parents are all affected by the escalating lack of discipline. Immediate action is needed to reverse these trends and restore safety and order in our schools.
A Welsh Conservative Government will implement a robust strategy to improve discipline and behaviour management in schools, and ensure exclusion from schools and pupil referral units guidance, issued by the Welsh Government, is updated to ensure those carrying a weapon are excluded.
