Welsh Government figures show schools in Wales are performing better

The Welsh Government has published a colour-coded system showing which schools in Wales need support.

The figures show there has been an improvement in school performance.

Introduced in 2014, the National School Categorisation System places schools into one of four colour-coded support categories to demonstrate the level of support they need - green, yellow, amber and red.

There are now more schools in the green and yellow categories when compared to last year. Green schools require just four days of support and yellow schools receive up to 10 days of support.

This year sees a small change to the factors that decide a school’s category. Instead of just looking at areas such as performance, including GCSE results, there is now a much broader assessment that considers areas such as teacher assessments from other subjects, wellbeing and the quality of teaching and learning.

The purpose of including a broader and more sophisticated range of factors is to understand the kind of support needed by a school and to give parents a better picture of how a school is performing.

Out of over 1,500 schools across Wales only 4 appealed against their category.

85.3 per cent of primary schools and 68.3 per cent of secondary schools are now in the green and yellow categories.

This increase from last year continues the upward trend since 2015.

There has been a very small rise in the proportion of red schools, those identified as needing most support, by 0.4 percentage points in the primary sector and 2.9 percentage points in the secondary sector.

45 per cent of special schools have been categorised as green, and needing less support, with no schools categorised as red and in need of most support.

Education Secretary Kirsty Williams says she is pleased with the upward trend.

You can see more on the categorisation system for schools in Wales here.