Education
Free school meals opportunity for WG

THE WELSH GOVERNMENT has a unique opportunity to make sure that children from low-income families don’t go hungry, writes Victoria Winckler, Director of the Bevan Foundation.
Each year, around one in six of Wales’ school pupils claims a free school meal because their parents receive a benefit such as Employment and Support Allowance, Job Seekers’ Allowance or Income Support. At around £2.50 a go – £12.50 a week per child – this is quite a big help.
And the benefits of a nutritious midday meal are not just financial: a decent meal contributes to better concentration in the afternoon and ensures low income children have better diets too.
UNIVERSAL CREDIT CHANGES
The introduction of Universal Credit means that new rules about who can get a free school meal are needed. Universal Credit is set to be in place for new claimants in all parts of Wales by the end of 2018. The process of switching existing claimants to UC will take place gradually from 2019.
Universal Credit is paid to families where someone is working as well as families which are out-of-work. This means that the old rules for getting a free school meal can no longer be used.
In anticipation of this, the National Assembly for Wales passed the Free School Lunches and Milk (Universal Credit) (Wales) Order in 2013.
Put simply, this piece of secondary legislation enabled the children of all recipients of UC to receive a free school meal, irrespective of circumstances, while the benefit was being rolled out.
In practice, the numbers of children who benefited from the new rule were likely to be very small as the roll-out of UC doesn’t apply to claimants with children.
As Universal Credit is set to be rolled-out to all types of households, including those with children, the UK Government is cutting back on eligibility.
The plan is that children in families receiving UC which have an income from work of more than £7,400 will not be eligible for a free school meal.
The move has prompted a row in the House of Commons about the UK Government allegedly ‘taking away’ free meals from a million children, with equally furious counter claims.
It’s worth checking Channel 4’s Full Fact for the details, however.
CHANNEL 4 FULL FACT ANALYSIS
There’s some respectable maths behind Labour’s claim that a million children will lose out on free school meals after the government introduces a means test.
But they haven’t mentioned two key points:
- No one who is currently eligible for free school meals under Universal Credit will lose their entitlement.
- In fact, under Universal Credit, 50,000 more children will receive school meals by 2022 than would have done under the previous benefits system.
This is not a case of the government taking free school meals from a million children who are currently receiving them: it’s about comparing two future, hypothetical scenarios. Both of them are more generous than the old benefits system.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN WALES?
Universal Credit, as everyone knows, is not devolved. But free school meals are. It is for the Welsh Government to decide who can receive a free meal.
Provision is already less generous in England, where all infant pupils get a free meal regardless of their families’ income. The question is whether the Welsh Government will follow the same route as the UK Government for children in families receiving Universal Credit.
WHAT ABOUT THE COST?
Because the UK government has limited the eligibility for free meals in England there’s no Barnett consequential to help cover the cost of increasing eligibility in Wales.
But that is no reason to make Wales’ poorest children pay.
Aneurin Bevan famously said in 1949 ‘the language of priorities is the religion of Socialism‘. And on this he was right.
At the same time as Wales’ least well-off children have to pay £12.50 a week for a dinner, there’s free bus travel on the Traws Cymru service for anyone, a subsidised canteen for Assembly Members and government officials, and free swimming for over-60s.
If you had to choose who got the freebie, who would you select?
Any change to the rules will be via an order to be considered by the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee.
If the Welsh Government is serious about the well-being of future generations, there is not better case for investing in the health and education of Wales’ children than this.
Education
‘Physics education is at breaking point’: calls for teaching incentives to match England’s

PHYSICS education is at breaking point in Wales due to a lack of teachers, yet training bursaries are £14,000 higher across the border in England, a committee heard.
Eluned Parrott, head of Wales at the Institute of Physics, warned Wales had fewer physics-trained teachers (174) than secondary schools (205) in 2024.
She told the Senedd’s education committee no one measure is going to be a silver bullet but evidence shows teacher training incentives work.
“That’s why we’re calling on the Welsh Government to increase our physics teacher trainee bursary from £15,000 to match England’s £29,000,” she said.
“We need a bold reset to recruit, retain and retrain the next generation of physics specialists to help secure the future of physics in Welsh schools.”
Ms Parrott, a former politician, said only seven specialist physics teachers qualified through Wales’ initial teacher education (ITE) system from an intake of ten in 2023/24.
She said: “The intake allocation target was 67, meaning the intake fell 86% short…. The intake allocation target has since been increased to 72. It is unlikely to be reached.”
Warning of systemic challenges, Ms Parrott expressed concerns about investment in Welsh ITE compared with centres in other parts of the UK.
Contrasting the two, she told the committee: “You could go to study in an ITE centre that has a full-time professional and professorial level of ITE tuition or you could go to somewhere else where they’re struggling to recruit part-time tutors to help you.”
Ms Parrott, a former Liberal Democrat member of the then-Assembly, suggested setting up a centre of excellence for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Stem).
She explained: “It is important to have ITE centres spread out across the country but – rather than spreading that expertise – maybe create something that is robust, academically respected, driving improvements across ITE.”
Ms Parrott said: “I think there’s also an equity issue here with the bursaries and what that means because you cannot realistically live on the bursary that you would get in Wales.
“So, if you come from a less wealthy background, it is a major financial choice to take on another year of study and take on another year of student debt and another year of living a hand-to-mouth existence.”
She warned teacher shortages are far worse through the medium of Welsh – describing Welsh-speaking, physics-trained teachers as like unicorns.
Ms Parrott told Senedd Members: “Obviously, a lot of Welsh students do their undergraduate study in England. We need to be attracting them back because they’ve got, potentially, a Welsh-language skill that they are therefore not using.”

Annette Farrell warned Wales is “way off the mark” for chemistry too, with seven passing their postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) in 2023/24 against a target of 67.
The Royal Society of Chemistry expert warned financial barriers are a big issue, with cross-border differences on incentives making training an unviable option for some.
“If you compare the English bursary system to Wales,” said Ms Farrell. “Once you’ve taken account of… fees and everything, Welsh students next year will only take home £2,465. If you compare that with England… that’s £19,465.”
She lamented the loss of Bangor’s chemistry provision, with only centres in Cardiff and Swansea, creating a “massive cold spot in the north”.
Ms Farrell emphasised the need to look at the financial sustainability of higher education more generally and address workload issues for teachers.
She raised concerns about possible unintended consequences from plans to scrap separate science GCSEs in favour of separate teaching but a double-award qualification.
Shabana Brightley, from the Royal Society of Biology, echoed her colleagues’ comments as the trio gave evidence on June 18 to a wider inquiry on teacher recruitment and retention.

“Based on the bursaries in England and all the incentives they get…they would rather go across the border to go and get trained,” she said.
Ms Brightly, a former primary and secondary school teacher, told the committee: “Early career support is very important, especially having subject-specific mentors in schools.”
She warned: “Let’s say a biology teacher is then having to teach physics and chemistry, which they’ve maybe not done since GCSE – that is a huge burden.”
Education
School closure raises alarm over future of alternative education in Pembrokeshire

Westward House to shut after just one year—former Castle School site under same ownership set to close again
A SCHOOL offering specialist support to children with additional learning needs is to close at the end of this term—less than a year after it opened in the same building where a mainstream private school under the same ownership and management shut its doors last summer.
Westward House School in Haverfordwest will close in July, marking the second collapse of an independent education venture at Glenover House, Scarrowscant Lane, in under 12 months.
Both schools were founded and run by education provider Harriet Harrison, who opened Castle School in 2009 to offer mainstream independent education with a strong academic focus. That school closed in July 2024, citing the loss of key staff, mounting regulatory pressure, and rising operational costs.
In response, Mrs Harrison set up Westward House School—a new, smaller school designed to provide alternative education provision for children with additional needs who were not thriving in mainstream settings. Originally based in St Clears, it relocated to the former Castle School premises in Haverfordwest last year.
But speaking this week, Mrs Harrison confirmed that Westward House will now also close—this time due to a worsening financial situation made unmanageable by VAT changes introduced earlier this year.

Crushed by costs and policy change
“It’s devastating,” Mrs Harrison said. “Castle School was a traditional independent school, but we knew there were still families in Pembrokeshire whose children weren’t coping in mainstream. That’s why we opened Westward House—to meet that need. It was a new name, but the same mission to do right by the pupils.”
She said the school’s model, based on small class sizes, specialist support, and consistent pastoral care, had proven highly effective—but was no longer financially viable.
“Since January, all private schools have been required to add 20 per cent VAT to their fees,” she said. “This hit families hard. Our fees hadn’t risen since we opened in 2021, but the cost of wages, insurance, and energy have risen sharply. That extra 20 per cent was the final straw for many.”
The impact has been especially severe in west Wales, where local authorities such as Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire have not funded placements at Westward House, unlike in Cardiff where Harrison’s sister school, Eastward House, works closely with local government.
A loss for vulnerable learners
Westward House prided itself on helping children who had struggled in other schools. Its strapline, “Qualifications are important, but self-esteem is life-changing,” encapsulated its therapeutic approach to learning.
“Although most of our learners have now completed their GCSEs and are moving on to college or sixth form,” Mrs Harrison said, “some younger pupils still need support. That’s why I’m pleased to say we’ve been working closely with the Cherry Grove Learning Centre, which is due to open soon in Haverfordwest.”
The new centre will offer small-group teaching, pastoral support, external exam entry, and an enriched curriculum—providing, she hopes, “a lifeline” for families affected by the closure.
National pattern of closures
Westward House is not alone. Across the UK, small independent schools are closing at an alarming rate. The Labour policy of adding VAT to private school fees—intended to fund thousands of new state-sector teachers—has hit smaller, non-elite schools the hardest. Unlike Eton or Harrow, most small independent schools have no historic endowments or corporate backers.
According to a recent Times report, Whitehall officials are already braced for a wave of closures as schools struggle with inflation, declining enrolment, and new tax burdens.
Glenover House—built around 1907 and used as a school for decades—is now listed for sale at £495,000.
Whether it will reopen again as an education site remains to be seen. But for the second time in a year, the pupils, parents, and staff of a Harrison-run school are saying goodbye.
Photo caption:
Déjà vu: Glenover House, former site of Castle School and Westward House, is now for sale once again (Pic: Rightmove)
Education
Improvement in reading and numeracy attainment, Welsh Government announces

Attainment in Numeracy, Welsh Reading and English Reading has improved in 2023/24, new statistics show.
English Reading saw attainment levels improve across all year groups compared to 2022/23. Learners in Year 3 showed sustained improvement with levels in English Reading being higher than in both 2020/2021 and 2021/22. Welsh Reading presented some improvement across Years 3 to 9, compared to 2022/23. Younger years have shown the greatest degree of improvement in Numeracy (Procedural), whilst Numeracy (Reasoning) has remained relatively stable. These statistics were published today using anonymised data from the national personalised assessments.
Personalised assessments are adaptive online assessments in four subjects taken by all learners in Years 2 to 9 in maintained schools. They aim to support learning by providing information on the reading and numeracy skills of individual learners. They highlight where learners are making progress, as well as which skills could be developed further.

Cabinet Secretary for Education Lynne Neagle said: “It is encouraging to see progress in attainment in reading and numeracy. This improvement highlights the impact our investments are making in schools to ensure every learner has the opportunity to reach their full potential. These assessments help to support all our learners in their educational journey by providing a valuable insight into their strengths and emerging skills.
“I would also like to thank our teachers and the education workforce for their hard work and dedication in supporting our learners and for their continued commitment and professionalism in responding to our national priorities.”
Headteacher Trystan Phillips at Ysgol Gymunedol Penparc in Ceredigion said: “We have evolved in our use of the Personalised Assessments to move away from their use as a summative resource to being a resource that truly influences progress. The use of the different group reports have been invaluable in not only recognising strengths and areas to improve for year groups but also showing examples and exercises that can be used. They’re very much now a device to support pupil progress”.
Estyn’s Chief Inspector, Owen Evans said: “Personalised assessments are a useful tool for schools. They enable teachers to tailor support for individual pupils and track progress over time. We are pleased to see some improvement, but schools need to work together to support attainment, and ensure there is a relentless focus on improving reading and mathematics for all learners. Estyn will continue to work to support schools, and urge leaders to use resources, such as our recent thematic review ‘Unlocking potential: Insights into improving teaching and leadership in mathematics education’ to help improve teaching and learning.”
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