Statistics published by the Welsh Government. Each chart covers the years since the 2016 Senedd election, or as far back as the figures go, and marks each election since.
Secondary school attendance
89.1%
2025/26
A year earlier
89.0%(2024/25)
The share of possible half-day sessions attended by pupils aged 11 to 15 in maintained schools, from the start of each school year to the spring bank holiday at the end of May.
This series has no figures for the school years 2019/20 to 2021/22.
The Programme for Government 2026 to 2030 belongs to the Seventh Senedd. Choose the Seventh Senedd to see how often each commitment has come up.
Raising standards
Publish a Literacy and Numeracy Plan and raise standards by establishing national targets, including a baseline assessment for learners entering school. We will support our workforce to develop individual targets for all learners.
Review curriculum and assessment arrangements to simplify and clarify expectations for schools and settings. This will include ensuring clear expectations for knowledge and education about our nation’s culture and history.
Develop a coordinated framework bringing together schools, health and social care, and youth services to address behaviour, attendance, wellbeing and educational inequality. These also reflect wider societal issues, and we will work across government to address them. We will improve professional learning, reporting of incidents and information sharing between schools, and test implementation through our Community Schools Plus pilots.
Strengthen the long‑term sustainability of the Additional Learning Needs system. We will work in partnership, including with health partners, to strengthen system clarity, capacity and workforce confidence to deliver inclusive education in Welsh and English, so that children and young people receive the right support at the right time to meet their needs.
Grow the proportion of children and young people receiving Welsh‑medium education, and improve accessibility to Welsh‑medium education, setting local targets to ensure the steady growth of Welsh‑medium provision in all schools.
Increase the number of students able to access tertiary pathways in Welsh, supporting and developing the work of the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and working with the Coleg and Medr to increase opportunities to study Welsh as a subject.
Support an increase in the number of teachers able to teach through the medium of Welsh, promoting and developing the Welsh‑language skills of practitioners and developing new sabbatical opportunities.
Improve recruitment and retention by reducing workload, providing more flexibility for planning, preparation and assessment and supporting high‑quality professional development for all teachers, leaders and teaching assistants.
Build on our increase of the Initial Teacher Education Priority Subject Incentive from £15,000 to £20,000 to help attract more teachers into shortage subjects and explore opportunities to increase this further.
Strengthen safeguarding leadership and governance across education by ensuring learners and educators can recognise and report grooming. We will provide comprehensive digital safety and media literacy education, and ensure safeguarding and educational standards are consistently upheld and independently scrutinised.
Source: Welsh Government, Programme for government 2026 to 2030: New ambition for Wales, first published on 10 September 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Mentions are found by matching the names of plans, bodies and schemes; a mention says nothing about progress.
Key moments in the Senedd
Statements, debates and legislation in Plenary on this brief, newest first. Oral question sessions are counted in the contributions below.
Each bar is the share of that party's speeches and questions in the Sixth Senedd that touched this brief, so large and small parties can be compared. The upright line marks the chamber as a whole: 6.8%.
39% of Welsh adults said education and schools would be very important to their vote.
Ipsos asked 747 Welsh adults aged 16+ between 2 April 2026 and 8 April 2026, before the 2026 Senedd election. People could choose as many issues as they liked. More on public opinion.
Written questions
No written questions on this brief in the Sixth Senedd yet.
Petitions
9 petitions to the Senedd on this brief, open ones first, then by signatures:
On Wednesday (25 March) Members of the Senedd will debate the Children, Young People and Education (CYPE) Committee’s report on Teacher recruitment and retention.
The Cabinet Secretary for Education will give an oral statement on the Additional Learning Needs (ALN) reforms in the Senedd on Tuesday. We set out some relevant background below.
9 billion spent on Welsh schools, resulting in a spend of £8,616 per pupil. Data shows this is the highest amount to be spent in real terms since the Welsh Government published them in this way in 2014.
Today marks a big milestone for thousands of learners across Wales as they receive their GCSE and vocational qualification results. This year, like in 2024, results are being awarded in line with 2019 pre-pandemic standards.
Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'
Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'
Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'
Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'
Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'
Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'
Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'
Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee Report, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'
Contributions tagged in each month of the Sixth Senedd.Show the numbers
Month
Contributions
January 2024
589
February 2024
634
March 2024
215
April 2024
183
May 2024
336
June 2024
238
July 2024
192
August 2024
2
September 2024
313
October 2024
891
November 2024
165
How this brief is put together
This brief follows the Programme commitments listed above and tags the record with the phrases below. Keyword matching can miss business that discusses the issue in other words, and can tag a passing mention.
Show the phrases it uses
A contribution is tagged when its English text contains one of these phrases. Capital letters don't matter, except in abbreviations, which must match exactly. It is also tagged when the title of the agenda item or question it was part of contains one, as long as the contribution is at least 30 words long. The brief is also tagged whenever one of its themes is.
