News and Blog

Recent analysis from ADR Wales’ researchers used administrative data to estimate career progression and pay differences among female and male teachers and school leaders in Wales. Using anonymised administrative data from the 2019 and 2020 School Workforce Annual Census (SWAC), ADR Wales education researchers found that 77% of the qualified teacher workforce was female, however: 15% of male…

This blog post is the second part of a series presenting preliminary findings on children’s well-being in Wales before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. It uses data from the International Survey of Children’s Well-Being (ISCWeB) – Children’s Worlds, a worldwide survey on children’s subjective well-being, with this wave comprising 20 countries in total. The survey…

Katy Huxley, Alan Felstead (WISERD) and Francis Green (UCL) presented the first results of their research on the changing job quality of teachers to a fringe event at the National Education Union (NEU) annual conference in Harrogate today (3 April 2023). The evidence is based on a research project carried out by WISERD at Cardiff…

New research carried out by ADR Wales has examined the effectiveness of careers guidance in supporting participation in post compulsory education and training and how careers guidance is prioritised. The work, which was undertaken by ADR Wales researchers Dr Katy Huxley and Rhys Davies, used anonymised Careers Wales data to examine how the provision of careers support to key stage…

There is no denying that the disruption to daily life caused by the coronavirus pandemic had a profound influence on children’s well-being, with various international organisations (eg, WHO, UNESCO, WFP, UNICEF) requesting that more be done to assist children in coping with this, to  avoid long-term negative consequences. In Wales, data from the 2021 International…

Hundreds of working hours are wasted due to schoolteachers lacking a centrally shared language resource. Despite recent developments in use of the virtual learning platforms like Hwb (available to Welsh schools for free since 2012), teachers lacking Welsh-language resources for their classroom are unable to access translations of other resources. Under the current system, if…

To celebrate 20 years of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Festival of Social Science, WISERD hosted two events at this year’s Festival, which aimed to highlight one of our ongoing education research projects and a useful data tool that helps us to better understand our towns and local areas. We began with a…

In October 2022, the Welsh Government announced that anti-racist professional learning would be mandatary for all school teachers in Wales as part of its Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan. Evidence from the latest sweep of the WISERD Education Multi-Cohort Study (WMCS) suggests that such universal and compulsory training is badly needed. In the summer of 2022,…

There is widespread and growing concern that the increasing cost of living will severely impact on the poorest families and communities this winter. Things were pretty bad last winter. A report by the Bevan Foundation revealed that nearly four in 10 Welsh households struggled to make ends meet. The Bevan Foundation’s Snapshot of Poverty this…

Pupils might be excluded for a wide range of reasons, from minor breaches such as disruptive behaviour to severe, such as violent behaviour towards others. Exclusion should be implemented as the result of accumulation of many misdemeanours rather than as the school’s first route of action. Although most pupils who are excluded return to school,…