National Coherence Group: letter to Cabinet Secretary November 2025

National Coherence Group

5 November 2025

Dear Cabinet Secretary,

The National Coherence Group (NCG) met on 3 November to reflect on the progress across Wales in the transition to new school improvement arrangements. You will recall that the NCG members include Local Authority Leaders, Chief Executives, the Chair of ADEW, HMCI, WLGA and the Welsh Government School Improvement Partnership Programme team.

The Group received helpful updates on the transition to new school improvement arrangements across Wales and the establishment of the new professional learning and leadership body, Dysgu. There has been a significant amount of work by the Welsh Government and partners in putting these structural changes for the new approach to school improvement in place for September 2025.

Within the national framework, we recognise that there are differences across Wales based on local knowledge and need and partners feel that it is important to protect this. All are working within the national framework, and we recognise that there is still work to do, including ensuring clarity on roles, responsibilities and accountability. However, we understand the overall approach has been welcomed across the sector. 

Changing structures alone will not be enough to prevent the underlying issues that were identified by the Strategic Review from re-emerging. It will take a collective awareness of these issues and a collective endeavour across the system to take steps to ensure we achieve the change in culture that is necessary to underpin the structural changes that have been made. This is of course the most challenging element of any reform programme.

Partners welcome the ongoing engagement, collectively and one to one, between the Education Improvement Team and local authorities to ensure we understand how the new arrangements are working and to identify any areas of concern or additional need. Local authorities are rebuilding services in a different way and capacity, in schools, local authorities and indeed, the Welsh Government, needs to be monitored.

The Group accepted that there is still work to be done to agree how we understand the impact of these changes, and what success would look like, the system must be allowed time to respond to the changes and make progress towards that success. Clarity of roles and responsibilities, clear and shared prioritisation of work, and good communication and engagement, would go a long way to building a more robust and resilient system. Ultimately the aim is to improve education in Wales.

Data is important and there should be an ongoing data-informed focus for school improvement. The sector needs to create a culture and expectation that data is shared widely and used to propel momentum around school improvement rather than using it as an accountability measure. It should be there to support our understanding of the system and for school improvement rather than to create a focus on individuals, teachers, schools or local authorities.

The building blocks for new school improvement arrangements are in place. The 2025 to 2026 academic year will see the continued embedding and development of the arrangements, which we consider will provide a coherent, consistent and high-quality self-improving system across Wales. The Group heard of a move towards a national discussion cycle on priorities involving all partners to ensure these remain relevant and shared, and encouraged a stability around these over years to help the school system.

As the formal governance arrangements around the School Improvement Partnership Programme are being prepared for closure, with ongoing responsibility transferred to “business as usual” activities for the Welsh Government and other partners, this was our final meeting. We would like to thank you for the opportunity to share in the journey towards greater collaboration at all levels for the purpose of school improvement.

Yours sincerely,

Kirsty Williams CBE