Talk:Welsh-medium education

"Effects" section: misleading structure
The section entitled "Effects" is structured in such a way that it links the performance of students in the south Wales valleys to Welsh medium schools. The citation (1) indicates that students from the south Welsh valleys are five times less likey to apply to Oxford or Cambridge. The citation does not link this to Welsh medium schools and yet it appears in this context in this article.

According to David, R et al (2003, The Socio-Economic Characteristics of the South Wales Valleys in a Broader Context. A report for the Welsh Assembly Government), "[E]ducational attainment in the valleys is low". However this is in the scope of both English and Welsh medium schools. I believe that the second half of this section be made clearer, removed, or referenced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.250.94 (talk) 19:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, thank you for explaining the issue here. I will try and re-word this section to make it clearer. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 09:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Bilingual schools
The article should mention the provision of Welsh-medium education in bilingual schools such as Caereinion High School and Llanfyllin High School, as well as in Welsh-meduim schools. I have raised the distinction between Welsh-medium, English-medium and bilingual schools in Talk:Education in Wales; the same points apply here. Verbcatcher (talk) 11:25, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Hyphenation
The phrases "Welsh medium" and "English medium" ought always to be hyphenated, including in the article title. Harfarhs (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree. "Welsh medium education" could be read as coming somewhere below "Welsh higher education" (or possibly as the education of Welsh mediums). However, grammatical issues are sometimes contentious so I suggest following the Requested moves process for the article title. Verbcatcher (talk) 22:46, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * An IP editor had made this change in the article, which has not been reverted for three months. I will move the article to match. Verbcatcher (talk) 22:59, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

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Sources for table statistics?
Where are these table statistics coming from? I looked at the version history and all of the statistics since 2014 have been added by IP users who didn't cite sources. I've tried looking for where they got the numbers but I can't find anything. I don't know if these numbers are made up or not! Help would be appreciated, I'm moving the tables here to the talk page as not to have unsourced and potentially incorrect information in the article itself.

Discussion
Any replies should go in this section. – Treetoes023 (talk) 04:40, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * – Treetoes023 (talk) 04:46, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Pinging would probably be a good idea too. I am sorry to say I have no idea where the numbers are from, although they look plausible. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 06:09, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion, I'll ping him. – Treetoes023 (talk) 06:13, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The tables state their source as: Information taken from Schools in Wales (accessed 23 July 2010) Update for last three years taken from School Census Results, 2012 (accessed 17 May 2013). Neither of which now open, but I will check archives shortly. This would only explain half of the tables, but presumably there is equivalent data being published somewhere, albeit no one has stated where. I will see if I can track it down. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 06:18, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The Welsh Government publish School Census data in a series that confirms percentages for each year I have checked so far. However the total numbers of pupils don't match exactly. For instance, this ref has data for 2011-2015: . See table 2, which gives secondary school numbers for those years as 41,764, 41,262, 37,692, 37,400 and 36,458 respectively. So 2011 and 2012 are correct in the above table, but 2013 onwards do not match. Also checking primaries, the numbers are 61,073, 62,446, 63,192, 64,366 and 65,460 respectively. Again 2011 and 2012 match but the later figures do not.
 * My conclusion is that the information in the tables is correct, per the sources originally given (Welsh Government School Census data) until the figures inserted in 2013 (i.e. up to the end of 2012). Thereafter they have been obtained from a different and unstated source. Although that different source is probably consistent with itself, there may be a subtle difference in methodology. Our table, in being a combination of two sources, is thus a case of WP:SYNTH.
 * The solution is to replace figures from 2013 onwards with figures taken from the Welsh Government school census data, or else locate the source of the recent data and replace the historical data with data from that. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 06:44, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've been updating this table yearly for the last decade or so using data from the annual school census. The reason that the numbers don't match is that since 2012/13 middle schools have existed in Wales and so I've been combining the middle school figures with the secondary school figures from that year onwards, this was at one time stated above the table but seems to have been removed at some point. I have been meaning to create a middle school table but haven't gotten around to it. Sptomos (talk) 07:14, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. That clears things up. We need to improve the referencing on the tables for verifiability, but these can go back in on the basis that all the data is coming from a single and reliable source. It would probably be best to have the middle school figures in their own table rather than combiining them, as that could also be WP:SYNTH (how do you aportion the numbers between primary and secondary?) Keeping it consistent with the source is better. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:28, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've simply been combining the middle school and secondary school figures since the vast majority of middle school pupils are of secondary school age, this means that the primary school figures should not need amendment. I agree that an extra middle school table would be best, but I have also been considering a combined table of all pupils as that may also be of interest. Sptomos (talk) 07:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Using this StatsWales dataset these numbers can be computed by calculating some totals, and these seem to be indirectly correct. Note the source has a sector option at the top. These numbers as stated by the text above the table while it was in the article includes those with smaller-degrees of Welsh-medium education by including bilingual-medium. Although maybe a "bilingual" column should be added instead? Per the dataset, the primary school figures are the totals of "Welsh-medium", "Dual stream" and "transitional" when calculated together. While the "secondary school" are as stated above are the total of both "secondary school" and "middle school" and including the "bilingual types" figures.

This dataset may be specifying the figures in greater detail as a primary source, and these figures could come still from a secondary report which could've produced these totals I am yet to find. But if these were grouped by an editor as stated above, it leans WP:SYNTH and at minimum should be better explained how the totals were calculated, as the purely "secondary school" figures are different. Best is to expand the table to similarly match what StatsWales categorises them as.

While these figures (I have not checked all of them yet, but the few most recent can be correctly calculated) seem correct, I believe more context can be added by expanding the table and explaining them in more detail. Although happily they are not fabricated entirely, and are in good faith.

For example from the dataset, the recent 2021/22 for primary is 55,991 (Welsh-medium) + 7,446 (dual) + 389 (transit.) = 63,826, among 266,574 all pupils. And secondary is 16,156 (Welsh-medium), 7,988 (Bilingual A), 8,951 (Bl. B) and 2,189 (Bl. C), so 35,284, but adding middle school figures of 5,546 (WM), 2,527, (Bl. A), 1,354, (Bl. B) and 794 (Bl. C) for 10221, the two types combined is 45,505 among 22,516 + 175,957 = 198,473 all pupils. Which match the most recent figures in the table above.

Ofc, there could be a secondary source making these totals, but without it, this seems to be how the results in the table above were calculated. Plus there could be a more appropriate StatsWales dataset that is clearer with the figures, but so far could not find it. Regards  Dank Jae  19:16, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, so from what I have collected from this discussion, we should have 3 tables, one for elementary school, one for middle school, and one for high school, and the data for purely Welsh-medium education students and bilingual education students should be separated into two separate columns. Is that all or did I miss something? – Treetoes023 (talk) 22:06, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Grouping Middle with Secondary was not clearly stated in the previous arrangement, so I guess so, three tables, although there is also data for Nurseries and Special schools . Distinguishing between only Welsh-medium and bilingual is only my preference, others may have different opinions.  Dank Jae  23:45, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The dataset doesn't provide the student count for the language mediums of the special schools and nurseries, it only provides the total student count so we can't make any tables for them. – Treetoes023 (talk) 00:51, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah you're correct, got ahead of myself, haha, tired of numbers. :/  Dank Jae  01:03, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It's okay, we've all been there. tbh I'm tired of numbers too rn. If no one else wants to adjust the tables and make new ones I can do it, but it will be a day or 2 before I start working on it. – Treetoes023 (talk) 01:32, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

New table
Below are tables generated based on the purely StatsWales source above, headers with an asterisk were self-generated not sure whether we should be strict with including them or not if it is SYNTH. I kept all columns that potentially could be relevant, while omitting English-medium ones, however the bilingual columns could be reduced to just the "total bilingual" as the types may not be needed for readers. "Any forms" (be free to suggest alternate headings) is basically Welsh-medium (WM) and Bilingual combined, based on how the figures above defined WM. Be free to suggest any changes, I would prefer the table be cut down a bit, but not sure what is needed or best removed. Hopefully no errors slipped through, will slowly check the calculations again. Diolch  Dank Jae  21:15, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

New table discussion
Add comments or changes below here.  Dank Jae  21:15, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that the number of columns needs to be cut down a bit, and I just found a dataset that would be very helpful in doing so. This dataset groups each of the 3 education levels into 4 groups:
 * Welsh is the sole or main medium of instruction
 * Welsh is used as a teaching medium for part of the curriculum (i.e. less than half)
 * Welsh is taught as a second language only
 * No Welsh is used or taught
 * We'll only have to include groups 1 and 2 in the table because they are the only Welsh-medium groups. – Treetoes023 (talk) 22:01, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * – My original reply didn't ping you for some reason so I'm pinging you again. – Treetoes023 (talk) 22:09, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the better source, wish I found it before, but I've made it as a table above.  Dank Jae  23:27, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Nice! I can added the percentage stuff tomorrow (in like 10 hours, tomorrow for me, 14:00 today Wikipedia time). – Treetoes023 (talk) 04:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Many thanks to DankJae for doing this. DankJae, you wonder if the columns with asterisks would constitute synth. I don't think simple arithmetic calculations from a single dataset are synth, so they could stay, but as per the suggestion that the tables may need reduction, they don't necessarily have to stay. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:16, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I just finished making tables using the tables DankJae created as a blueprint. I decided to only include the Welsh-medium as % of the total students and not the percent change to reduce the tables a bit. I kept the % of total because it ties to the Welsh government's goal of having 30% of pupils in Welsh-medium education by 2031 and 40% by 2050. I think that the tables are ready to go back onto the article, unless anyone has any suggestions or questions. btw the tables I made are here → User:Treetoes023/stuff. – Treetoes023 (talk) 01:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. I think these look good and happy for them to go back in the article. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:09, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll put them back in. – Treetoes023 (talk) 16:09, 24 July 2023 (UTC)