England ranks highly on PISA in reading, maths and science
New PISA data out England is now top ten in all three areas (reading, maths, science) and the second highest performing country outside of east Asia (after Estonia). This is a huge public policy success.
Sam Freedman177Devolution created a natural experiment here and we have the results. bsky.app/profile/tom-...
mwhoyle96.bsky.social35Cannot fathom how the gov want to dismantle this on the pretence that education is somehow driving youth unemployment.
Steven King31What does PISA measure? Could it be that some countries do things that PISA likes and others do it differently? Serious question because I don't know but I do think it's a hard, perhaps subjective, thing to assess.
Al Mac28we’re so successful at integration that some of our second generation immigrants are now prominent far right anti-immigrant politicians.
PaulShrews3317I started teaching in 2011 and I loathed Michael Gove. Looking back, he got so much right. Education is the single biggest ( maybe only) policy achivement of that 14 year era.
Helen14We do have to acknowledge though that this has been achieved by schools taking the axe to other subjects such as creative arts, a sector which the UK has historically excelled in and which was a major source of social and economic mobility. Arts are dominated now by former private school pupils.
Sam Freedman2199One reason England does so well is our second generation immigrants outperform their peers which is not true in most OECD countries. We are also very good at integration. And it's v sad that this is never acknowledge in debates on immigration.
Stephen Bush198It continually blows my mind the sheer number of obviously crackers ideas and excuse-making for failure from the last government that Labour have gone “seems legit!”…while at the same time Labour refuses to acknowledge the real, measurable success in education.
Jack Tindale141"England's schools consistently outperform Finland's ones" is another one of those public policy things where people's priors are massively out of date, isn't it?
Chris Terry-Enescu46And, amazingly, every political party thinks education needs a huge shake-up
Olli Silvennoinen15Englanninkieliset maat pärjäsivät varsin hyvin uusimmassa PISA-arvioinnissa. 2010-luvulla Englannin konservatiivihallitus toteutti ison koulu-uudistuksen, jota pidettiin aika taaksepäin katsovana. Itsekin pidin. Nyt tulokset näyttävät aika vakuuttavilta.
John C13Fundamentally understated that, despite *gestures* we are a very well educated country
Toby Nangle11Best good news story on the day!
Jonathan Simons10The whataboutery around these results is quite something. I am sceptical that a lot of the people picking holes in the data methodology, to undermine England’s success, would be doing so had they shown us plummeting. This is a real public policy triumph, built by school reformers of *all* parties
Hannah Fearn9This IS a huge success but we also have a staggering number of children unable to access this high quality education under the current system too. Feels like the two come as a pair.
pickwick8Lots of journos analysing this very badly Recent public policy for 6 year olds won't have had an effect on the scores of 15 year olds lol Seems like England have got near the top by excluding more pupils from the stats than anyone else
They'll be a lot of chatter about England's PISA results this morning, but we need to talk just as much about Wales. They rejected phonics and knowledge-rich curricula in favour of 'areas of learning', 'skills suites' and barely any testing. Wales is now 40 points below England in every domain.
Tom Richmond59I'm also pretty convinced that Wales allowing schools to design their own curriculum to encourage them to "build their own vision for their learners" and provide "space for practitioners to be creative" is not a sensible way to improve national standards or build pupils' knowledge and understanding.
mattevansc3.bsky.social26Unless they are teaching phonics at 12 years old, those changes wouldn’t have impacted 15 year olds in 2025. The new curriculum removed assessments for primary schools. The 15 year olds in 2025 weren’t in primary schools when the new curriculum was introduced.
Laura McInerney22I’m still interested in the so what for this, though… Do we think it will materially affect their GDP? Or is it possible they traded results for a more chill life and it has no real effect?!
Hib Bird7I'd be very worried about bilingualism being scapegoated in all this. That doesn't seem to be where the problem is but it won't stop some people trying.
Rob Aitken5Requiring primary schools to teach phonics and times tables can both improve overall results and fail a significant minority of pupils. For instance dyslexic children are taught they are stupid and failing as they cannot learn phonics or memorise times tables. Taught other ways they can excel.
Andy Pearce 🇬🇧👨🏻💻5Is it potentially affected by other factors, however? For example, in England second-generation immigrants pupils out-perform non-immigrant pupils. What if Wales has a lower proportion of such pupils? Just one possible example, maybe not the best. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a9ea5...
Sam Freedman177Devolution created a natural experiment here and we have the results. bsky.app/profile/tom-...
Cai51One of my strongest beliefs is we need to go back to educational practices that actually work, even if that is not as fun for children. Because among other things, I don't think that children actually want infinite fun, they want structure and they want to grow.
Gerry Doyle18wales aside... I guess having some point of comparison is better than none, but I think pisa scores (and standardized testing in general) are kind of silly -- you can absolutely study for the test, and many countries are laser focused on this
David Kernohan6Which neatly demonstrates that intensively teaching knowledge-rich curricula towards high-stakes tests is a great way to ensure your country does well on PISA.
Mark Wallace6You couldn’t get a better and more comparable mass experiment in the real world than this. The conclusions are clear, and yet the action is going in the wrong direction. bsky.app/profile/tom-...
LeithMotive5Devolved governments really fuck up education, don't they? Why? Default rejection of what works because England does it and they have a political need to differentiate from the national government?
Dr Kat Day (she/her) 🌒2Why the difference between England and Wales? bsky.app/profile/tom-...
Siem De Cleyn2Een natural experiment 😱 🤩
Catio Miles2Education is not a short term project. You see the results after a very long time. but these are good results, which will be positive for our society, economy and politics for the next generation.
My latest blog piece: BBC Scotland's educational F grade. In its rush to present another SNPbad/ScotGov is failing story, BBC Scotland is failing its viewers & listeners by omitting vital information about the Pisa rankings on which it has based its story. weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2026/09/08/b...
busygranof6.bsky.social9Having worked in schools for over 40 years I am sick and tired of these sort of lies. Our teachers, pupils and parents work damn hard and are never given thanks for what they do. Our pupils far outrank those in England, believe me I know this. BBC Scotland should be ashamed. Thank you for your input
NevereverDave.bsky.social2Fair to say none of this vital nuance featured in the @channel4news.bsky.social coverage on this saying/trumpeting English schools were getting something right whilst hammering Wales and showing Scotland failing in one segment.
Pumpkin Spiced Hannah 🖤🩶🤍💜🇵🇸1I thought it was odd that they framed it as a bad thing when Scotland was second out of the four UK component countries. Don't get me wrong, always keen to see an improvement in literacy but still strange framing.
