Schools supported to prepare for the Curriculum for Wales, but more practical help needed on design and delivery

Schools have been supported to develop their vision for teaching and the Curriculum for Wales, including thinking about its underlying principles, according to a report published today by Estyn. 

However, schools would welcome more practical professional learning opportunities from consortia, other partnerships and local authorities to help them understand how they can design and deliver their new curriculum. 

Owen Evans, Chief Inspector says,

The new curriculum is a vital component in the future of Welsh education. Whilst the Consortia are succeeding in providing generic support for schools engaged in the new curriculum, further work is required to ensure the bespoke support individual schools require is provided. Teaching and curriculum development cannot be separated and the overall support to improve the quality of teaching and leadership is too variable. Too often this does not target the specific aspects that need improving, which can have an impact on pupils’ progress and learning. 

Finally, while the regional consortia and local authorities collect stakeholders’ views and use external consultants to review their work, overall they need to do more to evaluate the impact of their professional learning for curriculum and teaching.

The report features examples of interesting practice, such as how the Central South Consortium developed a model to support their schools and PRUs to understand the curriculum design process. The model helped consortium officers to support schools in developing design processes and has given schools access to professional learning suitable to them at specific phases of curriculum development.