Oral - School Curriculum Consultation

I am very pleased to make a statement this afternoon setting out the results of our extensive review of the school curriculum in Wales. The revised curriculum that will now be put in place will help to secure pupils’ acquisition of skills, knowledge and understanding, from the foundation phase right through to the 14-19 learning pathways.

Indeed, this is the first time in Wales that the entire three-to-19 age range has been embraced in a single review. Today’s announcement is the outcome of four years of work monitoring existing provisions, consulting the profession, working with teachers, local education Authorities and Estyn to produce a sound basis for effective teaching and learning.

It takes forward our commitment in ‘One Wales’ to developing a distinctive programme for all learners that is appropriate for Wales. Detailed consultations were carried out between January and March this year, and we received more than 5,500 questionnaire returns and held 25 consultation events. This is a very substantial level of engagement in the review process, which gives added weight and authority to the outcomes in Wales. The overall response was very positive, and I thank all those who took the opportunity to respond.

Turning first to the foundation phase, consultation responses indicated that there is wide support for implementing a distinctive child-centred curriculum for three to sevenyear - olds in Wales. Practitioners involved in educational provision for these children and interested organisations contributed fully to the consultation, and, overwhelmingly, they supported the philosophy and aims of the foundation phase. I remain fully committed to its roll-out across Wales from September 2008.

The foundation phase curriculum comprises seven areas of learning, including language, literacy and communication skills, together with mathematical, physical and creative development. The seven areas work together to provide a cross-curricular approach that makes for a practical and engaging curriculum. Emphasis is placed on developing children’s skills across the seven areas, building on their previous experiences, skills and knowledge. The foundation phase curriculum, as endorsed through the consultation process, is designed to ensure progression through four years of education to meet the diverse needs of all children, including those at an early stage of development, and those who arrive at the school gate already prepared for learning.

This Assembly Government’s approach is to value all children equally, and provide the best possible chance for them to make the most of their talents and abilities. Nowhere is there a better return on public money than the investment that we make in the early years of life, and the foundation phase is an intensely practical demonstration of that commitment in Wales. That commitment extends to ensuring that we have a workforce fully equipped and trained to deliver the new curriculum. Through ‘Iaith Pawb’, we have already invested £7 million in training additional early years Welsh-medium practitioners. Over the past four years, we have made around £3 million available to train staff in the pilot in other schools and settings. This year, we have also made nearly £1 million available to enable each local authority to appoint a foundation phase training and support officer.

We recognise that a programme of in-service training will be needed for existing staff to enable them to obtain at least level 3 qualifications on the national qualifications framework for early years childcare. With regard to this uniquely Welsh initiative, last month, I was delighted to launch the national Play Learn Grow workforce campaign.

Turning to learners from the age of seven, the requirements in respect of the 12 statutory subjects of the national curriculum have been restructured. The national curriculum in Wales was last changed in 2000.

Today’s review builds on the best of what has been achieved since that time, and looks forward to meet the needs of learners in the future. Content has been updated and reduced, where necessary, to ensure relevance to the twenty-first century and manageability for learners and teachers. The particular skills needed for each subject have been newly identified and a new focus has been applied to the range of contexts, opportunities and activities through which these skills should be developed and applied. These revisions will promote learners’ personal development and wellbeing, and their preparedness for citizenship, community life and employability in a bilingual Wales.

These revised requirements will promote bilingualism by recognising that pupils’ skills across languages are developed, and their confidence in language use increased, when they are encouraged to draw on their knowledge of English, Welsh and other languages. Modern foreign languages retain their place among the 12 national curriculum subjects. I want to see as many of our young people as possible prepare themselves for a Wales that is outward-facing and confident of its place in the wider world. To add further to the distinctiveness of the curriculum in Wales, the revised subject requirements all embrace the Curriculum Cymreig, a curriculum that is set in the Welsh context and deals with matters and issues relevant to the society, culture and economy of Wales, while ensuring that there are also wider international perspectives.

As a result of the consultation, I am also able to announce today the implementation timetable for this part of the new curriculum. National curriculum subject changes will begin from September 2008 in years 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8. The process will culminate with the introduction of year 11 changes in English, Welsh and mathematics in September 2011. This timetable reflects the evolutionary approach that we have adopted to change, taking into account workload and other organisational issues.

The revised curriculum also provides frameworks for three specific areas. For personal and social education, the revision offers a simpler structure while retaining all the elements of the current framework that practitioners found to be of value. This encompasses such diverse areas as personal relationships, diet and health, money  management, sustainable living, first aid and active citizenship. For religious education, we have produced a model framework that local authorities, in partnership with their agreed syllabus conferences, can adopt or use as a basis for their locally agreed syllabuses.

For careers and the world of work, we have replaced the two current frameworks with one. At the request of many practitioners, we have brought careers education and guidance together with work-related education, and have extended the framework to cover learners between the ages of 11 and 19. This, among other things, will encourage more explicit consideration by our young people of their individual learning pathways prior to making choices at age 14 and will enable them to select appropriate career routes.

Members will already be aware of the extensive work that has been devoted to the reform of the post-14-year-old curriculum and the development of the 14-19 learning pathways in Wales. Just as the foundation phase aims to provide every child with the best possible start to their education, as young people move towards the world of work, we want to ensure that every student has a valued place in our school and college system. The learning pathways approach is designed as an entitlement model, in which the education system adapts to the needs of learners, not the other way around. Our young people need flexible, transferable skills in which academic and vocational qualifications are equally valued.

That is why, throughout this statement, I have emphasised the importance that we attach to the development of skills. For that reason, in addition to the other changes that I have announced this afternoon, the revised curriculum will be underpinned by a nonstatutory skills framework in Wales. This framework describes progression from the ages of three to 19 in developing thinking, communication, ICT and number skills— skills that are fundamental if learners are to become successful, whether in school, the workplace, at home or elsewhere, and which will enable our young people to make valued and valuable contributions to the social, cultural, and economic life of our country.

The revised curriculum that I am announcing today, and which will be implemented from September next year, maintains the best tradition of our established model in retaining a wide range of subjects and areas of learning, while placing a firm and clear emphasis on the skills that our learners need to develop if we are to widen educational opportunity and help schools to raise standards of achievement. It is a curriculum that has the support of the profession, as the consultation has shown. It will engage and motivate learners, and that, in turn, will improve attainment. As a consequence, it will make a real difference to the employability and career prospects of all our young people. In short, this is a distinctive curriculum that is right for Wales in the twenty-first century.