Concern as many schools delay start of new curriculum
AROUND half of secondary schools in Wales will not be starting the new curriculum for Wales as planned next term.
The biggest reform of education in Wales for decades will roll out in primary schools and for year sevens in secondaries from September – but scores of schools insist they are not ready and will instead take up the offer from the Welsh Government to delay until 2023.
Unions have long warned that preparations for the new curriculum had stalled thanks to Covid-19 disruption.
Revealing on Twitter that “over half of secondary schools will start teaching their new curricula to year 7 from September”, Education Minister Jeremy Miles said he was “really pleased”.
The minister did not give an exact figure, but a Welsh Government spokesman confirmed that around half of secondaries would start the new curriculum from next term, as planned, and half not
Responding to warnings that the pandemic meant schools would not be ready for the massive change, the minister announced in July 2021, that high schools could delay the start of the new curriculum to September 2023.
High schools unready to start the new system for Year 7 at the start of next term can delay until September, 2023, and rollout to Years 7 and 8 together. Meanwhile, primaries and maintained nursery schools still have to start the new curriculum from this September.
Neil Butler, Welsh Secretary of teaching union NASUWT, said: “This is significant. The NASUWT understands that there is little preparedness for the new curriculum in secondary schools, but it would have taken a great deal of moral courage from headteachers to delay implementation.
“The Education Minister should be congratulating those schools that have delayed implementation because they know that to launch the curriculum before their teachers are ready could be damaging to the children’s education.
“The Welsh Government has yet to publish guidance on how the new curriculum is to be assessed. So they themselves are not ready let alone the schools.”
Eithne Hughes, director of the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru, said the number of schools not launching the new curriculum next term was a sign of how tough things were as they emerged from Covid disruption.
“We do not share the Education Minister’s apparent delight, in his tweet, that 50% of secondary schools in Wales will be delivering the new curriculum for Year 7s from September,” she said.
“Schools do not feel they are not being given the time and support they require to bring in the fundamental reforms the
Welsh Government has planned and which should mark an exciting landmark moment for education in Wales.
“Instead, leaders are weighed down by the bloated portfolio of educational reforms that are being railroaded through with undue haste, hot on the heels of two years of incredible upheaval and disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our schools are still in turmoil and leaders have no headspace for doing the necessary work to develop and embed the new curriculum.
“The Education Minister needs to take a step back and recognise that if he is to take leaders with him on this exciting journey, he must allow them the time and support they require to recover from the pandemic.”
Schools are dealing with planned reforms to the school day and year, tertiary post-16 education and the Additional Learning Needs reform, which has been delayed. New accountability structures are also imminent.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We are delighted that around half of secondary schools in Wales will begin to teach the new Curriculum from September.
“We appreciate the challenges the whole of education has faced during the pandemic, and that’s why we provided flexibility so secondary schools had the option to roll out their new curricula from next year instead.
“All schools continue to work towards the new curriculum and we are looking forward to it being taught in all secondary schools in Wales from September 2023.
“We have committed an extra £35m to further support the roll out of the new curriculum this financial year.”
The new curriculum for Wales does not set out a detailed plan for exactly what schools should be teaching.
Teachers will be given more freedom over what is taught, rather than following a strict plan. In secondaries, traditional subject boundaries will be incorporated into six “areas of learning and experience”.
Subjects will be part of faculties and new qualifications will be taught from 2025. The biggest changes are likely to be in secondaries.