Make new curriculum the top priority, schools told
SCHOOLS have been told to put the new curriculum for Wales at the top of their agenda, with the biggest change in education for a generation now just two years away.
Telling schools to prioritise the reforms, Wales’ chief inspector of education and training Meilyr Rowlands said the changes could take at least a decade to implement and it is vital standards don’t fall in the process.
Publishing his 2018-19 annual report today, Mr Rowlands, head of education watchdog Estyn, said: “We’re in the middle of significant, historical change in Welsh education. Momentum has increased recently, bringing better cooperation between national, regional and local education organisations.
“Now that the new Curriculum for Wales is published, all schools must think seriously about what this new curriculum means for their school community and how they can improve teaching and learning.”
The new curriculum will be taught in all schools up to year seven from September 2022. It will then roll out year by year until it includes year 11 by 2026.
Traditional boundaries between subjects are scrapped and there will instead be six new Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs). The first overhaul of the syllabus in more than 30 years means schools will design their own curriculum.
In his report, Mr Rowlands warns: “During a period of structural reform, it is important that the quality of education and standards do not slip.
“Transforming a whole education system is a complex and long-term undertaking, and one that is estimated to take at least a decade.”
While progress has been made with groundwork for the changes schools must “grasp the opportunity” to focus on longer-term planning.
“A stage has now been reached when all schools need to think carefully about what the new curriculum means for them,” he said.
“The newly published Curriculum for Wales offers an overarching structure for curriculum planning, but the responsibility is on each school to design its own curriculum to provide what their learners need to thrive in the modern world.”
Mr Rowlands acknowledged schools can’t do this alone saying the education system as a whole must work together to support them bringing in the reforms.
The 190-page report highlights work in several schools which are already trying new approaches to the curriculum but Mr Rowlands warned: “Some longstanding challenges remain. Too many secondary schools are still causing concern and the ‘poverty gap’ between disadvantaged learners and their peers has not closed over recent years.”
While attitudes in most primary schools are increasingly positive about the changes there is less appetite in secondary schools, especially those not pioneering the new curriculum, his report warns.
“Secondary staff are generally positive about the aims of the new curriculum, though uncertainty around the nature of future qualifications and accountability measures means that secondary school leaders are generally more cautious about preparing for changes to the content and organisation of their curriculum.”
Launching his report, Mr Rowlands said it was hard to quantify how ready schools are for the new curriculum school.
Estyn will be temporarily halting inspections this September in order to visit all schools in Wales to assess how they are progressing implementing the reforms.
Away from the new curriculum, the report also shows recruitment and funding are ongoing problems for schools.
Numbers of students recruited to initial teacher education programmes for primary teaching programmes in Wales have fallen 10% in the past five years at the same time as recruitment to secondary programmes fell 40%.
Several subjects have seen recruitment fall by 50% or more, including chemistry, ICT, mathematics, modern foreign languages, art and physics. The most recent figures for student teacher recruitment from StatsWales show numbers have fallen again in about half of subjects.
On funding, the report notes reserves held by primary schools have been at about £40m in recent years while reserves held by secondary schools have fallen.
At the end of the 2018-19 financial year secondary schools in Wales were in overall deficit by £4.4m.
The report notes: “All schools inspected this year report the need to make difficult financial decisions due to reduced budgets.
“Often these result in increasing class sizes or a loss of learning support assistants.”