CHALLENGES FACING NEW EDUCATION MINISTER
Wales’ Education Minister Kirsty Williams steps down next May. Here, education editor Abbie Wightwick assesses her successor’s long to-do list
BEFORE the coronavirus pandemic hit and all schools were ordered to shut last March, education in Wales was already facing major challenges and changes.
Top of the list were funding and implementing the new curriculum, the “biggest set of education reforms anywhere in the UK for half a century”.
These pressures have have not gone away. Covid-19 has made everything in life harder – although it may also have opened up opportunities to think differently about what education and qualifications are for.
The focus on schools has had to shift to deal with the immediate health crisis, but results and what’s taught still matter. New obstacles thrown up by the pandemic will ripple for years, adding to historic issues and projects already looming on the horizon.
While there is support for the new curriculum and “goodwill” among teachers, one union official has warned it is a “a potential recipe for disaster” if not handled carefully in what are now very different circumstances compared to eight months ago.
The pandemic has been all consuming at times but the aftermath and vision beyond Covid is needed as these issues stack up.
Money could prove the biggest headache. A report in October, commissioned by the Welsh Government before coronavirus, concluded the pandemic is an added pressure at a time when it had already calculated school costs would soar by 8% in the next three years.
Per pupil spend has fallen 6% in Wales in the past decade from £6,388 in 2009-10 to £6,000 now. That is in-line with a corresponding 6% fall in the block grant to Wales from the UK Government. Staff pay is also as a major ongoing and future cost for schools that whoever takes up the education portfolio must weigh against evidence that high quality teaching and extra funding for deprived schools have the biggest impact on pupil achievement. Building relationships and gaining trust with voters, the education sector and others will also be vital. Parent and carer power should also not be dismissed, especially with increasingly vocal opinions on social media.
If the past eight months have been hard then at least during this time of major disruption and fear Wales has had someone in charge of education who communicated well and largely commanded the respect of unions and the profession. She has also certainly been on top of the massive education brief.
As education minister, Kirsty Williams may not always have got it right, but she wasn’t frightened to acknowledge when she was wrong (exam results) and stick her ground when she believed she was right (the new curriculum). To crown what has been a time of chaos and rapid policy changes, necessarily made on the hoof, Ms Williams standing down as education minister and MS in May is one more challenge to add to the to-do list for education in Wales. Arguably, Ms Williams’ way of working is also harder to replace because she was free from some of the political pressure as a Liberal Democrat MS in a Labour cabinet.
Union members, school leaders and teachers concede that she listened and say privately that they are slightly nervous about who and what will come next.
David Evans, Wales secretary for the National Education Union warns the new exam results assessments (yet to be fully confirmed) will be an additional workload for teachers and schools well into the summer term. This is a simmering source of friction. He goes further describing the new curriculum as “a potential recipe for disaster” if politicians and others are not realistic.
“We have got to get to grips with demands,” he cautions. “There was not a lot of time (to prepare for the new curriculum) before Covid and the pandemic came at the worst possible time for Welsh education at a time when we are trying to implement a new curriculum and are now also trying to ensure learning continues in whatever way it can.”
With coronavirus having a knock-on effect on everything “a heavy dose of realism about what can be achieved” is vital, he added.
School leaders and teachers warned in April that Wales’ long awaited new curriculum must be delayed at least a
year while schools deal with major changes caused by the coronavirus.
They said schools were too busy dealing with the effects of the pandemic to prepare for curriculum overhaul. But the Welsh Government has indicated it is still on course with its 2022 timetable.
Responding to calls for a delay from teaching union the Nasuwt and the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru, the Welsh Government said in a statement in April: “Our teachers and school staff right across Wales have been working hard to ensure continuity of learning since last month, when the education minister announced the temporary re-purposing of schools.
“We have been clear that curriculum reform remains a key priority and will continue. We will continue to engage with practitioners, though the approach will need to evolve in response to the significant challenges schools currently face.”
But Kirsty Williams took a slightly altered line in July telling the Children Young People and Education Committee: “We have not departed from our 2022 date but will keep that under review.”
Gareth Evans, director of education policy at Yr Athrofa: Centre for Education, at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, argues that now could be the perfect time for new approaches to teaching and learning – or maybe not.
“A purpose-led curriculum, focusing much more clearly on individual learner progression, would surely help in our response to Covid and the learning time lost since lockdown,” he says. “But equally, we have to be realistic and acknowledge the tremendous amount of disruption caused by the pandemic.
“How much time since March have teachers realistically had to design their own curricula? Getting schools up and running safely has been their number one priority – there will be a great many that haven’t had chance to give the curriculum a second thought.”
There is also disparity in schools’ knowledge and understanding of the new curriculum.
“Even before the pandemic, there was widespread variation across Wales by virtue of the pioneer model. This will only have been exacerbated since March, with schools facing their own unique challenges in the context of a global emergency,” he added.
“We have to account for the fact that not every school in Wales has had the same opportunity to engage with new curriculum documents . . .
“As the Covid crisis subsides, schools will need clear direction and an outline of broad expectations.
Until then, schools will be doing very different things dependent on where they are and what challenges they face.”
Teaching unions as well as polic y makers may well have had to put concerns about, and plans for, the new curriculum to one side during the more urgent concerns of Covid and what to do about exams, but these matters are only just below the surface with less than two years to go
In the meantime unions have already been in discussions with schools inspectorate Estyn and local education authorities, as well as Welsh Government about how next year’s exams will be graded by assessments and how much extra work that will mean for teachers. Nasuwt, UCAC and the NEU have all raised concerns.
At the same time as having to plan whole new ways y of delivering lessons and learning, because of the coronavirus, teachers also have the added worry of preparing for new assessments and thinking (or not having time to think) about what learning will look like in the new curriculum.
Exams are a major issue wherever you look - whether because of coronavirus halting them or because they are a potential stumbling block, or force change.
It’s hard for secondary headteachers to take a new curriculum fully o on board when they will have to revert to subject divisions for GCSEs and A-levels and be judged on results from those. That may be an argument for getting rid of, or reforming them further. But those are major steps.
In its Preparing for the Curriculum for Wales report out this week schools inspectorate Estyn noted: “In a majority of schools visited, there is a reluctance to plan new whole-school curriculum and assessment arrangements while still delivering a curriculum that meets the needs of current public. examinations.”
Professor Alma Harris, chair of Swansea University School of Education, sees Covid chaos as a possible opportunity to help push forward reform to education and get rid of out-dated exams.
“What the cancellation of exams offers is a real opportunity to deliver the assessment arrangements for a new curriculum and to think differently about the assessment processes that lead to qualifications,” she says.
“There is now time to engage the profession in the co-construction of robust and reliable assessment pathways to qualifications in 2021 that can align with and support the new curriculum going forward.
“Returning to exams may not be congruent with the assessment requirements of a dynamic, new curriculum, so some exams, like GCSEs, may be permanently cancelled if we get alternative forms of assessment right in Wales.”
But it may be harder to wean schools and society off the exams that have ruled for so long. Teachers, pupils, parents and employers, by and large understand and trust them. If the row over this year’s standardised grades, after GCSEs, AS and A-levels were cancelled, revealed anything it was that whatever replaced exams in 2020 was not trusted in the same way.
And results, or a qualifications system perceived not to have as much value, are ammunition for political opponents of Wales and its Labour administration.
Whoever replaces Kirsty Williams, communication will be key, both to keep the goodwill of the teaching profession and others, but also to maintain trust in the new curriculum and confidence that whatever qualifications Wales eventually has are transferable across the UK and beyond.
That means steadying the boat a bit, says. Gareth Evans: “Our education system has been through more than enough change since devolution, and what we need now more than anything is stability – and time to put into effect everything we’ve been working towards for the past five years.”
But any new education minister will want to make their mark and do more than steady the boat. Who wants to be remembered for delivering someone else’s vision? They will also be aware its been one of the toughest years for most in the profession as well as students in schools, colleges and universities. Patience is frayed.
For all the carping from some quarters that teachers have not been at work while schools were physically closed most of them put in long hours acquainting themselves with online and digital learning systems which would have been expected to take years in normal times.
Distance learning has not been perfect and some children’s learning may never fully recover. Fully exposing and exacerbating the attainment gap between those with support at home and those without, is an opportunity for action.
The attainment gap is certainly an ongoing issue for whoever takes the education brief next.
If Wales’ new curriculum is to be successful it must improve education outcomes for everyone and ensure the skills and subjects taught are relevant and useful.
That starts with making sure it works for everyone.