Curricula Change in Wales:

Fit for the 21st century?

Wales – its History• 1998 – Wales becomes a political

‘entity’

• 1945 – The hegemony of social democracy

• 1980s – Deindustrialisation

yr Cwrricwlwm Cymreig

1990 statutory requirement:National Curriculum (Wales) -a curriculum with a distinctively Welsh perspective-History 5-14 delivers the ‘nation’s story’-Amgueddfa Werin Cymru (Welsh Folk Museum, renamed National Museum of Welsh Life and now the National History Museum.

Reforms 1998-2008

• SATS at 7, 11 and 14 abolished – Broadening Curriculum• League Tables abolished• Foundation 3-7 – informal, experiential learning (copied

Finland) No separate subjects – History, Science, Geography (Knowledge of the World)

• Pathways 14-19 – vocational/academic orientation • the Welsh BAC – intended as a distinctive Welsh qualification • school-based assessment undertaken by teachers at school

and is externally moderated by teachers• NC revised to 7-11 (KS2) & 11-14 (KS3) in 2008

NC 2008 KS 2 &3

• learner-centred and skills-based approach• goal: independent lifelong learners• progression• curriculum structured around a Skills Framework:

- communication - ICT - number - thinking

Pupil Enquiry Skills at KS3

• structure and plan a historical enquiry

• identify and implement enquiry strategies

• identify sources useful to answer specific enquiries

• ask as well as answering historical questions

• evaluation/reflection of success

Why all is not well in Wales

News | Published in TESS on 13 April, 2012 | By: Henry Hepburn and Darren Evans

“School Leaders Scotland general secretary Ken Cunningham has made a number of visits to Wales on business, which left him “pretty shocked” by what he found.

…From the abolition of secondary league tables and the scrapping of Sats tests to curricular revamping and the promise that free schools and academies would have no place in Wales, the country began divorcing its school system from that of England.

Then Wales got a huge shock from its poor performance in the 2009 Pisa international comparisons of 15-year-olds’ educational performance.

Crude league tables, observed Mr. Cunningham, have been making a comeback and pitting schools against each other, regardless of social context.”

TESS (continues)

“The “language of threat” is increasingly common; schools are “compelled” to change. Mr Cunningham has a sense of inspectors leaving behind the idea of working in partnership with schools”