A new curriculum will be rolled out across Wales by 2021 in a major education shake-up by the Welsh Government.
Speaking to headteachers at the National Education Conference in Cardiff on October 22, Education Minister Huw Lewis said he wanted Wales’ new curriculum to be available to schools by 2018, with formal teaching beginning by 2021.
Mr Lewis, who is also the Assembly Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, had previously accepted recommendations made in an independent report on testing and the curriculum in Wales.
Professor Graham Donaldson’s Successful Futures report has provided the foundations for the Mr Lewis’ curriculum plan, called “A curriculum for Wales – a curriculum for life”.
The new curriculum will see an end to key stages, instead embracing “progression steps”.
There will be no formal exams until GCSEs, which along with A-levels will be kept.
There will also be a larger emphasis on IT, health and wellbeing.
He said: “With his Successful Futures report, Professor Donaldson has provided us with the foundations for our first ever made-in-Wales curriculum – one that will be fit for the 21st century and driven by the latest national and international thinking.
“I am determined that our new curriculum will embody better learning and higher standards for all and to help ensure this, I want the teaching profession to play a central part in designing and developing it.”
Professor Donaldson said: “Wales is about to embark on a radical reform of its curriculum and assessment arrangements.
“Ultimately, the success of this reform as a whole will be strongly influenced not just by the translation of ideas into workable curriculum and assessment arrangements but also by the way this work is taken forward.”
The new curriculum was welcomed by the NUT teachers’ union.
General Secretary, Christine Blower, said teachers would be “immensely heartened by the aspirations and commitments that are now part of mainstream educational dialogue in Wales”.
She said: “What has been positive from the outset is that the Minister has given the profession his backing and insisted they will get the time and space they need to develop the new curriculum properly.”
But Angela Burns, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Education, said the Welsh Government should focus on improving a “flawed teacher training system” to ensure teachers were able to implement the new curriculum.
First Minister Carwyn Jones also addressed the conference in Cardiff claiming that education in Wales had improved since devolution.
Mr Jones said: “We must take advantage of the new momentum in Welsh education. I will never shy away from the reforms we need to deliver the education system people in Wales deserve.
“I think it’s fair to say we’ve seen our young people move from a place where they were just ‘doing okay’ to a point where they are now doing really well.”
Welsh education standards ratchet down another notch. Does Carwyn Jones really believe standards are rising? Is he really that out of touch with reality?
The real message here is ‘let’s not bother with difficult subjects such as mathematics and physics, let’s play around with health and well being’.
A curriculum for Wales – a curriculum for life
I must pass on my sincere congratulations to the muppets who will relegate Wales to the lower leagues of educational standards.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/leaguetables/10488555/OECD-education-report-subject-results-in-full.html
Rather than reinforce core subjects they have diluted the education syllabus with pointless and meaningless subjects. This is part of an all-inclusive policy
where the not so very bright feel they have achieved academically.
School Report: a generation of under-achievers with delusions of grandeur.
Also in the longer term this policy will lead to lower standards of teaching. 25% of Maths teachers don’t hold a degree in the subject. 20% of English teachers
failed to hold a qualification higher than an A ‘level.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9395084/Children-being-taught-by-under-qualified-teachers.html
Rather than setting higher teaching standards our next generation of children will not have the skills to compete on the world stage.
I have to agree, I feel sorry for the young people of Wales who are caught up in this system.
Ah, another reason to cross the border to England or look into one of the excellent, selective private schools in Wales. There is more worth sending children to find a job emptying bins than there is sending them to one of the many terrible state schools in Wales.
Students in Wales will be subjected to the torturous boredom of health classes and the mind-killing wonders of wellbeing; not to forget the existing stupidities of the Welsh Bac (an A Level with a load of nonsense added on), the ridiculous nature of RE, and the language of yesteryear; Welsh! The Welsh Government are incompetent when it comes to education.
I should be the Secretary of State for Solving Problems: forget the poxy subjects, focus on maths, English, and the sciences, lengthen the school days, boost teaching qualifications, introduce a more difficult 11+, turn all state schools into academies, and bring back Grammar Schools. PROBLEM SOLVED!
I agree, bring back grammar schools. I am one of that experimental breed who, having passed 11 plus, attended the excelllent Caerffili Boy’s Grammar. Whilst I was there this school was changed to comprehensive and I ended up finishing my education in the comprehensive system.
The differences between the two systems can be summed up as ‘discipline’, ‘expectation’ and ‘distraction’. Grammar
schools demand a far higher level of discipline and conduct. They expect you to do well in life and push you, however reluctant a teenager you are. There were also fewer distractions, single gender establishments, pupils only allowed in the town inschool hours by permission of the Head, and so on.
As Dean remarks this is not a difficult problem to address if
the political will was there. Unfortunately it is not and our masters
in London and Cardiff will continue to send their children to fee paying
schools or move to expensive areas where a good school has a catchment area. The majority of the rest of us are doomed to whatever broken system they devise for us. Every prime minister of Britain from 1964 to 1997 was state educated (Grammar). This will never happen again unless we, the voters, only vote for those who are infavour of grammar schools.
Am I not correct in thinking the Conservatives have approved the building of a new Grammar school in Sevenoaks? It is not called a Grammar school but it is one in all but name.
I think this school is an annexe of an existing school, some miles away from the original. The Tories are almost as set against grammar schools for all, rich or poor, as Labour is. So far as I know only one party advocates grammar schools; that is UKIP. I invite all other parties to comment if I am mistaken.