Wales’ new curriculum framework has once again been brought into sharp focus following the release in December of education’s international ‘league tables’.
Yes there are important caveats, and PISA paints a somewhat skewed picture, but the top messages for Wales were not unfamiliar – standards of literacy and numeracy remain well below the levels expected.
Successive rounds of PISA, chief inspector reports and external assessment outcomes all point to a system falling short on key skills; an issue that could, if you believe the hyperbole, limit the life chances of tens of thousands of Welsh schoolchildren in an increasingly competitive jobs market.
I tend to look slightly more optimistically at the future for Wales and its education system, at least in part because of our caring, compassionate and high-skilled workforce – we have teachers and leaders to rival any in the world.
I know, because I’ve seen for myself what a difference to our children and their communities schools up and down the country are making – the issue, as ever, is how to make what we know to be good and effective practice measurable and a feature of our entire school stock.
Raising all boats is not easy and, in the context of education, a seemingly endless pursuit forever impacted by changes in politics, the financial climate and deep-seated social and cultural inequalities.
The developing Curriculum for Wales (launched in 2022 and being phased in gradually until all pupils aged 3-16 are benefitting from new curricular experiences in 2026) represents the nation’s latest attempt at tackling this challenge, and seeks to level a chronically uneven playing field by better serving the bespoke needs of individual learners.
Inspired by Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, there is less prescribed content and more freedom for teachers to educate their pupils as they see fit, within the confines of a much looser curricular framework.
The alleged benefits of such a move (from prescription to autonomy) are twofold: one, it recognises that no school or learner is the same and allows scope for modification relative to where you are and who you are with; and two, it is more respecting of the professional voice of teachers and empowers those qualified to do the job to determine what best to teach and how.
It is something of a utopian vision that, in principle at least, very few will argue against. But ensuring that every child gets a fair crack at education is a much trickier proposition in a system that actively promotes and celebrates difference (with each school ploughing their own furrow, there will in effect be 1,463 variations on a curricular theme).
The core challenge, then, is how to maintain some semblance of consistency, while at the same time respecting local ownership and decision-making.
Degrees of flexibility and freedom
In education, perhaps more than in any other public service, equity of opportunity is written in tablets of stone.
For teachers and leaders, the lack of clear policy advice as to what degrees of flexibility and freedom schools are actually allowed has given rise to an unease within the profession that what they do might be frowned upon.
Instead, those charged with putting the new curriculum into practice need confidence that their interpretations of what is acceptable (and there will be many, let’s not forget) are in line with expectation – both at a government-level and, perhaps more significantly, in the eyes of the inspectorate.
The difficulty for schools is that they have no way of knowing what ‘good’ looks like, over and above a deliberately open list of ‘contributory factors’ that policymakers have determined to be the benchmark of successful curriculum realisation.
Described as an ‘important reference for schools when evaluating their own curriculum’, and part of a new national framework for evaluation, improvement and accountability,the factors include: enabling all learners to progress, ensuring the school environment supports learner wellbeing, investing in ambitious professional learning, and being at the heart of their communities.
One could argue that such things are essential to the effectiveness of any school, regardless of curriculum. So too are they open to interpretation, and without more concrete specification as to what e.g. enabling all learners to progress means in practice, schools run the risk of inadvertently veering too far from convention.
National programme
There are, by my estimation, two possible ways around this. The first, heavily resisted for fear of subverting teacher agency, is that we introduce some sort of ‘common core’, or list of non-negotiables that all schools, in all parts of Wales are required in law to teach.
A more descriptive statutory content, outside that which exists already, would ensure at least some degree of uniformity across the piece; how detailed that compulsory list is would be subject to a ‘national conversation’ on what we want our children to grow up knowing.
The second and alternative route out of our curriculum quandary, is the provision of high-quality professional learning that is readily available to all.
Far from empowering teachers, it could be argued that Curriculum for Wales has in fact de-skilled those in our system who were not already involved in curriculum co-construction, and have had no prior exposure to curriculum design.
All of a sudden, and through no fault of their own, teachers have gone from a position of strength – based on their understanding of what to do within much tighter curricular parameters – to one of relative weakness.
This does not mean that good teachers become any less good as a consequence, more that they need additional support – and, in some cases, new skills – so as to respond most appropriately to what is being asked of them.
The commission of a genuinely national programme of professional learning that is evidence-based and accessible to teachers, wherever in Wales they work, would give hope that the prescriptive tightrope can be successfully navigated.
A mandatory module or ‘starter kit’ for schools in the tricky art of curriculum design (in relation to what the Welsh Government is now calling a ‘purpose-led, process-orientated’ model), would help cut through the noise and help our time-poor teaching profession re-set ready for the challenges ahead.
Then again, we might just begin by asking teachers what they need and what they are not getting at the moment.
This blog first appeared in the Times Educational Supplement in February 2024.
There is an air of inevitability about ‘PISA’ results, particularly in Wales where pupil performance in the international tests continues to fall well short of expectation.
A frenzy of media interest lights the touchpaper for political dissidence; schools and their teachers are, as ever, caught in PISA’s crossfire.
It is all depressingly predictable and Wales’ place at the foot of the UK league table has become something of a surety.
Granted, a drop in 2022 PISA scores was no surprise given the vast majority of participating countries and member states went backwards, owing at least in part to Covid-19.
The difficulty for Wales is that its decline was strikingly steeper than those registered in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland (and it was already starting from a much lower base).
Welsh scores went down by 21 points in maths, 17 points in reading and 15 points in science, after a mini revival in 2018 when modest improvements against all three measures were recorded.
International comparisons are, broadly speaking, fraught with danger and Pisa does not compensate for cultural difference.
But comparing the ‘home nations’ (and the Republic of Ireland, whose scores held up noticeably well) is a much more reliable exercise, and that Wales has dropped even further behind having trailed its near neighbours in each of the last six PISA rounds is good cause for concern.
After all, it is the pupils in closest proximity that will be most likely competing for jobs, apprenticeships and university places.
It will be some time before the dust settles and PISA results in their entirety (including the often overlooked pupil and headteacher questionnaire data) can be properly digested, but that does not preclude the drawing of early observations.
My first relates to the well-worn ‘Covid excuse’ for poor performance. Ministers in Wales were quick to blame the pandemic for its PISA plight, and whilst there is little doubt that repeated lockdowns and lost learning impacted significantly on pupil progress through Covid, it does not account for Wales’ trend over time nor the rest of the UK’s comparatively better outcomes.
PISA supremo Andreas Schleicher makes this abundantly clear in his PISA Insights and Interpretations report, noting that ‘educational trajectories were negative well before the pandemic hit’ and ‘long-term issues in education systems’ contributed to the widespread drop in performance.
So Covid was a factor, not the only factor.
Which begs the obvious question – what else has been going wrong in Wales?
Comparisons with Scotland
There has been much criticism on social media, in the early aftermath of PISA results, of Wales’ developing purpose-led curriculum.
Let’s be clear, Wales’ 2022 PISA scores are in no way a reflection of the current reform agenda; the pupils who sat PISA tests late last year had not been exposed to new arrangements and it will be several years before CfW plays out in results.
Nevertheless, Scotland’s downturn poses awkward questions for Wales and the Welsh Government, which appears steadfast in its commitment to seeing through what has been described by ministers as ‘the biggest set of education reforms anywhere in the UK for over half a century’.
This, I think, is a sensible approach; teachers in Wales have been through enough and are understandably tired of the government’s tendency to change direction at the first hint of adversity.
There is only so much policy churn one can take before losing heart and hunkering down.
That does not mean however that we should pass PISA off as ‘just another measure’, as has been argued several times already this week.
Yes, PISA only provides a snapshot; yes, PISA doesn’t assess everything we value; and yes, PISA is methodologically flawed.
But what PISA does measure is important; it’s important to our reputation, to our economy and most of all, the life chances of our children and young people. To ignore its key findings would be irresponsible and do them a grave disservice.
Indeed, it could be argued that PISA merely reaffirms that which we knew already – that basic skills in Wales are, on the whole, substandard and some way below where they should be.
This in itself is an important point, with Wales’ inspectorate Estyn having long since bemoaned deficiencies in reading and maths; Wales’ GCSE and A-level outcomes being consistently below those in England and Northern Ireland; and personalised assessment data revealing a drop in standards of reading and numeracy across the primary and secondary age range.
The unveiling of a new national plan ‘to drive forward improvement in maths and literacy’, a week before PISA results were published, is not coincidental.
The Welsh Government has identified what it perceives as a chink in its armour, only this particular chink is in danger of becoming a chasm; quite how Wales has ended up in this position, a decade after the launch of a national Literacy and Numeracy Framework (introduced, ironically, after another PISA crisis), is not immediately clear.
Those of us who have been around long enough will remember well the profound impact of the 2009 PISA results on Wales’ education system; only the ink had barely dried on a raft of sweeping changes when momentum shifted again, with PISA 2012 inspiring a new approach to curriculum and assessment.
The mood music coming out of Cathays Park suggests there will be no such volte-face this time.
That to me is a good thing, albeit the Welsh Government must be willing to accept scrutiny and constructive challenge whatever its results.
In the same way ministers would be advised to resist ratcheting up PISA rhetoric when it suits them (Wales being one of a long list of countries to have used PISA ‘shocks’ to justify whole-system change), so too must they refrain from playing down PISA’s significance when it is not convenient (like when the system is already part-way through an extensive reform programme).
The Welsh Government’s uneasy and somewhat volatile relationship with the international tests should be carefully considered, and a healthy debate on our future involvement in and aspirations for PISA would be no bad thing.
Moving forward, we must be resolute, not reactionary – and base our response to PISA on a more rounded evaluation of our education system; in short, we must avoid being the architects of our own downfall.
What matters now in Wales, is what happens next. Education Minister Jeremy Miles has resolved to bring education leaders ‘together around the table’ in January to reflect on PISA and develop ‘a shared and comprehensive response to this challenge’.
This to me feels like a fork in the road and an opportune time to pause and take stock; to reflect, review and evaluate what we have done, where we are and where we’re going.
It is not a time to throw babies out with bathwater – too much positive energy, goodwill and determination has been expended to flip-flop yet again in response to something, deep down, most of us could foresee.
We must be honest about what is manageable in a complex and unsettled educational landscape, still grappling with the full effects of the pandemic and a near-constant flow of national guidance.
We need to look again at what we prioritise, and what we are prepared to let lie (the Welsh Government’s promotion this week of its plan to change the school year was I think symptomatic of a much deeper problem).
What this means for Wales is uncertain, though I anticipate more a tinkering around the edges than wholesale policy overhaul; any remedial action must be taken with the profession in mind.
We cannot, under any circumstances, expect teachers and leaders in Wales to ‘do more’ and ‘push even harder’ to narrow the PISA gap; funding cuts and teacher redundancies are already biting hard and the toolbox is bare.
It is a perfect storm of poor results, heightened pressure to perform and a chronic lack of resources; if there is a tipping point, then it isn’t far away.
We know that teachers make the biggest difference, and that everything else works back from there. So let’s start by focussing on what really matters.
This blog first appeared in the Times Educational Supplement in December 2023.
Like many in Wales, I’ve long been of the view that our new national curriculum would not gain full traction until the qualifications scene had been made clear.
Well, some eight years after the Curriculum for Wales (CfW) blueprint was first laid before the system, we now have some real clarity.
I say confirmed because most of what was announced had already been trailed – two years ago in fact, when proposals to transform GCSEs in readiness for CfW were first unveiled.
In truth, very little has changed since then; there has been more discussion and debate (the regulator cannot be criticised for its efforts to engage with stakeholders), but the essence of what was recommended remains as was.
English and Welsh language and literature qualifications will still be collapsed into one; Maths and Numeracy will still contribute to the same Maths award; and a new unified Sciences qualification will still replace the more traditional Biology, Chemistry and Physics GCSEs.
Those proposals have now been rubber-stamped.
There have however beensome surprise modifications to the original manifesto, and a few notable concessions made based largely on the strength of feeling amongst consultation respondents. Namely:
English and Welsh language and literature, and Maths and Numeracy will become double awards (from the 1.5 awards touted initially), thus recognising the weight of these qualifications and the amount of content they will cover;
Exit awards in English and Welsh language and literature, and the Sciences will be introduced to give learners the option of pursuing a smaller, ‘single’ qualification if they so wish (this very much in keeping with the ethos of CfW, which seeks to enhance learner choice and empower pupils to make decisions in their own best interests);
And I think most important of all, pupils will be awarded both an overall grade in the Sciences (as a collective), as well as a breakdown by individual subject area (so grades will still be awarded in Biology, Chemistry and Physics, much like they are now).
All of this, in my view, represents a reasonable compromise on the part of the regulator, which has considered carefully the outcomes of its consultation that sought only to garner views on the design of qualifications; the range of GCSE subjects themselves having been decided much earlier in October 2021.
In other words, the combining of English, Welsh, Maths and Science qualifications was never really open for debate this time around; but quite significant adjustments have been made nonetheless.
They won’t please everyone, of course; and for some, the adjustments don’t go far enough.
But I have some sympathy for Qualifications Wales and it’s important to remember that they are only working within the parameters afforded them by the new curriculum.
Everything that the regulator has proposed aligns, whether you agree with it or not, with the new vision for education, and what it promises to deliver for our learners. CfW has guided every decision that they have made.
To some extent, therefore, criticism of the new qualifications landscape can be considered criticism of the new curriculum framework.
This to me begs a fairly obvious question: given the aforementioned strength of feeling amongst consultation respondents, and the vociferous criticism of planned changes within certain groups, was there sufficient scrutiny of the curriculum at design stage?
Could we – as a system – have made stronger representation during the curriculum’s early development or, perhaps, even before the curriculum’s paving documents were first drawn?
OK, so perhaps the information we’d have needed to make a more informed contribution wasn’t available back then.
But we knew roughly where our curriculum, and with it, our education system, was headed.
Credibility, currency and rigour
Radical change to qualifications was as inevitable as it was necessary, given the learner-focussed, cross-curricular, teacher-empowered approach championed by Successful Futures.
Recent announcements regarding GCSEs should come as no great shock to anyone.
Death, taxes and new GCSEs; there are very few sureties in life, but tweaks to qualifications are as nailed on as anything in education – it’s just that the majority of people (outside of the regulator, exam board and teachers) don’t know about them.
Moving forward, the regulator faces a number of key and as yet unanswered challenges.
The first is fairly obvious and relates to the need to ‘sell’ new made-in-Wales GCSEs to the profession, pupils, parents, employers and tertiary education providers.
In short, everyone with an interest must have confidence in our new suite of qualifications, and pupils need assurance that what they are awarded in Wales will be comparable (at least in value, if not make-up) to similar qualifications available elsewhere in the UK.
A qualification is, after all, worthless if it doesn’t carry weight; credibility, currency and rigour are essential commodities in this particular game.
Qualifications Wales say they’ve done their homework and employers, colleges and universities are onboard with the changes, which is encouraging; but that doesn’t mean the communication offensive is done – not by a long way.
For every one of the above the regulator’s spoken to and been given assurance from, there will likely be a handful more that are blissfully ignorant to what is coming further down the track.
One of their ongoing and non-negotiable priorities between now and 2027, when the new qualifications are first awarded, has to be selling the Welsh story to the masses – in Wales, the UK and internationally.
A new-look Welsh Bacc?
A few final thoughts before I finish…
One wonders what impact the recent Hayward review of qualifications and assessment in Scotland will have on associated reform in Wales, given the extremely close relationship between the two nations in terms of education (our system treading an almost identical path to that set out north of the border).
Hayward’s plans for a new ‘Scottish Diploma of Achievement’, designed to better reflect the diversity in learning journeys, are particularly pertinent in the context of CfW and an apparent want to row back from high-stakes summative assessment.
The Welsh Baccalaureate, which has, I would argue, never fully realised its potential as a wraparound qualification, offers a natural vehicle through which a more holistic view of learner development could be presented.
External examinations would be scaled back considerably under Hayward’s proposals for Scotland, on the basis that they dominate learning and teaching, narrow the curriculum and demotivate learners.
Similar moves are being made in Wales, where the regulator is seeking to move away from high-stakes testing as the main gauge of learner achievement.
Above all, broadening the range of assessment methods makes sense in an environment promoting greater choice and individuality – albeit that this must be done ‘through the lens of tackling the impact of poverty on educational outcomes’, as the education minister himself makes clear.
In-house marking and moderation
There is, however, an important caveat, acknowledged by Qualifications Wales in this week’s decisions report:
‘Introducing a bigger proportion and variety of non-examination assessments (NEA) in GCSEs will mean that, overall, learners will take more assessment tasks than is currently the case. This in turn will result in more assessment-related workload for schools. To ensure manageability, we will want to see that appropriate consideration has been given to the implications of proposed NEA arrangements for school resources and teacher workload.’
And therein lies possibly the greatest challenge of all; at a time of unprecedented economic hardship, when teachers are still battling the effects of COVID and trying their level best to implement a new national curriculum, how are we going to create space for more in-house marking and moderation?
And how are we going to mitigate against the impact of poverty on attainment, and ensure that no learner is disadvantaged by the shift away from summative assessment (which is, of course, less susceptible to unconscious bias)?
Have the implications of these proposals and the new demands on schools been fully costed, and is there money left in the pot to build much-needed assessment literacy across the system?
For all its unquestionable potential, CfW seems to be throwing up and reinforcing issues that have plagued our change agenda from the very beginning.
And they are issues that must be addressed, or we risk wasting years of effort (not to mention tens of millions of pounds) on a vision with much promise, but little thought for what was actually required to turn that vision into reality.
Waiting until now to rubber-stamp our approach to qualifications, nearly a decade after CfW plans were first hatched, doesn’t strike me as being particularly helpful in that regard.
Time flies when you’re having fun, but it goes even quicker when you’re recovering from COVID-19, battling shrinking school budgets and trying your level best to implement the biggest set of educational reforms in over half a century.
Keeping all the plates spinning (the idioms will stop soon, I promise) has never been so difficult, as evidenced by ongoing trade disputes.
Yet here we are, and the show must go on.
Ahead of this week’s national headteacher conference, recently revived after a brief pandemic-induced hiatus, I thought it an opportune moment to pause and reflect on what has or hasn’t been achieved in the year since school leaders across Wales last gathered around their computer screens for a meeting with the minister.
In what could be considered his first major address to the education system since becoming Minister for Education and Welsh Language in May 2021, Jeremy Miles spoke candidly last February about both the challenge and opportunity presented by our ambitious educational agenda.
He highlighted the need for schools to work together, and share what is working; the importance of collaboration and ‘working together across different boundaries and between different organisations’; and the pressure on schools navigate ‘a new range of competing demands’.
The lack of a considered, evidence-based and genuinely co-constructed national programme for Wales’ curriculum-makers has, without question, hampered early progress.
Consistency, coherence and demonstrable effectiveness have been, for the most part, in short supply.
‘I am not yet convinced our professional learning offer is as accessible and useful as it could be.
‘There is lots of it, but do you know what’s there, what you should be looking for, where to look, and is it is easy to find when you know where to look?
‘I think the truth is that there is too much variation and too many gaps. So we will change that.’
Mr Miles promised the development of ‘a core package of professional learning’ that would be made available via Hwb and the regional consortia.
A new joint-consortia website has been created as a consequence, with shared resources freely available to all in Wales, regardless of geography or affiliation (albeit schools in Neath Port Talbot continue to be ironed out of various middle-tier conversation, through absolutely no fault of their own – a reality that is as laughable as it is depressing).
I will let schools themselves debate the efficacy and value of said resources – teachers are far better-placed to judge what is useful and what isn’t.
But I will return, if I may be so bold, to another related pronouncement made by Mr Miles in the establishing of the National Professional Learning Entitlement.
Its introduction after many months’ deliberation was, I wrote at the time, cause for mild celebration.
There was not, perhaps, the level of detail I would have hoped for and anticipated, but the entitlement’s launch was nevertheless a clear affirmation of the minister’s devotion to the PL cause.
Imagine Turkey’s Grand Bazaar, but with PowerPoints, portfolios, asynchronous recordings and page after page of spider diagrams and mind maps.
The Welsh Government’s failure to kitemark the professional support available to teachers (its devolving of command to the regional consortia is, in my view, a dereliction of its responsibility) has given rise to what could be considered the Wild West of Curriculum for Wales.
A lawless and oft unruly landscape (by no means bereft of mudslinging), where practice is seldom outlawed and almost anything goes.
So the question is, how much more confident are we, some six or seven months after the entitlement’s launch, that the professional learning battleground is being calmed and the curriculum crossfire abated?
‘Recognised within the education profession’
Well there are signs of improvement, with more obvious regional collaboration and an undertaking to review existing curriculum resources available on Hwb.
But what is far less clear is how the Welsh Government’s proposed new professional learning validation process will work in practice.
‘Accredited’, we are told, means that the professional learning leads to a national or internationally recognised qualification. That’s fair enough.
‘Endorsed’ denotes that a third party has undertaken quality assurance of the professional learning, as is the case with professional learning for leaders endorsed by the National Academy for Educational Leadership (NAEL). That too I can understand.
What bothered me back in September, and still bothers me now, is how professional learning will be classified as ‘recognised’.
Apologies in advance if I’ve missed anything, but to my knowledge there has been no further clarification on professional learning recognition, over and above that cited in the entitlement itself:
‘Recognised’ means that the professional learning will be recognised within the education profession across Wales. A number of the national professional learning programmes are already recognised across Wales for example the national Curriculum for Wales professional learning programme and the teaching assistants learning pathway. We will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure that all national professional learning is recognised.’
I think it fair to assume that there is still a great deal more to do here, if indeed such work has been started at all.
It is far easier to write into government policy the notion of validation, than it is to put validation into practice.
Mechanism for ensuring quality
As and when these important benchmarks are entertained, and a mechanism for ensuring quality designed and operationalised, policymakers will need to consider carefully a number of key provisions, like:
Who decides what is recognised and what is not?
From what backgrounds are these individuals, and how many people are needed to select?
In the event there is disagreement, who has the final say?
What is a good/optimum number of resources?
How frequently should resources be reviewed?
What weight does ‘recognition’ carry, and what is the expectation on schools to employ these resources?
All of these questions are further complicated by unconscious bias, and the very real probability that those selecting what’s in and what isn’t do so based on their own prior experience.
Finding a happy medium will not be easy, but difficult decisions have to be made sooner or later.
And with that in mind, and before I finish – a late addendum to this blog, prompted by yet another questionable resource published in January by the Welsh Government but only brought to my attention by the good people of Welsh edu-Twitter over the weekend.
‘Play and play-based learning’
In what appears to be a new addition to the ‘Designing your curriculum’ section of Curriculum for Wales guidance, policymakers list their ‘key features of successful pedagogy’ and encourage practitioners to provide ‘consistent opportunities’ in, amongst other things, ‘play and play-based learning’ and ‘being outdoors’.
The section concludes by asking schools to consider how they will ensure the pedagogy of the Foundation Phase is developed and built upon.
Two problems here: one – play and outdoor learning are not, to my knowledge, key features of secondary-age pedagogy (and contribute to a very narrow definition of what pedagogy actually is); and two – the Foundation Phase itself no longer exists (care of a rather unnecessary change in nomenclature last summer). It’s ‘Foundation Learning’, I’ll have you know.
So not only is the new guidance highly questionable (if not, plain wrong), it’s also, according to the government’s own classification, inaccurate.
I rest my case.
Curriculum support and guidance needs to be vetted; it needs authentication; and, as this last point clearly demonstrates, needs to be challenged, whether published internally or externally.
In short, government-drawn documentation must be subject to the same checks and balances or the hydra will continue to spawn new and potentially dangerous heads.
Let’s see what the minister has to say on Thursday. No guesses what I’ll be looking out for…
I was invited recently to give a talk at a conference dedicated to school inspection in Wales.
An interesting focus given the very many changes – and challenges – facing educators currently.
I had anticipated, given that Estyn was cited very clearly in the conference title, that representatives of the organisation would have been present in the audience, if not on ‘stage’.
And it was on that basis that I accepted the invitation; there were, I felt, certain messages that needed to be aired, that were not necessarily being aired elsewhere.
As it transpired, I’m not sure there was anyone from Estyn actually present at the conference (I have no idea whether they were asked or not), so I thought it prudent to share – more succinctly – some of that thinking here.
First, I must confess to being fairly reassured by what I read and heard following the recent publication of Estyn’s annual report.
Reassured not because the garden in Welsh education is in any way completely and undeniably rosy, but because chief inspector Owen Evans highlighted – in such a high-profile document – many of the worries raised already in this blog, and by teachers and leaders up and down the country.
The chief inspector’s concerns about subject-specific qualifications hampering curriculum development; a lack of sharing between pioneer and non-pioneer schools; the potential pitfalls of cross-departmental working; and shortcomings in regional support for schools, were important – and very welcome – observations.
Shining a light on Covid recovery
In fact, for those immersed in Welsh education policy and reform, there were very few surprises – and Mr Evans merely underscored much of what has been said before.
Particularly important, I thought, was his unequivocal denunciation of Covid and its impact on education.
Mr Evans warned that “most pupils” had been “negatively affected” by the pandemic, and “the system would continue to feel the impact for years to come”.
It is I think imperative that we continue to shine a light on our Covid recovery – and retain pressure on government and other publicly-funded organisations, to do good on their promise to support those who missed out on what others before them had benefitted from.
We must, to coin a phrase, hold ministers’ feet to the fire – and to ignore the true effects of Covid on our education system, would be doing our children and young people a great disservice.
Equally important, however, was the chief inspector’s recognition of the ‘resilience and innovation displayed by educators across Wales’ during this period of unprecedented challenge.
History will, I think, look very favourably on what our teachers, leaders and support staff did from a distance what they couldn’t always do in person.
And so to the main focus of my blog, I’ve called: ‘Searching for similarity in a sea of difference’ – all will become clear soon, I hope!
*SPOILER: there is some covering of old blog ground here, but it’s important for context*
Changes to professional learning, educational leadership, qualifications and supporting learners with additional needs, form part of that landscape.
But it is change to Wales’ national curriculum that holds everything together.
Marking what Sinnema and colleagues (2020) call a ‘radical departure from the top-down, teacher proof policy of the previous National Curriculum’, Curriculum for Wales (CfW) requires our teachers to play a much more prominent role, in the shaping of what and how children learn.
The days of government diktat and centralised prescription are over, and we are moving into an era that recognises the professionalism and agency of those best-placed to make pedagogical decisions.
This notion of subsidiarity, upon which the entire curriculum is based, does however pose some challenging questions.
The most common relates to the tension between local and national; and how best to accommodate the nuance of school context, while at the same time guaranteeing a level of consistency from one setting to the next.
In education, perhaps more than in any other public service, equity of opportunity is written in tablets of stone.
But there are serious, and in my view legitimate concerns, that the shift from prescription to what sociologist Michael Young (2008) terms ‘genericism’, will result in an even bigger disparity in the knowledge and skills available in our schools.
There are, by my reckoning, two possible ways around this. The first, largely ignored by policymakers for fear of subverting teacher agency, is that we introduce some sort of ‘common core’, or list of non-negotiables that all schools, in all parts of Wales are required in law to teach.
A more descriptive statutory content, over and above that which exists already, would ensure at least some degree of uniformity across the piece; how detailed that compulsory list might be could, and probably should, have been subject to a ‘national conversation’ on learner diet.
There is, I think, still room for that conversation to be entertained.
The second and alternative route out of our curriculum malaise, is the provision of high-quality professional learning, that is readily available and accessible to all.
Playing all the right notes
Far from empowering teachers, it could be argued that CfW has actually de-skilled those in our system who were not already involved in curriculum co-construction, and have had no prior exposure to curriculum design.
All of a sudden, and through no fault of their own, teachers have gone from a position of strength – based on many years’ experience of teaching in a certain way, in line with a particular framework – to one of relative weakness.
This does not mean that good teachers become any less good as a consequence, more that they need additional support – and new skills – in order to respond most appropriately to what is being asked of them.
I like to think of this as a form of musical composition – if we take away teachers’ score, they’ll need absolute confidence that they can play all the right notes together, in the best possible order.
The problem, as it stands, is that professional learning is of variable quality and, rather like curriculum documentation, light on detail; which leads to mixed messaging, misinterpretation and the potential adoption of approaches that do not align with CfW principles.
To his credit, Education Minister Jeremy Miles has recognised, beyond all doubt, that a national professional learning offer ‘must be consistent and of the highest quality’.
And to do this, a new validation process ‘to ensure all national professional learning is quality assured and recognised’ is being introduced.
An important and long overdue step in the right direction – our failure to authenticate and legitimise professional learning resources has long been a cause for concern.
What I don’t yet understand is how the validation process will work in practice – in other words, how and by whom will quality professional learning be kitemarked?
‘Accredited’, we are told, means that the professional learning leads to a national or internationally recognised qualification. That’s fair enough.
‘Endorsed’ denotes that a third party has undertaken quality assurance of the professional learning, as is the case with professional learning for leaders endorsed by the National Academy for Educational Leadership. That too I can understand.
What bothers me is how professional learning will be classified as ‘recognised’.
Heightened pressure on those inspecting schools
According to the entitlement, ‘recognised’ means that the professional learning ‘will be recognised within the education profession across Wales’.
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what that actually means.
Are we really suggesting that all with a stake in education will be empowered to determine what gets ‘recognised’ and what does not?
As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure – and this is a minefield sure to claim many victims.
So why then is all this relevant to a conversation on the inspectorate’s role in driving standards?
Well the answer is simple.
Without a consistent professional learning offer, and in the absence of a ‘common core’ to level the playing field in Wales, there is heightened pressure on those inspecting schools to monitor and assess quality effectively.
In other words, pupils, parents and politicians need confidence that what the CfW promises, is being delivered.
Those tablets of stone I referred to earlier, must be upheld – and it falls on the inspectorate, as one of the few remaining purveyors of standards across our system, to ensure that equality of opportunity is maintained.
But there are potential issues here, also.
In his independent review of Estyn, published in 2018, three years after his seminal review of Wales’ curriculum and assessment arrangements, Graham Donaldson put forward 34 recommendations ‘intended to ensure that inspection continues to provide assurance about the performance of the system’ while also contributing to the ambition ‘to have schools at the heart of reform and improvement’.
A new commitment to self-evaluation, with schools actively identifying the factors that affect the quality of their children’s learning, does indeed contribute to the positioning of schools at the heart of reform.
This particular intervention, in keeping with Wales’ newfound respect for teacher professionalism, shifts responsibility for monitoring and assessing progress, back to schools.
There appears a working assumption here that those working in a school day in, day out, have a much fuller, more complete view of that school’s strengths and areas for development.
Put plainly, how else will the Welsh Government ‘ensure that inspection continues to provide assurance about the performance of the system’ more generally?
The transition to more qualitative inspection reports, with descriptive evaluations replacing summative grades, is another important development that reduces the potential for ‘naming and shaming’, and provides a richer, more lucid account of a school’s relative strengths and weaknesses.
In essence, we are trying to move away from barriers to collaboration – and reduce the gulf between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ (typically manifested in the media celebrating excellence and criticising inadequacy, to use known Estyn terminology).
Donaldson’s articulation of the negative unintended consequences arising from high-stakes accountability systems, that employ one-off grades as a key indicator of performance, is well worthy of consideration.
‘In addition to the stress that these systems inevitably place on schools and their pupils, such cultures can divert attention from meeting the needs of young people as individuals, as schools seek to disguise weaknesses and present themselves in as good a light as possible.
‘Undue attention may be given to those pupils whose marginal improvement will affect performance figures, or attempts may be made to select the school population at the expense of young people with the greatest needs. At its worst it can inculcate a culture of fear, inhibiting creativity and genuine professional analysis and discussion. Pupils can come to serve the reputation of a school rather than the school serving the needs of the pupil.’
Donaldson’s description of high-stakes accountability, and its unintended consequences, is sobering and a reminder of why the inspectorate, like so many other facets of Wales’ education system, is having to adapt to its own new ways of working.
But what Donaldson’s vision for inspection in Wales assumes, perhaps naïvely, is that every teacher, in every school, will be treated and looked upon in thesame way; that all schools will be subject to the same level of scrutiny, and be measured against the same quality threshold.
‘8 contributory factors’
With a stronger focus on self-evaluation, and a reliance on validation from various middle-tier partners, Estyn’s work in ‘providing assurance about the performance of the system’ is made all the more complicated.
The difficulty is compounded by a lack of summative judgements, and agreed criteria on which to gauge relative performance between schools.
Estyn’s plan to inspect schools more frequently within a six-year inspection cycle from 2024, matters little if there is no consistent and credible way of benchmarking school standards over time.
The Welsh Government’s school improvement guidance, together with the inspectorate’s strong interest in curriculum implementation, offers a clear demonstration of this issue in practice.
The guidance sets out what it calls ‘8 contributory factors’, that describe the key attributes that schools successfully realising the curriculum will possess.
They are as they appear below:
Welsh Government (2022)
Enabling all learners to progress, ensuring the school environment supports learner wellbeing, investing in ambitious professional learning, being at the heart of their communities – so many of these ‘contributory factors’ are open to interpretation, and nigh on impossible to assess objectively without clear guidelines.
The guidance makes clear that Estyn’s new approach to inspection ‘reflects these contributory factors throughout’, albeit they are not designed to be an ‘exhaustive checklist for schools’.
Nevertheless, in order to demonstrate their successful realisation of the curriculum, one suspects that schools will be using these factors to frame their self-evaluation, and given they form such a strong basis for Estyn inspection, there is little doubt that they will be lent upon as important milestones in a school’s development.
But we return again to the same problem – that a lack of detail, and a reluctance to map out much more clearly what it is inspectors are looking for, will likely lead to many different variations on a theme.
The core challenge, then, is how to inspect consistently an education system that promotes variation?
Greater surety of judgement
Now granted, I fully recognise that the new curriculum, and Wales’ vision for education, is designed to celebrate difference, acknowledging that no school, teacher or learner is the same.
But in order to ‘provide assurance about the performance of the system’, and deliver what the Welsh Government describes as ‘regular, consistent, comprehensive and accurate inspections of schools’, there needsto be a level of commonality over and above eight indeterminate contributory factors.
As with so many things CfW, there is to my mind a missing layer here – a missing layer that would give schools confidence they are progressing in line with expectation, and inspectors greater surety of judgement.
It was interesting to note during the preparing of this blog, that within Estyn’s three main objectives is the building of capacity in the improvement and delivery of education in Wales through inspection evidence…. By promoting the spread of best practice through case studies; information sharing; and celebrating excellent practice.
But how can this celebration of excellent practice happen, if there are no summative judgements on which to base those decisions?
Or to put it another way, how can we promote the spread of best practice, if there is no hard and fast way of knowing what best practice looks like?
The new approach to inspection is further complicated by the Welsh Government’s very noble commitment to learner progression, which enables individual children to make progress at an appropriate pace, and with an appropriate level of support and challenge.
But progression is not a simple, linear process – and a learner’s journey through education is typically complex; there are different start points and learners progress in different ways and at different speeds.
What is more, there is strong research evidence to suggest that regular and ongoing dialogue between learners and their teacher, is key to affective assessment for learning.
One wonders what capacity Estyn has to monitor such interactions, as well as monitor and adjudicate on the appropriateness of individual learning journeys.
Contrasting interpretations of the same thing
I’ve written previously and at length about the professional learning journeys teachers themselves are having to make as they transition from a curriculum that was nationally-imposed and fixed, to one that is flexible and constructed locally.
A curriculum that was prescribed within a culture of performativity, to a curriculum offering autonomy and a renewed sense of professionalism.
From passive, to proactive; from de-skilled, to highly-skilled – our teaching workforce is having to evolve and adapt, so as to remain relevant in an ever-changing educational landscape.
In my experience, those who are best managing that transition, tend to be those closest to the curriculum design process; teachers and leaders who’ve ‘pioneered’ and benefitted most from their school’s first-hand involvement in early conceptualisation.
But for some, the safety of prescription and ‘what we have always done’ is too big a draw, not least because of the long shadow of a data-driven performativity culture and, let’s face it, mistrust in a more punitive school accountability system.
And therein lies the conundrum: of conditioning oneself for the new world, whilst at the same time erasing from memory what has happened for much of the last 30 years.
The same conundrum is almost certainly applicable to school inspectors, particularly those not involved in co-construction or with only surface-level understanding of the intricacies of curriculum change.
So whilst we cannot realistically expect teachers at all stages of their professional careers to jump seamlessly from one way of working to the next, unaided, neither can we assume that those whose job it is to monitor school standards can do so, either.
If there is any sign of disconnect between what the inspect-or and the inspect-ed has or is being told, then we have a fairly serious problem.
A problem that stems from having two contrasting interpretations of the same thing.
Building confidence in the system
The question that follows then, is what is being done to iron out these creases and ensure that all in Estyn are singing from the same hymn sheet?
I don’t, as it happens, have a definitive answer to that question – and neither, I would assume, do you. We simply don’t have enough information, or insight, into the professional learning being made available to school inspectors.
With that in mind, and as an important first step, I would strongly suggest that Estyn makes much more visible its own preparation for the new curriculum, so as to build confidence in the system that everyone with a stake in school standards is going through the same journey of transformation.
The potential for misinterpretation, contradiction and inaccuracy is the same for inspectors as it is teachers, and it is important that steps are taken to avoid all in education from slipping back into old habits.
There is a tendency within the education fraternity to think of Estyn as being one, single entity – an organisation that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
When a school is inspected, it is inspected by Estyn – not an individual – and it is Estyn that passes judgement.
We think of it as speaking in concert, a ruling body operating from on high, with a collective voice and bird’s eye view of the entire school stock.
But of course, that is not an entirely accurate portrayal – schools are inspected by inspectors, under the banner of the inspectorate – which is an important distinction to make.
For each inspector has their own background, lived experience and personal interest that all contribute to their forming of a particular judgement.
Inspectors, like near enough every profession, are a product of their own environments – and see the world through a particular lens.
A value-laden exercise
In his paper on the future of inspection in England post-Covid, Colin Richards (2020) likens the role of the inspector to that of the theatre critic:
‘Theatre critics appraise a performance or run of performances, as school inspectors appraise schools, based on a series of observations. Critics judge the quality of the acting; likewise, inspectors judge the quality of teaching. Critics judge how far the performance reflects the content and intentions of the play text; similarly, under the current Ofsted framework, inspectors comment on the rationale and implementation of the ‘text’ of the curriculum.’
And I suppose this comes to the nub of the issue – the so called ‘text’ of the curriculum in Wales is, by definition, much more open to interpretation under the new CfW.
Like theatre criticism, inspection is a value-laden exercise that involves observation and discussion at a particular moment in time.
Inspectors cannot, as Richards writes, comment with any plausibility on what has happened in the past or predict what will happen in the future.
Many of these realities are well understood, but the difficulty for Wales, and what makes this more of a problem now, is that a rowing back from raw attainment data as a benchmark of performance is putting more pressure on Estyn to get its judgements right.
In other words, Welsh ministers are putting many more of their eggs in the Estyn basket – and the inspectorate’s voice will carry much more weight moving forward.
So what then does all of this mean?
Well, if we accept that Estyn’s role in raising and maintaining school standards is absolutely pivotal, then it is imperative that inspectors – like those they are inspecting – are given the most appropriate tools to do the job.
That is not to suggest that school inspectors, as they currently sit, are in any way incapable of fulfilling their duties – more that they need support, and their own bespoke professional learning pathway, so as to respond effectively to the needs of the system changing around them.
This is about making inspectors’ lives easier – and giving them, as well as teachers, confidence that what and how they assess is fair and in line with shifting expectation.
Richards, C. 2020. Viewpoint: Thoughts on whole school inspection post-Covid. London Review of Education, 18(3), 511-18.
Sinnema, C., Nieveen, N. & Priestley, M. 2020. Successful futures, successful curriculum: What can Wales learn from international curriculum reforms? The Curriculum Journal,31(2), 181-201.
A phase that should, in all honesty, have started many moons ago.
But we’ll come to that later and it was with great relief that I read late last week that the entitlement had, at long last, made its way into print.
Regardless of construct, that an entitlement exists at all should be cause for some celebration – calls for a more concerted and coherent professional learning offer have, until now, fallen on deaf ears.
The National Approach to Professional Learning, the Professional Learning Journey and no end of flashy bordering on frivolous support packages have so far failed in their attempts to prepare the Welsh workforce for the unquestionable challenge of curriculum change.
Don’t believe me?
I refer you back to previous contributions to this blog – Estyn’s report on regional working, Wales’ independent review of educational leadership and the Welsh Government’s own quietly-shelved practitioner survey.
All three suggested major shortcomings in the availability, consistency and quality of professional support for teachers.
To help address these deficiencies, the minister committed to giving teachers ‘the right tools to do the job’, involving ‘a single set of common priorities across the system’.
‘Our national offer must be consistent and of the highest quality. I can therefore announce we will introduce a new validation process to ensure all national professional learning is quality assured and recognised. I am also pleased to inform you that a new cross-regional website has gone live today. The website will provide equitable access to information regarding professional learning provision for practitioners across Wales, together with open access to the Curriculum for Wales professional learning offer across all regions. The site will continue to develop so that it provides universal access to further professional learning opportunities and resources. The new validation process and the new cross-regional website are important steps towards ensuring that we have a consistent, validated, reputable offer that is available to all.’
There is much to like here.
Firstly, the minister recognises, beyond all doubt, that a national professional learning offer ‘must be consistent and of the highest quality’.
To do this, a new validation process ‘to ensure all national professional learning is quality assured and recognised’ will be introduced.
And not before time – our failure to authenticate and legitimise professional learning resources has long been a cause for concern.
Scattergun approach
From what I can see, professional learning in Wales is the responsibility of everyone and no-one – there is so much of it, and so many different providers, that holding someone or something accountable for the quality and effectiveness of their service is nigh on impossible.
This gives said providers wriggle room, and a licence to continue touting their wares unabated.
That said, the buck always stops with government – and the scattergun approach to publicly-funded professional learning, with so many shooting off in separate directions, should never have been allowed to happen.
A knocking together of heads and a more considered and strategic overview of the entire professional learning piece (involving the full range of partners) would have, I think, paid dividends. But we are where we are.
What I don’t yet understand is how the validation process will work in practice – in other words, how and by whom will quality professional learning be kitemarked?
‘Accredited’, we are told, means that the professional learning leads to a national or internationally recognised qualification. That’s fair enough.
‘Endorsed’ denotes that a third party has undertaken quality assurance of the professional learning, as is the case with professional learning for leaders endorsed by the National Academy for Educational Leadership (NAEL). That too I can understand.
What bothers me is how professional learning will be classified as ‘recognised’.
According to the entitlement, ‘recognised’ means that the professional learning ‘will be recognised within the education profession across Wales’.
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what that actually means.
Are we really suggesting that all with a stake in education will be empowered to determine what gets ‘recognised’ and what does not?
As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure – and this is a minefield sure to claim many victims.
Pinning down the roof
The minister’s unveiling of a new ‘cross-regional website’ is another important development, in that it brings together the best of all regional offers into one central repository.
A new national professional learning programme, developed collaboratively by all regional representatives, is another welcome step forward and while its content can be debated, it acts as a useful and much-needed vehicle for the sharing of key messages.
Regular readers may recall my analogy of the curriculum house, built on the foundations of the Four Purposes and structured using guidance designed to support teachers in the process of curriculum construction.
‘For me, what’s missing is the roof and the overarching key principles that steer everything that happens beneath. Failure to pin down the roof leaves the creative space for teaching and learning exposed to inclement and changeable weather – or in this case, shifting or outright bad advice. It gives rise to unintended consequences and a deep-rooted feeling of insecurity that someone, somewhere won’t approve of what you’re doing. In short, the metaphorical house is incomplete without its cover and the guiding messages that shape the profession’s interaction with CfW more generally.’
One hopes that the new national programme, and its parent website, will make things far more watertight.
The bringing together of the consortia in this way is, let’s face it, long overdue and a symbol of the minister’s want to unify what has become a rather disparate and at times dysfunctional operation.
Indeed, such is the contempt in which Neath Port Talbot is now held, they are not even considered worthy of reference (note the gaping hole in the diagram below!).
(‘Welsh Education Consortia’ website)
That schools and their staff are being cut so obviously from this particular collaboration, through no fault of their own, is nothing short of farcical; those employed by the local authority to support schools deserve better than to be frozen out from national discussion.
I haven’t read through the documentation in any great detail, but there a few things that leap out at first glance:
Number one, I am still not completely clear on what the entitlement actually is.
Returning to the minister’s conceptualising of giving teachers tools to do the job – I am not yet convinced that we are being clear enough as to what it is we actually want teachers to do.
At the moment, and as far I can see it, we are not so much giving teachers the tools as directing them to B&Q and letting them pick their own.
We could, I think, be more specific about the fundamentals required by teachers to engage meaningfully with curriculum documentation in all its forms.
I have spoken before about the need to differentiate professional support depending on experience, as Wales seeks to transition from the old curriculum to the new.
Interestingly, in its impact statement supporting launch of the entitlement, the Welsh Government notes it is ‘working with education consortia to ascertain how the regional professional learning offer aligns with the National Professional Learning Entitlement and how this will be articulated’.
It adds that ‘discussions on how we ensure all professional learning is of high quality are ongoing’.
One gets the sense that professional learning, and with it the new national entitlement, is still very much a work in progress.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing – professional learning is, by definition, an iterative process that takes as a founding principle the idea that development is infinite and everlasting.
More questionable is the perception of high quality professional learning as some sort of Elysian vision to which we can only aspire.
Surely ‘high quality’ is a pre-requisite for such activity?
The entitlement is divided into three sub-sections for teachers and teaching assistants, for leaders, and for system leaders or advisors working in the middle-tier.
Slightly troubling in this context is the notion of ‘effective practice’, designed ‘to ensure the developmental needs of individuals in their current roles are being met’.
This is where the document falls down somewhat, given that ‘effective practice’ for a teacher or teaching assistant ‘entitled to well-designed professional learning’ is considered ‘accessing a planned professional learning programme and stimulating resources’.
This is not so much an entitlement as a given, and something that the framework alone has no grounds to guarantee.
Besides, measuring effectiveness is notoriously difficult, particularly when descriptors are so vague, and it is not at all clear how these notional targets have been set.
As with so much else in Welsh education at the moment, there is a distinct lack of detail here that limits what the document can actually, materially do.
I do however see potential in the associated ‘Supporting materials for curriculum, assessment, and evaluating learner progress’ which, while slightly protracted in places, appear to be written much more obviously with the busy teacher in mind.
I suspect the parachuting in of a new set of practitioner secondees has had a positive effect in that regard.
Statement of intent
And so to conclude, the entitlement serves as an important statement of intent and, whilst light on specifics, does at least reflect the minister’s ongoing commitment to supporting the education workforce through this unprecedented period of transformation.
In the exercise of these discussions, I would politely advise that the Welsh Government considers the following:
How professional learning can be rigorously and reliably ‘recognised’ – this badge must carry weight to hold water;
An audit of all existing professional learning resources – find out what’s still relevant, what’s served its purpose (and can go) and what is missing;
Taking a firmer lead on what to promote, and what to steer clear from – if the new cross-regional website is the one-stop-PL-shop, then make sure teachers know about it;
Knowing when to stop – one of my principle concerns at the moment is the sheer volume of professional learning available and, with it, the very many invitations to co-construct and participate in stakeholder advisory groups. If we’re not careful, ‘reform fatigue’ may soon extend to more acute ‘PL fatigue’;
A comprehensive review of professional learning to support curriculum design and implementation – it is important that we learn the lessons of our experience to date.
One thing that I find particularly difficult to comprehend, even after all these blogs and all this time reflecting on our curriculum reform journey, is that only now have we resolved to promulgate a truly national professional learning offer, built around a genuinely national professional learning website.
The warnings were many and often; the concerned voice of so many in our system overlooked, dismissed and, in some cases, belittled.
The question nobody yet knows the answer to, is has this noticeably different – and more collegiate – approach come too late in the day?
With that in mind, it feels appropriate to end this blog as I began…
Seven years after the publication of Graham Donaldson’s seminal curriculum blueprint, Wales has a ‘National Professional Learning Entitlement’.
In the first half of this two-part blog, I presented a series of what I consider to be some of our most pressing curriculum challenges.
The vast majority in my view stem from the inadequate professional support we have given our teachers – those whose job it is to turn curriculum vision into reality – and the tiresome chutzpah that all is hunky-dory.
Normally in these situations, one’s inclination would be to bemoan a lack of activity within the corridors of power; ministers and their officials having failed to take the necessary action to put right what had been going wrong.
But the same does not appear true in this case, and it could in fact be argued that policymakers have allowed the opposite to happen.
Throw in a horde of other middle-tier and private sector companies, who in many cases consider themselves better-placed to provide those solutions (some with good grounds for doing so, I might add), and the market is quickly saturated.
Our problem is not so much inactivity, as overcrowding – a frenzy of new resources, workshops, webinars and, whisper it quietly, tracking tools designed and delivered with the specific intention of plugging gaps left by porous curriculum documentation.
The net result is the ‘fearsome hydra’ our pioneering friends in Scotland warned of several moons ago.
Lifting the curtain
Of course, there is no doubting that Curriculum for Wales (CfW) has fallen victim to COVID-19, like just about everything else in education, but it would be disingenuous to suggest that the pandemic alone has got us into this mess.
The virus has been and remains a monumental distraction from the preparatory time earmarked for curriculum design and development.
It is not, though, the reason so many in our industrious profession feel understandably daunted by what lies ahead.
We have, as I have argued many times before, let too many teachers ‘go it alone’ on curriculum reform, and outside of the ‘pioneer’ model, left the profession to sink or swim on the basis of what they’ve heard on the grapevine or been able to pick up in the margins.
COVID-19 has simply served to exacerbate an already festering wound – and we really should have seen it coming.
We have, I think, two clear options: one, we play down our shortcomings, continue merrily along and wait for what I fear will be the inevitable curriculum crash; or, alternatively, we lift the curtain, rise above self-interest and get heads together for the benefit of the common good.
This not the time for egotism, party politics or papering over cracks; it is the time for honesty, reflection and respect for all those willing to make a positive and lasting difference.
A way forward
In the spirit of constructive challenge, I hereby offer my own10 steps to a more successful future – a compilation of thoughts and ideas that policymakers may wish to consider as we enter the next and likely pivotal phase of curriculum realisation.
Let’s begin by conceptualising what the National Entitlement is designed to do – for me, it’s all about ensuring teachers and leaders have the tools needed to do the job (something the minister himself has spoken about). A job that is changing, and requires new skills of curriculum design and understanding of learner progression. There must be equity of access, resources that are reputable and of demonstrably high quality, and a baked-in commitment to providing ongoing professional support for practitioners (regardless of seniority) at all stages of their careers.
When constructing the National Entitlement, policymakers need to consider the professional learning journey, in its most literal sense; they must recognise where teachers are, and where they need to go. I’ve spoken before about bridging the old world with the new (see below), and there can be no cliff edge or drop into the abyss. It is incumbent upon the Welsh Government and those offering support from the middle-tier to guide teachers and leaders across the metaphorical divide that exists between curricula past and present.
For the vast majority, particularly those most removed from the early curriculum design process, passage across the bridge must be gradual and taken in stages. Policymakers must decide what level of support is needed now, as a kind of ’baseline’ professional learning, and map out a plan for roll-out that anticipates what is likely to be needed in six months, and a year’s time. In other words, the professional learning available to teachers should be broken down into the short (competent?), medium (proficient?) and longer-term (expert?) – taking into account how support might be tapered down as practitioner confidence in the new curriculum grows.
For all of this to work effectively, it is important that policymakers get a clear and unvarnished view of where the profession actually is in its journey of professional transformation – and what is needed to develop capacity further. Returning to the bridge analogy, it is vital that the path across is shallow, and not too steep – particularly at the beginning. Hurrying teachers through their process of self-reflection and self-challenge will result only in surface-level understanding of new pedagogy and practice. It’s time for officials to get back into the classroom and see for themselves where professional support should be pitched.
The Welsh Government might consider in its National Entitlement a genuinely national programme of professional learning, however big or small, incorporating what are considered the key essentials that go hand in hand with CfW (curriculum design, understanding progression, assessment arrangements etc). The closest thing we have to a national programme, designed and developed in haste by the regional consortia (or individual regional representatives, to be precise), does not in my view fulfil its intended purpose. The ‘National Programme’ would provide the cornerstone to the National Entitlement, and be shaped by all key partners.
In a similar vein, I see the National Entitlement as having the potential to fulfil another of my earlier concerns, relating to what it is we want all teachers to know and do the same – and conversely, what exactly they are permitted to do differently in their own context. It is the same tension that exists with the make-up of the curriculum itself, that is how to ensure a level of consistency across the piece, whilst respecting the notion of subsidiarity on which CfW is based. Fixed and flexible, tight and loose – frame it how you like, we need to accept that for our curriculum to be representative of the population it serves, there has to be some level of agreement on what we all do in lockstep.
One possible way out of the malaise, as explored below, is to ensure a shared understanding of the key overarching principles that hang over and guide everything that happens within the more dynamic and bespoke space beneath. At the moment, a leaking and in some cases open roof is stymieing the creative thinking of teachers and leaders overwhelmed by fear that they may be tackling curriculum reform wrong. Our failure to set the parameters for innovation has inhibited the very practices we are seeking to propagate. We need to build confidence in the profession and its capacity to transform itself; to do so requires clarity, coherence and trust. Mixed messaging breeds uncertainty, but is very easily put right with clear direction and all-party buy-in.
On a related note, another of my old bugbears that wouldn’t hurt to have another airing is… knowing your audience! Curriculum documentation and guidance must be easy to digest and more accessible to the people it is designed to support. Too much of what I, and doubtless many others, have read in relation to CfW has been confusing, convoluted and at times contradictory. We should be doing all we can to untangle the knottier elements of our new curriculum, and consider how best to streamline what in its entirety can be an overwhelming and cumbersome read.
The trade-off between time and space for professional learning, and the level of detail and prescription in professional learning resources is, for me, absolutely crucial. In an ideal world, every teacher and leader in Wales would be afforded weeks of non-contact time to reflect, remodel and remake what they do in the classroom. But one has to be pragmatic – if the money to buy teachers and leaders time does not exist (COVID-19 has almost certainly put paid to that), then perhaps we need to make life slightly easier for them by better signposting what it is they need to be doing. It’s time or detail – you can’t do neither.
It has been argued, by me and others, that cluster-level collaboration and school-to-school working will be vital in building a shared and coherent understanding of more localised curriculum reform, under the banner of a national approach. This is where the regional consortia, as the ideally-placed brokers of those relationships, should come into their own. In my experience, those that know their schools well are already doing this very successfully; those that don’t are letting the curriculum run away from them.
A blank canvas
I’ll end with one final thought relating to that most fashionable of Welsh education terms… co-construction.
A word of warning, however – if the voices of teachers and leaders are to be genuinely heard, then such conversations must be properly structured and truthfully acted upon.
The profession is deserving of much more than ‘high-level statements’ on their entitlement to tailored support and use of professional standards to improve practice. Empty words and rhetoric help no-one.
There needs to be a neutrality to the orchestrating of co-construction, and facilitators empowered to open up – and not shut down – discussion, particularly when venturing into uncomfortable territory.
Policymakers should arrive with a blank canvas and be prepared to ask teachers, as a bare minimum, what they want, what they need and what state-funded providers might be able to give them.
Co-construction is built on respect for one another’s views, even if its participants vehemently disagree.
Faux-construction, whatever the motivation, is the antithesis of this approach and should be avoided at all costs.
We’re almost certain to pay a very heavy price if we do not…
It’s been seven years in the making (longer, if you factor in the evidence-gathering for Graham Donaldson’s seminal Successful Futures report), but the new Curriculum for Wales (CfW) is now very nearly upon us.
Of course, in many cases, the September launch for all primaries and some secondaries is something of a misnomer – with many schools across the country having piloted and been transitioning to new working arrangements for some time.
Nevertheless, the end of the summer term and following school holiday marks the last real opportunity for teachers and leaders to map out and piece together their learning offer before the biggest educational switch in a generation.
But for those of a slightly nervous disposition, do not be alarmed – September is neither the beginning nor the end of Wales’ journey of transformation.
A great deal of foundational work has been laid in schools in readiness for curriculum launch, and by its very nature, CfW is never fully complete; it is always evolving, and always shifting to best respond to the specific needs of the learners it serves.
Another cause for reassurance is that there is no need for babies and bathwater – much of the good and effective practice that exists today under the existing curriculum will be retained, and there is absolutely no sense in throwing out what works.
That does not mean, however, that transition will be seamless and without incident. We are all feeling our way through this immense period of change and there are sure to be many more bumps in the road.
Some have been moved aside for tackling another day, others shifted altogether – but there are a couple of bigger boulders that remain very much in situ and proving much harder to crack.
In this first instalment of a two-part blog, I’ll present what I consider to be our most pressing of curriculum challenges, after which I’ll offer a series of actions that might be taken – if there’s anyone willing to listen – to effect change.
Let’s begin, as an old Liverpool manager once said, by looking at the facts…
A survey commissioned by the Welsh Government and published in January found that of 567 teachers and leaders who responded, more than two-thirds believed that their school was in need of additional support to be ready for curriculum launch in September 2022.
Most respondents reported that insufficient time had been made available to prepare for roll-out, and ‘concerns were raised that practitioners lack the expertise to be able to design their own curriculum’.
Meanwhile, in a report on its engagement with schools during the autumn term, education watchdog Estyn said there was ‘considerable variation’ in how prepared schools were for implementation, and ‘in general, many schools would like more professional learning’.
Far from empowering teachers, it could be argued that CfW has actually de-skilled those in our system who were not involved in curriculum co-construction, and have had no prior exposure to curriculum design (which is not, I hasten to add, a prominent feature of teacher education in Wales).
All of a sudden, and through no fault of their own, teachers have gone from a position of strength – based on many years’ experience of teaching in a certain way, in line with a particular framework – to one of relative weakness.
This does not mean that good teachers become any less good as a consequence, more that they need additional support – and new skills – in order to respond most appropriately to what is being asked of them.
Think about it in terms of musical composition – if we take away teachers’ score, they’ll need absolute confidence that they can play all the right notes together in the best possible order.
The problem, as it stands, is that professional learning is of variable quality and, rather like curriculum documentation, light on detail, which leads to mixed messaging, misinterpretation and the potential adoption of approaches that do not align with CfW principles.
There is no mandatory professional learning offer and no coherent suite or package of resources for teachers to draw on when they come unstuck.
‘Current levels of support for leaders around curriculum preparation, implementation and realisation is an issue’, the report warned, adding that ‘the quality of delivery and support is variable at a regional and local level’.
There are, returning to the musical analogy, too many bum notes.
Responding to the leadership review, Education Minister Jeremy Miles cited the OECD’s description of Wales’ commitment and focus on professional learning as ‘exceptional in comparison to many other OECD jurisdictions’.
Professional learning that, in the eyes of some, is the envy of the world – yet teachers, leaders and, it appears, the minister himself considers to be seriously flawed.
Perception vs reality
There is, I think, a fairly stark contrast developing here: a contrast between what is signed off in Cathays Park and what is happening on the ground; between input and output; between perception and reality.
All of this begs a fairly obvious question: with so much political and taxpayer investment in professional support for teachers, how is that so many in our system continue to struggle with the demands of curriculum reform?
With just a half-term left before the curriculum officially lands, why do we find ourselves in such an undesirable – and totally avoidable – race against time?
A vociferous statement released last week by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) Cymru, which warned that ‘schools are being left to do this (curriculum reform) alone’, is symptomatic of the anger that exists within the system after many months, if not years of frenzied activity resulting in very little tangible good for our industrious workforce.
Such is the apparent haste with which ducks are now being aligned, one would be forgiven for thinking that the curriculum had caught us by surprise; it’s almost as if launch date has crept up and tapped us on the shoulder.
The reality, of course, is that we knew full well what was coming – and did nothing (or at least not the right things, and the things the profession so desperately wanted) to prepare for it.
We should, I suppose, be grateful that Mr Miles has at least acknowledged the precariousness of our current position, and his commitment to, in effect, sort out professional learning is very much welcome.
‘Too much variation and too many gaps’
At his headline speech to headteachers in February, Mr Miles said there was ‘too much variation and too many gaps’ in the existing offer and promised the development of a new ‘National Entitlement’ that every teacher would be entitled to and benefit from.
That the minister called out so publicly deficiencies in Wales’ approach to professional learning was a brave move, given so many before him had brazenly dismissed out of hand any constructive criticism or challenge of what it was we were giving our profession.
There has long been a blunt denial, bordering on contempt, within certain arms of our system in relation to professional support for teachers – it has been, to my mind, one of CfW’s major blind spots, along with, most notably, ongoing and legitimate concerns about equity and the potential for growth in the attainment gap.
In hindsight, the National Entitlement, much like its ill-fated predecessor the ‘New Deal’, should have been designed, developed and firmly embedded before we embarked on curriculum reform, so as to give our profession the best possible means through which its ambitious demands could be achieved.
Be in no doubt, pandemic or no pandemic, all of this could have been ironed out much, much sooner. Our beleaguered profession, pulled from pillar to post during the most tumultuous two years imaginable, should have been much better prepared.
That so many teachers are not, is not their fault, but the fault of the professional support networks around them.
But we are where we are and ministerial intervention at the eleventh hour, is better than no ministerial intervention at all; and the wheels are beginning to turn.
Regional resources, for so long hidden behind encryption (and from public view), have been made available for a much wider audience.
Professional learning websites are becoming more accessible, easier to navigate and I strongly suspect a new joint consortia Twitter feed (a relatively minor, yet symbolic development) has not happened by chance.
Of course, Wales will need more than cleaner lines of communication and snazzy web pages. But there appears, at long last, to be a more unified approach to professional learning emerging.
He reiterated, in reference to his keynote February speech, that he was ‘not yet convinced our professional learning offer is as accessible, coherent and consistent as it could be’.
So why, you might ask, am I digging this all back up again now, especially given the new spotlight on professional learning and apparent recognition that a more consolidated offer is needed?
The answer is simple: there must be accountability, particularly in public office, for the decisions we take – or don’t, as the case may be.
We must review the major events and policy pronouncements leading up to September 2022, and consider what difference they made – positive or negative.
We must hold a mirror to the judgements taken, and seek to learn from what we did and didn’t do so as to better inform the important choices coming further down the line.
Wales’ new education system is built on self-evaluation, on self-reflection, and looking critically at one’s own practice in order to drive improvement from the inside-out.
I can’t help but think that there are some in the Welsh Government and our over-crowded middle-tier that might benefit from doing the same.
This is the first of a two-part blog. The second part, 10 steps to a more successful future, will be posted after half-term.
‘I am not yet convinced our professional learning offer is as accessible and useful as it could be… I think the truth is that there is too much variation and too many gaps. So we will change that.’
It has been patently clear to me, and many others who inform what I write, that teacher development has fallen short of what is required to make CfW work – and work for everyone.
In short, teachers and leaders haven’t been given the tools they need for the job they’ve been asked to do.
Curriculum design, as we have discussed so often before, is a fine art and no easy undertaking. To do it blind with no prior experience, discernible outline or map is nigh on impossible.
A key part of the curriculum jigsaw is missing, and school staff must be assisted in transitioning from the old world to the new with appropriate training and resources that are accessible to all in Wales, wherever they teach.
Only there is a perception amongst some in our system that existing preparations – via Wales’ weird and wonderful assemblage of professional learning – are sufficient, and all is in hand.
Last night, the veil was lifted and reality came crashing down.
Mr Miles told school leaders:
‘The OECD have said that Wales’ commitment and focus on professional learning is, and I quote, “exceptional in comparison to many other OECD jurisdictions”. That is welcome. And we will absolutely continue to invest record levels of funding.
‘But since becoming the minister, I have been keen to speak to as many of you as possible to get a proper sense of what is actually happening on the ground. And I am not yet convinced our professional learning offer is as accessible and useful as it could be.
‘There is lots of it, but do you know what’s there, what you should be looking for, where to look, and is it is easy to find when you know where to look? I think the truth is that there is too much variation and too many gaps. So we will change that.
‘We are in the process of developing a ‘National Entitlement’ that brings together a package of professional learning support that everyone will be entitled to and benefit from. A truly national offer and one that will be easier to navigate.
‘And the word ‘entitlement’ is important – every single teaching professional will be entitled to high quality professional learning. This entitlement has to work for you – and to respond to your needs – so we’ll work with you to make sure that it does.
‘In practice this means you will have a core package of professional learning, together with a range of additional resources, all of which you can access via Hwb and the school improvement services. By the end of this term, we will have set out what this entitlement will look like and more detail on where to find things that matter and the entitlement itself will be available to you from September, at the latest.
‘Bringing all the resources and learning on professional learning which already exists, together with those that will be progressively commissioned in the months and years ahead, in one easy-to-find place.’
He didn’t have to say what he did; he could have feigned ignorance and painted the most delightful of professional learning pictures, like so many before him have done.
But he broke ranks – and the revelations kept on coming…
‘Curriculum resources are also important. We need bilingual, educational resources and materials that are consistent with the spirit and ethos of the new curriculum. We will be establishing a company in Wales specifically so that these can be developed – I will be saying more on this in the coming weeks.
‘We won’t wait for that company however, and will push ahead now with commissioning and developing materials and resources that will support you. I also want you to have the opportunity to access the best from across the country – this is the Curriculum for Wales, after all.
‘So I am committing that the materials developed in one school improvement service, are accessible to every school in Wales, whichever region or local authority you are in, via Hwb. That level of access will be available to you from September.’
Bespoke, bilingual, made-in-Wales curriculum resources that are nationally available and consistent with the spirit of CfW.
I can just imagine the collective sigh of relief in Welsh classrooms – at last, we are getting somewhere!
Interesting too was his apparent sideswipe at the regional consortia, who have in some cases and until fairly recently, been hiding away curriculum materials behind password-encrypted websites.
Nothing says ‘Together Stronger’ than stopping your neighbour’s teachers from accessing publicly-funded developmental resources.
For too long our professional support has been plagued by silos, self-interest and a bunker mentality that has too often got in the way of meaningful progress.
Mr Miles appears to have understood the need for a national package, and a suite of curriculum support that is well signposted and readily available to practitioners the length and breadth of the country.
As the minister rightly noted: “This is the Curriculum for Wales, after all.”
National Network
Other highlights from the minister’s speech included:
Recognition that the COVID situation remains challenging, and schools have had to navigate ‘a new range of competing demands’;
The planned introduction of ‘a single set of common priorities’ with clear expectations, as part of new school improvement guidance to be published in the summer term;
A commitment to ‘ensuring every school has ownership of their curriculum, within a national approach that secures consistency across the country’;
The need for schools to work together, and share what is working and what is not;
Announcement of a new long-term project designed to develop a shared understanding of learner progression;
The development of resources and practical case studies, designed in partnership with schools, to help ‘turn assessment guidance into reality’;
A renewed commitment to equity in education, ‘making it a clearer part of our National Mission’, and;
The importance of collaboration and ‘working together across different boundaries and between different organisations’.
My only slight concern relates to the minister’s positioning of the ‘National Network’ as being critical to the curriculum’s growth and development moving forward.
Having taken forever to get going, the network has made something of an inauspicious start since launching late last year – with talk of poor attendance, poor structure and no meaningful record of what is discussed.
Suffice to say the network hasn’t shown up all that favourably in my conversations with participants, and there is a suggestion that a good number of those involved didn’t really understand what it was they were there to do and why.
Mr Miles described the National Network as being ‘a permanent feature’, and a forum that would give the profession a voice in the shaping of government policy.
But a National Network without direction – and clear lines of accountability – is little more than a talking shop.
If the network is to play such a critical role in curriculum implementation, then it needs a much stronger framework around it, with explicit expectations and clearly defined aims and objectives that are properly communicated.
In short, the network must be purposeful and worthwhile, or teachers will soon smell a waste of valuable time.
Granted, it’s very early days, but yesterday’s speech gives me much more hope that a corner might be turned.
Mr Miles, in his acknowledging of professional learning gaps and inconsistencies, has doubtless listened to the very many in our system floundering amid a sea of confused guidance and communication.
And by promising new action, the minister has shown a desire within government to step forward into the breach and wrestle back control of a curriculum that was in real danger of fragmenting by region and local authority.
Now we all know that actions speak lounder than words, and turning vision into reality will be the real challenge moving forward.
But in order to put a problem right, one first has to admit that a problem exists at all. For too long in Wales, we’ve talked the talk without walking the walk; the system’s collective concerns have fallen on deaf ears.
At last there is hope, and I for one am far more optimistic about the future than I was a just few short days ago.
I’m under no illusion that this is simply the beginning of the next phase of our curriculum journey, and the proof of the pudding is very much in the eating.
Yesterday could be a turning point, or it might be a false dawn. Only time will tell, but I’m willing to give Mr Miles and his team every chance.
Happy New Year! I hope you all managed some sort of rest and recuperation over Christmas.
As attention turns to what looks set to be another rollercoaster term, teachers and leaders across the land are once again charged with supporting their pupils, parents and communities through extremely choppy waters.
Omicron has rocked the boat, but onwards we must sail.
And it is with that in mind that I write today, not about the pandemic, but about that other almighty boulder hurtling in our direction – the new Curriculum for Wales (CfW).
Promising a seismic shift in the way teaching and learning takes place in Wales, the curriculum is, as a former education minister once described, part of a package of reforms that is the biggest ‘anywhere in the UK for half a century’.
Reforms that are not to be taken lightly, therefore.
But as the clock ticks down to CfW’s first official launch in September – a mere two terms hence – we are not, by my reckoning, in a particularly strong place.
Putting the ongoing health crisis to one side for a moment, I genuinely believe that, to use Covid parlance, we are as a nation well behind the curriculum curve.
Let me indulge you for a moment with some sort of explanation…
Implementation plan
My first concern relates to our curriculum implementation plan – and the careful piecing together of a roadmap for curriculum roll-out.
Question is, if I were asked today what that plan actually looked like, and how successful we’d been in putting said plan into action, I’m not sure I’d have much of an idea how to respond.
Do we know, beyond all reasonable doubt, who was responsible for what and when?
Was it clear how the different ‘tiers’ of our education system would interact and support schools to turn vision into reality?
Fundamentally, was there a shared understanding of the curriculum’s aims and objectives – and were educators at all levels working towards the same goal?
The answer may lie in the Welsh Government’s all-singing and all-dancing ‘National Mission’.
The go-to education policy document for 2017-21, the National Mission ‘sets out how the school system in Wales… will move forward over the period up until 2021 to secure the effective implementation of a new curriculum’.
In it, policymakers offer a brief outline of activity to support curriculum roll-out (copied, with artistic licence, below):
(Welsh Government, 2017)
Now there are a few things here open to challenge, but what strikes me is not so much what is written, as what isn’t.
Anyone else spot the gap between ‘final curriculum’ by January 2020, and ‘all maintained settings and schools are using the new curriculum’ by September 2022?
That’s almost three calendar years of unscripted drift according to this particular outline – the curriculum framework lands and then, as if by magic, it’s found its way into classrooms up and down the country.
OK, so that’s not entirely accurate, and I accept that a great deal of work has been undertaken since CfW documents were released formally into the system.
But National Mission actions are noticeably high-level, and the document does not detail exactly how the profession will be supported to put the new curriculum into effect.
That the Welsh Government’s own flagship education strategy did not weave in far more plainly an ‘implementation phase’ – to bridge the gap between January 2020 and September 2022 – is to me a serious design flaw.
It does not mean, as I have suggested previously, that no planning for curriculum roll-out or readying of the education workforce has taken place in the intervening period (by government or otherwise) – I accept and fully appreciate that.
But the omission of a cast iron and clearly defined implementation phase – involving a very clear and strategic professional learning programme for teachers and leaders – has arguably resulted in the ‘pot luck’ position in which we find ourselves today.
Indeed, it could explain why so many in our profession feel unsupported and barely able to keep their heads above water (I entertain similar conversations with teachers on a near weekly basis).
It’s as if we published the ‘final curriculum’ (and its 251 pages of guidance) and then said to teachers: ‘Here’s everything you need, now start engaging with it…’
Only it wasn’t everything they needed and there were gaps – big gaps. It wouldn’t have taken too many Teams calls with teachers to draw that conclusion.
Tackling the CfW guidance cold is a bit like falling down a rabbit hole – unless you know what you’re looking for and where to find it, it’ll take you a while to burrow your way out again.
Ultimately, it all boils down to this – we could have the most exciting, inspiring and ‘transformational’ new curriculum framework in the world… but if the profession doesn’t know what to do with it, the whole thing is rendered totally and utterly meaningless.
It’s worth repeating at this point that the successful implementation of CfW is completely reliant on teachers and leaders. That’s it. It really is that simple.
So the question has to be asked – why have we been so willing to let our industrious education workforce, battered and bruised by the unprecedented events of the past two years, ‘get on with curriculum reform’ (another unfortunate phrase doing the rounds) by themselves?
Why have we let them flounder amid a sea of longwinded, inaccessible and, let’s face it, very often unhelpful curriculum guidance?
Why haven’t we built in strong enough support mechanisms to give those at whatever stage in their curriculum journey confidence that they are on the right path?
If teachers and leaders are our foot soldiers – the army upon which everything else depends – then why on earth haven’t we gone into battle with them?
In far too many cases, we’ve let schools take on the daunting challenge of curriculum change by themselves.
And what’s more, we haven’t equipped them nearly well enough to do the Donaldson masterplan justice.
I’m sorry, but if you’re going to thrust on our already tired and weary profession (hands up who remembers the ‘reform fatigue’ cited by the OECD in 2014?) the most radical set of reforms in a generation, then you’re absolutely going to make sure that they have the tools they need to deliver on them.
Or at least, that’s what should have happened.
Which brings me neatly onto my second, and enduring, concern – professional learning.
A foundational introduction to curriculum design, that can be as detailed or abstract as the profession wants, would go some way to levelling the playing field and give teachers wherever they are in Wales access to the same learning materials.
I conceptualised in an earlier blog where I believe many in our system to be currently sat – between two worlds, waiting for a way out.
But I repeat, we cannot expect teachers at any stage of their professional careers to jump seamlessly from a culture of regulation to one of autonomy, unaided.
They must be supported in making that passage through, which requires careful transition from old to new.
Failure to do so risks leaving hundreds, if not thousands of school staff (and, by default, their pupils) languishing in the void.
The government’s reluctance to step in appears to stem from a nervousness around prescription, and a slipping back into the more ‘traditional’ practice of telling teachers what to do and when.
Policymakers are conscious of the ‘creeping hand’ of government and keen to avoid any suggestion that central diktat is back on the agenda.
But this can be very easily sidestepped – and there is a difference between government leading and government facilitating.
If we work on the basis that teachers should be inputting into anything produced to support them, then we will hopefully steer clear of at least some of the pitfalls associated with ‘official’ documentation.
It wouldn’t take a great deal of time and effort to get together a group of teachers, leaders, representatives from other key groups and known experts in their field to start thrashing out a workable plan for the future.
Whatever government decides to do next, it would make most sense to ask those whose job it is to put CfW into action what more support they need – and what they’re not getting at the moment.
It should be teachers telling policymakers what good professional learning looks like – not the other way around.
And while we’re on the subject, might we have a bit more faith in our own system?
Far too often in Wales our stock response to a professional challenge is to look outward and bring expertise in from further afield.
The working assumption is, therefore, that Wales is unable to address its own problems and almost solely reliant on external support to guide us through.
That may or may not be true in certain circumstances, and there is always much to learn from the experience of others – but on the whole, I would like to see us have far more confidence in the capacity of our own practitioners to find solutions to issues that affect them the most.
I have been fortunate in recent years to work with educators – in various roles and with various responsibilities – from across the world, and I can safely say that what we have here in Wales rivals anything I’ve seen elsewhere.
Question is, how willing are we to tap into this as yet underused resource – and, perhaps more pertinently, what is preventing us from doing so?
Now I know what some will say – the regional consortia have been supporting professional learning, and there is plenty out there available to schools should they want it.
But that is part of the problem. Since inception and by design, the consortia have been doing their own thing, co-operating occasionally on projects of mutual interest.
There is no consistent, national approach – and that is not necessarily the regions’ fault.
They are employed to support schools in their composite local authorities. They function as they were supposed to function.
This leads to mixed messaging, an almost constant unveiling of shiny new packages and projects (in some cases, based on little or no evidence), and a competitive edge that is not conducive to the ‘team Wales’ so often championed and revered.
In essence, we need something that binds us together…
Lesson plans founded on Statements of What Matters; assessment tools that mark off Descriptions of Learning; and, in some cases, attempts to benchmark against the Four Purposes.
But rather than criticise schools for ‘misunderstanding the curriculum’ (we’ve all heard that one before – and from those who really should know better), shouldn’t we instead be asking why they’ve gone down this route – and what more could be done to ensure CfW is interpreted in the way in which it was intended?
It is genuinely alarming that six years into our curriculum expedition, there is still so much confusion around what the curriculum actually means.
Notwithstanding the obvious and deliberate need for local adaptation, I’d imagine it be very difficult for anyone – policymaker, middle tier, teacher, leader – to pen on a side or two of A4 a consistent message on the fundamentals of CfW.
If I were to ask you to write down your five key characteristics; your five key building blocks; your five key principles that underpin CfW – chances are, we’d all end up with something different in our notepads.
Is that really what Donaldson had in mind when he first hatched our new national curriculum?
Fixed and flexible, tight and loose – frame it how you like, we need to accept that for our curriculum to be representative of the population it serves, there has to be some level of agreement on what we all do in lockstep.
I offer the following as a visual representation of what this might mean in practice…
Think of how we engage with CfW as being something like the structure of a house.
The Four Purposes are the foundations on which our new curriculum is established.
Our aforementioned curriculum guidance provides a structure from which teachers can build.
Inside is where school-based discussion takes place – this is, in effect, the space for innovation and where school staff come together to work through the finer detail of CfW and what it means for them and their learners.
For me, what’s missing is the roof and the overarching key principles that steer everything that happens beneath.
Failure to pin down the roof leaves the creative space for teaching and learning exposed to inclement and changeable weather – or in this case, shifting or outright bad advice.
It gives rise to unintended consequences and a deep-rooted feeling of insecurity that someone, somewhere won’t approve of what you’re doing.
In short, the metaphorical house is incomplete without its cover and the guiding messages that shape the profession’s interaction with CfW more generally.
All aspects of the build are common across settings – the foundations, the walls and the roof – apart from the internal teacher-to-teacher collaboration that has to be school-led.
Taking the analogy a little further, one might consider the curriculum house as being part of an estate; with an expectation that schools get to know their neighbours a little better so as to plan for a more coherent learning journey.
In the first instance, this might mean inviting the family from down the road in for a cuppa or to show them your new drapes.
Who knows, in time and as you get to know more about each other’s interests, occasional visits might evolve into something more concrete.
I’ll stop there, but you see where I’m going with this.
If nothing else, the government needs to get its work gloves back on and finish what it started.
Build consensus around the curriculum’s key principles – and share far and wide so everyone sings from the same hymn sheet.
But only do so in close consultation with the profession; they are both the architect and the craftspeople of this particular project.
As a first step, I’d begin by taking a hammer and chisel to existing curriculum documentation and remould it into something more accessible to teachers.
Those I work with don’t have the time to be trawling through protracted papers that in many cases serve only to add to the haze.
Guidance should be streamlined, broken down into bitesize chunks and housed on a website that is better signposted for those battling the ever-changing Covid landscape.
A learned friend and colleague talks about the requirement for ‘entry points’ into the new curriculum, dependent on individual practitioner proficiency; an interesting concept, with good merit.
But that assumes at least a decent understanding of CfW, and does not necessarily respond to the need for standardised information that is applicable to all.
In Scotland, a ‘Statement for Practitioners’ was published in 2016 – a full six years after its Curriculum for Excellence started rolling out in schools – in response to OECD concerns that bureaucracy was stymieing meaningful collaboration.
The statement, so says government agency Education Scotland, ‘provides key messages about what teachers and practitioners are expected to do to effectively plan learning, teaching and assessment for all learners, and also suggests what should be avoided’.
A similar document could be used to help teachers in Wales begin their engagement with curriculum guidance with a view to supporting them in the careful art of curriculum design.
Paralysis
My final point alludes to one I made earlier, and is perhaps what brings this whole blog together.
Hand on heart, and on the basis of several conversations I’ve had with very many people over the past six months or so, I am of the view that the Welsh Government is in what can only be described as a state of paralysis.
Policymakers find themselves wedged between a rock and a hard place – frozen by fear of overstepping the very fine line between subsidiarity and specification.
After years of preaching ‘power to teachers’, they don’t want to be seen as eroding autonomy by mandating any new material and/or professional support.
It’s as if policymakers know there are issues – with implementation, with professional learning and with consistency in messaging – but they can’t work out how to address them without impinging on teacher agency.
The same could also be said of curriculum content, accountability and assessment; they don’t know what to do for the best.
Let’s be clear, the transition from prescription to what sociologist Michael Young (2008) terms ‘genericism’ is not easy, and there are very clear tensions to be overcome.
But it’s not as if these tensions are unique to our situation and the same dilemma has been entertained a number of times before.
Claire Sinnema, an authority on curriculum development in New Zealand, offers the following assessment:
‘Consideration of balance between prescription and autonomy is central to the work of designing a national curriculum. Without sufficient prescription, learners’ curriculum entitlement cannot be assured. Without sufficient freedom, teacher agency and opportunities to operate as professionals with autonomy is put at risk.’
(Sinnema, 2017, p30)
A cursory glance over the educational literature tells you all you need to know on this score – researchers are in broad agreement that there is a careful balance to be struck; between tight and loose, between fixed and flexible, between prescription and autonomy.
In my opinion, we’ve got the balance slightly wrong – and taken this notion of autonomy a little too literally.
We are, I believe, guilty of letting too many teachers ‘go it alone’ on curriculum reform, and not providing them with nearly enough professional support.
We’ve effectively let teachers and leaders fend for themselves and outside of the ‘pioneer’ model (which was not, in my view, properly harnessed for the benefit of the wider system), left the profession to sink or swim on the basis of what they’ve heard on the grapevine or been able to pick up in the margins.
Let’s ditch the ‘world-leading’ dogma until we know it to be factually accurate – such statements are at best ostentatious and at worst, misleading.
The simple truth is that as long as there are still so many teachers asking for reassurance, validation, support and direction – we are not nearly as good as we think we are.
The hundreds of educators I’ve come into contact with over the course of the past six years are a useful yardstick in that regard.
So what next?
If anything, Covid makes a well-considered implementation plan, a standardised approach to professional learning, and the pressing need for more consistent messaging, all the more important.
Not because the virus is a challenge common across the system, but because it has robbed teachers and leaders of so much valuable preparation time; time that has instead been sucked up by isolation, staff absence and blended learning.
In the absence of a ring-fenced and lucrative professional learning budget that allows every teacher in every school regular time away from the classroom (pigs can fly), it is incumbent on government to ensure the workforce has what it needs to do more effectively what is being asked of it.
It’s tools or time and while I can understand the reluctance of government to step in and take a firmer hold of some of the more pressing curriculum issues, to sit back and do nothing would be the far bigger crime.
We can’t keep kicking the same cans down the road and whether it agrees with my interpretation or not, government has to do something.
And I’m cautiously optimistic it will.
Since his appointment as Minister for Education and Welsh Language, Jeremy Miles has only really been seen when responding to the latest Covid emergency.
A few minor policy pronouncements aside, he’s spent much of the past seven months firefighting – and that’s before you even get to matters relating to curriculum reform.
There is no doubting the magnitude of the task in hand.
This bodes well for what promises to be an absolutely crucial next seven months, during which the curriculum and our wider reform agenda will either snap into gear or drift further off course.
And so, as we embark on what is likely to be the most significant year for education in Wales since devolution, I would encourage policymakers to break free from their stupor and use the Omicron-induced hiatus (it would be folly to announce anything major any time soon) to give serious thought to the following:
The curriculum implementation plan;
Our national professional learning offer, and;
A consistency in messaging.
As a first step, let’s consider what a workable curriculum implementation plan might look like; how a national professional learning offer could accommodate the needs of all teachers; and what high-level messaging is required to knit our curriculum guidance together.
As hopeful as I am that we can find a way through some of the stumbling blocks presented here, I’ll finish with a word of warning.
If curriculum roll-out is delayed again, or worse, fails to deliver on its heady expectations, it won’t be because of Covid.
It will be because of decisions made in Cathays Park; decisions that will be informed, I hope, by those with a better understanding of what is happening on the ground.
References
Sinnema, C. (2017) Designing a national curriculum with enactment in mind – the new Curriculum for Wales: A discussion paper. Auckland: University of Auckland.
Welsh Government. (2017) Education in Wales: Our National Mission. Cardiff: Welsh Government.
Young, M. (2008) From constructivism to realism in the sociology of the curriculum. Review of Research in Education, 32(1), 1-2.
Education matters 