Holding a mirror to policy and practice – why teachers have every right to be annoyed

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.

Insufficient preparation time

Regular readers of this blog will be well aware of my feeling as to where these potentially problematic obstacles lay.

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’.

More recently, the inspectorate warned that ‘teachers are not supported well enough to develop the skills they need to design a curriculum’ and the input regional consortia and breakaway local authorities give to schools ‘does not focus closely enough’ on the practicalities of curriculum design and delivery.

You can see where I’m going with this…

Playing the right notes in the best order

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.

Evidence that all is not well is beginning to stack up, and the independent review of educational leadership, eventually published earlier this month after several months’ delay, simply served to reinforce that which we knew already.

‘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’.

And, not for the first time, he pointed to the ‘record levels of funding’ invested by the Welsh Government into professional learning, which will amount to £28m in 2022-23 alone.

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 number of people have contacted me recently to vent their frustration that this was ever allowed to happen, and I have to say I agree with them (which won’t come as a great surprise, given the focus of previous contributions to this blog!).

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.

And teachers have every right to be annoyed; repeated warnings have fallen on deaf ears and a lack of real-time, practical advice and guidance for practitioners (which is totally at odds with the protracted and verbose stuff they have been given) has really held us back.

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.

A system built on self-evaluation

Just last week, Mr Miles confirmed that the Welsh Government was in the process of ‘strengthening and clarifying the nationally available resource-base for professional learning’ and working with middle-tier partners ‘on a clearer understanding of the impact of professional learning support and provision’.

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’.

The Welsh Government has subsequently revealed, as part of its update on supporting transition to the new curriculum, that ‘more practical support materials’ and ‘an updated version of the assessment guidance’ will be made available later in the summer.

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.