Curriculum

The New Curriculum for Wales  -  What we are doing in Ysgol Emrys ap Iwan

Wales is currently planning changes to the curriculum which all schools are focused on developing. Ysgol Emrys ap Iwan is working, together with colleagues from the infant and junior schools, to plan for the changes that are happening. The Curriculum for Wales will  be taught in all schools for learners up to Year 7 from 2022 and will then roll out year by year until it includes Year 11 by 2026. In the meantime, we are looking at ways that we can embrace the planned changes and enrich the curriculum experiences that we offer for our learners.

The planned new curriculum in Wales will have an innovative approach to developing young people aged 3 to 16. The new curriculum will have even more emphasis on equipping young people for life. It will build their ability to learn new skills and apply their subject knowledge more creatively. As the world changes, they will be more able to adapt positively.

As always, the key skills of literacy and numeracy will be at the heart of what they learn. They will also get a deep understanding of how to thrive in an increasingly digital world. The digital competence framework is now introducing digital skills across the curriculum, preparing learners for the opportunities and risks that an online world presents.

Meanwhile teachers will have more freedom to teach in ways they feel will have the best outcomes for their learners.

The central focus of assessment arrangements will be to ensure that learners understand how they are performing and what they need to do next. There will be a renewed emphasis on assessment for learning as an essential feature of learning and teaching. This is something that we have already developed widely at Ysgol Emrys ap Iwan, especially through the TEEP approach to learning and teaching.

The four purposes of the new curriculum is to support our children and young people to be:

• ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives
• enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work
• ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world
• healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society

It will have six ‘Areas of Learning and Experience’ (AoLE).

• Expressive Arts.
• Health and Well-being.
• Humanities (including RE which remains compulsory to age 16).
• Languages, literacy and communication (including Welsh, which remains compulsory to age 16, and modern foreign languages).
• Mathematics and Numeracy.
• Science and Technology.

It will also include the three cross-curricular responsibilities: literacy, numeracy and digital competence.

Why it is changing?

Now more than ever, young people need to be adaptable to change, capable of learning new skills throughout life and equipped to cope with new life scenarios.

Advances in technology and globalisation have transformed the way that we live and work. These changes have profound implications for what, and how, children and young people need to learn. We need to equip our learners for a future in which it is estimated that 65% of jobs have not yet been invented.

Schools and teachers need more flexibility to respond to this environment, using a new curriculum which will promote high achievement and engage the interest of all children and young people to help them reach their potential.

The new curriculum will bring this about by making learning more experience-based, the assessment of progress more developmental, and by giving teachers the flexibility to deliver in more creative ways that suit the learners they teach.

This new approach was informed by Professor Graham Donaldson’s independent review of curriculum and assessment arrangements in Wales, Successful Futures (pdf 1.7MB), in February 2015 which provided the foundations for a twenty-first Century curriculum shaped by the very latest national and international thinking.

Having your say on the new Curriculum for Wales

You can view the new draft Curriculum for Wales 2022 guidance on Hwb and provide feedback until 19 July. There will be a Children and Young People’s version and a set of questions available by mid-May. We will look at this version with the learners via the School Council so that learners have a voice and the opportunity to feedback on the planned changes.

If you have any questions about how we are developing the curriculum at Ysgol Emrys ap Iwan, please contact Mrs Sue Nichols (Deputy Head) or ask any teacher. We are always happy to talk to you about approaches that we are taking in the classroom.

Further information about the new curriculum is available here: https://gov.wales/education-changing

April 2019