1. QUALIFIED FOR LIFE A curriculum for Wales – a curriculum for life
Update April 2016
Purpose of presentation:
to update you on what has happened since the publication of Professor Donaldson’s independent review of curriculum and assessment arrangements in Wales
to inform you of some key milestones and ongoing work.

2. Successful Futures Quick Recap….

3. The report: Successful Futures
Published February 2015
8 Chapters
Overview
Processes and Evidence
Purposes
Structure
Pedagogy
Assessment
Implications
Conclusions and Recommendations
68 Recommendations
Between March and December 2014, the Independent Review team, led by Professor Graham Donaldson, engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders throughout Wales. Based on the evidence collected, as well as independent research, Successful Futures was published in February 2015.
68 recommendations were made – and accepted in full by the Minister for Education and Skills on 30 June 2015.

4. Key recommendations Four purposes Six Areas of Learning and Experience
Three cross-curriculum responsibilities
Progression Steps at ages 5, 8, 11, 14 and 16 (including ‘Routes’)
Achievement outcomes
A range of pedagogical approaches
Refocusing assessment on learning, including learners’ self- and peer-assessment
Alignment of system performance and school performance with the four purposes
In Successful Futures, Professor Donaldson proposes a broad and balanced curriculum, delivered through six Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLE), with the expectations for three Cross-curriculum Responsibilities embedded throughout the AoLEs.
He recommends that the national curriculum should be organised as a continuum of learning from 3 to 16 with progression signalled through Progression Steps at five points in the learning continuum. Achievement Outcomes should be developed for each Progression Step in each AoLE.
A range of pedagogical principles are identified in Successful Futures to ensure that all teaching and learning is directed to achieving the four curriculum purposes.
Successful Futures recommends that we refocus assessment on learning, including self and peer-assessment, to ensure progression in relation to the four purposes of the new curriculum. System performance and school performance, as a result, will also be aligned with the four purposes.

5. Purposes of the curriculum
The purposes of the curriculum in Wales should be that children and young people develop as:
Professor Donaldson challenges us to re-think our approach to the curriculum and to focus on the 4 purposes of education so that we build a curriculum that supports 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; and
•           healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.
These four purposes will be at the heart of our new national curriculum and will be the starting point for all decisions on the content and experiences developed as part of the curriculum.

6. Curriculum structure Six Areas of Learning and Experience: -
Expressive arts
Health and well-being
Humanities
Languages, literacy and communication
Mathematics and numeracy
Science and technology
Three cross-curriculum responsibilities: -
Digital competence
Literacy
Numeracy
The new curriculum will be broad, balanced, inclusive and challenging.
The curriculum will be structured around 6 Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLE) with three cross curriculum responsibilities. Each AoLE should make distinct and strong contributions to developing the four purposes of the curriculum.
Subjects and disciplines should remain important but should be grouped within AoLEs. Each AoLE should include, where appropriate, a Welsh dimension and an international perspective.
AoLEs should not be seen as watertight compartments – rather a means of organising the intentions for each child's learning, with decisions and plans for how these translate into day-to-day activities taking place creatively at school level. They are therefore not timetabling devices.
Common AoLEs from 3-16 should promote and underpin continuity and progression.

7. Progress to date

8. Progress Great Debate ended on 8th May Government response - 30th June
Acceptance of report recommendations in full
Working Group established with Consortia, Estyn and WLGA
Pioneer model developed
Pioneer Schools application process
Pioneer Schools Network is now in place
The Great Debate on Welsh Education, a series of opportunities for stakeholders to consider and discuss the recommendations made in Successful Futures, ended on 8 May and the Minister for Education and Skills accepted all 68 recommendations made in the report in full.
Welsh Government established a working group with the 4 Regional Education Consortia , Estyn and the WLGA to develop the Pioneer Schools model. The Pioneer Schools application process was put in place over the summer period – more on this later.
The Pioneer Schools Network is now in place.

9. How will we manage and support the development of the new curriculum?
Independent Advisory Group (IAG), chaired by Professor Graham Donaldson, will ensure that implementation remains true to the vision set out in Successful Futures.
Change Board will be responsible for the successful delivery of the programme, providing strategic direction and ensuring coherence across the whole.
Strategic Stakeholder Group will ensure that key stakeholders are informed of and involved in the development of the approach to implementing the programme. It will act as a critical friend and provide external challenge, scrutiny and advice.
Details of membership available - gov.wales/curriculumforwales
Since accepting the recommendations, a structure has been put in place to support the development programme. Details of the membership of the various groups are available on the Welsh Government’s website.
The Independent Advisory Group (IAG), chaired by Professor Graham Donaldson, will ensure that implementation remains true to the vision set out in Successful Futures, and alignment with the New Deal and Professor Furlong’s recommendations in Teaching Tomorrow’s Teachers.
The Change Board is responsible for the successful delivery of the programme, providing strategic direction and coherence. Membership includes representatives from Welsh education organisations.
The Strategic Stakeholder Group ensures that key stakeholders are informed of and involved in the development of the approach to implementing the programme. It acts as a critical friend and provide external challenge, scrutiny and advice. Membership includes representatives from a range of organisations and groups that have a critical role in supporting education across Wales.

10. High level plan published 22nd October Qualified for life: A curriculum for Wales – a curriculum for life
On 22 October, A Curriculum for Wales, a curriculum for life was published. This is the Minister for Education and Skills’ plan for taking forward Professor Graham Donaldson’s recommendations set out in Successful Futures.
The plan focuses on eight essential building blocks for our new curriculum for 3-16 year olds:
Embedding the four purposes of the curriculum
Creating a new curriculum encompassing Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs)
Building on the “pupil offer” to extend and promote learners’ experiences
Developing our cross-curriculum responsibilities
Enabling the Welsh language to thrive
Developing a new assessment and evaluation framework
Building the capacity of all practitioners and leaders
Establishing a constructive and robust accountability system that supports the four purposes.

11. This diagram summarises the Curriculum for Wales, a curriculum for life plan – and illustrates how we will build our curriculum together.
There are 8 building blocks, as previously outlined, and four enablers:
Working in partnership
Strong school-to-school working
Inspiring leadership
Inclusivity
The building blocks and enablers are focused on the 4 purposes of the new curriculum.

12. Timeline
The Pioneer Schools Network has been established with three strands.
Those Pioneers focusing on curriculum development will be working with experts to design the structure and framework of the new national curriculum. It will be available to schools by September 2018 and used to support learning and teaching in settings and schools across Wales from September 2021.
The work developing the Digital Competence Framework, led by its dedicated Pioneers, is well underway and it will be available to schools from September 2016.
The Pioneers focusing on the New Deal for the Education Workforce will support schools in preparing for the implementation of the changes being introduced following Successful Futures by providing practitioners with professional learning opportunities throughout their careers focussing on pedagogy and leadership.

13. Designing the new curriculum - Pioneer Schools model

14. Pioneer Schools Network
Pioneer Schools have been identified to lead on 3 aspects: -
Digital Competence Framework
Curriculum design and development and
New Deal for the Education Workforce
List of Pioneer Schools available at gov.wales/curriculumforwales
The Pioneer Schools will focus initially on digital competence, curriculum design and development and delivering the New Deal for the Education Workforce. They will collaborate as the three strands of the Pioneer Schools Network develop.

15. Pioneer Schools Network
Pioneers - Curriculum
Pioneers - Digital
Pioneers - New Deal
As well as working together as a collaborative network, the Pioneer schools will work closely with schools who are not currently a part of the Pioneer Schools Network to ensure that they are kept fully informed of all developments.

16. Pioneer Schools Network
The Pioneer Schools Network will work together as a single national network of schools to co-design, consult, inform, support and build capacity in schools across Wales.
Pioneer schools will work in an all-Wales partnership with Welsh Government, local authorities and their consortia, Estyn, HE, FE, business and other key partners.
Initially, Pioneer Schools will focus on distinct work streams to develop the Curriculum (including the new Digital Competence Framework) and the New Deal for the Education Workforce.
Eventually, the Pioneer Schools Network will work together as a single national network to co-design, consult, inform, support and build capacity in schools across Wales.
It will also be a part of a wider all-Wales partnership with Welsh Government, local authorities and their consortia, Estyn, HE, FE, business and other key partners to take forward the development of the three strands of the Pioneer Schools Network.

17. As outlined in this slide, it is envisaged that there will four key strands to the curriculum development process. At present, the aim is that both Strand 1 and Strand 2 will have been completed by early 2017
Strand 1 – strategic design of the overall structure and principles of the new curriculum.
Strand 2 – design of framework and principles for each AoLE, including progression reference points, achievement outcomes and the cross curriculum responsibilities.
Strand 3 – development of each AoLE and supporting materials.
Strand 4 – further refinement, testing, preparation and support.
At each stage, the pioneers will be working with other schools and curriculum experts (taking national and international evidence and research into account). The process will be supported by robust quality assurance processes and will include international benchmarking.

18. As part of Strands 1 and 2, subgroups will be formed to take forward elements of the strategic and AoLE design work. The work of these subgroups will be overseen by steering and coordination groups.

19. New Deal Pioneer Schools
80 schools are currently in the New Deal Pioneer Schools Network.
The network includes primary, secondary and special schools and a PRU.
The New Deal Pioneers will develop and deliver a wide range of high quality professional learning and support to ensure that all practitioners in Wales have the skills in pedagogy and leadership to successfully deliver Professor Graham Donaldson’s recommendations.
The 80 New Deal Pioneer Schools include primary, secondary and special schools and a PRU. The New Deal Pioneers were appointed in partnership with the regional Consortia to ensure that the network provides appropriate coverage across the whole of Wales.

20. New Deal Pioneer Schools – Current Activity
During this academic year the New Deal Pioneers have been engaged in a range of action inquiry activities.
The action inquiries will establish a robust evidence base to determine what practitioners in Wales need in order to deliver the new curriculum.
The focus of the action inquiries has been on the pedagogy, leadership and professional learning that the New Deal Pioneers will need to develop and deliver.
The action inquiry will inform the development of the New Deal Pioneers’ Individual Action Plans which will be developed in partnership with regional consortia and in place for September 2016.
2015/16 is purposely defined as being a preparatory year with the New Deal Pioneers working together to undertake a number of structured cycles of action inquiry. These inquiry cycles have focused on three main areas:
the skills in pedagogy that practitioners will need to develop to be able to deliver the Donaldson recommendations;
the nature of the leadership that will be required in schools to successfully implement the Donaldson recommendations;
the New Deal Pioneer Schools’ current approaches to professional learning and leadership development.

21. As leaders of the system, the New Deal Pioneer Schools will need to take into account the six stages that are set out above in order to ensure that the professional learning that they develop and deliver is of the highest quality and founded on clear evidence of what the system needs.

22. New Deal Pioneer Schools – Key Milestones
July 2016 – New Deal Pioneers work with regional consortia to agree their individual action plan for the period Sept 16 to July 17
July 2017 – New Deal Pioneers agree stage two of action plan covering the period Sept 17 to July 18
July 2018 – Nationally consistent professional learning offer in place that has been developed and delivered by the New Deal Pioneer Schools which will ensure that all practitioners in Wales have access to the highest quality professional learning.

23. Digital Competence Framework progress to date
10 June the Minister for Education and Skills announced that a Digital Competence Framework (DCF) should be ‘fast tracked’ so as to be available to all schools by September 2016.
16th July the Digital Pioneer Schools were announced and were drawn from a range of schools across Wales.
21 September Induction event for Digital Pioneers was held in Cardiff. Work on developing the content and structure of the DCF starts.
Soon after accepting the 68 recommendations made in Successful Futures, the Minister announced that the development of the Digital Competence Framework would be fast tracked so as to be available by September Soon afterwards, the identity of the Digital Pioneers Schools was announced. Details can be found at the link above.

24. Digital Competence Framework progress to date
Roughly monthly Working Group meetings attended by:
representatives from each of the Pioneer Schools;
the digital leads from each of the regional consortia;
Professor Tom Crick (chair of the Quality Assurance Group);
Estyn representative;
representatives from Welsh Government.
Monthly Steering Group* meetings attended by:
representatives from pioneer schools working on each of the emerging 4 strands of the framework;
Professor Tom Crick;
Estyn;
Welsh Government officials.
* Since November
The Digital Pioneer schools, with others listed on the slide has met as a Working Group on a monthly basis, bringing all the pioneers as well as other key players together in one venue to discuss, reflect, plan and develop the framework. Since January 2016 these meetings have been held over 2 days.
Since November, and in order to ensure that time is used as effectively as possible between Working Group meetings, an informal steering group has been meeting, also monthly, to review progress and provide and additional steer , if required, to the ongoing development work. This group has also provided an useful forum for agreeing on future working group agendas and making suggestions for the full working group to consider.

25. Digital Competence Framework Using Hwb
Hwb has been used as the collaborative platform for taking forward the development work led by the Digital Pioneer schools.
Hwb Networks have been used to create a DCF network to share announcements, files, discussions etc.
Hwb’s Office 365 is being used extensively to facilitate real-time collaboration between Digital Pioneers across Wales.
Hwb has been used as the collaborative platform for taking forward the development work led by the Digital Pioneer schools. The Digital Pioneers, as the first group of pioneers to take forward Professor Donaldson’s vision are indeed ‘pioneers’ when it comes to collaborative working - and are well placed to utilise Hwb’s considerable functionality to help them deliver.
Using the Hwb Networks facility, a Digital Competence Framework Network has been set up to share announcements, files, discussions etc. Additionally, Office 365 is being used extensively to facilitate real-time collaboration between Digital Pioneers across Wales.

26. Digital Competence Framework
Next Steps
Up to June 2016
Draft DCF shared with Pioneer Schools’ cluster networks in January/February and QA Group on 29 February.
Feedback from cluster schools and QA Group informed further development of DCF.
In April a joint New Deal and Digital Pioneer schools meeting will consider CPD and resource requirements for implementing the DCF.
Exemplar materials identified and developed to support the framework statements
Draft will be shared with a wider group of stakeholders in June.
September 2016
Digital Competence Framework available to schools and settings
As the framework develops an increasing number of schools and stakeholders are getting involved in testing and refining the framework and helping ensure that it is as good as it can possibly be.
Developing an appropriate framework, however, is only the beginning and will be of little value unless it is embraced by those expected to deliver it. Early consideration is being given to the CPD needs of practitioners and how best to meet them. The Joint New Deal and Digital Pioneer event on 21 April will kick off this stage in earnest.
From September 2016 the DCF will be available to schools and other settings. We expect that:
all schools and settings (3 to 16) will familiarise themselves with the framework and consider how they can embed the expectations into their planning.
Over time, the Digital Competence Framework will increasingly feature as a cross-curricular responsibility within the new curriculum and alongside literacy and numeracy and will be an important tool for all teachers.
The Digital Competence Framework will help inform the Areas of Learning and Experience, which are being developed as part of the new curriculum. The aim is that the new curriculum will be available from September 2018.
A professional learning plan setting out the support available for practitioners will be issued and further developed as practitioners identify their learning needs through practical engagement with the Digital Competence Framework.

27. Preparing for the Future
In his Annual Report ( ) the Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales suggests that schools can begin to prepare themselves for the future by considering a number of questions as part of their self-evaluation.
See page 31 of the Annual Estyn Report at:
In his Annual Report, the Chief Inspector notes that:
Work on the new curriculum is in the early stages of development. However, schools can begin to prepare themselves for the future by considering the following questions as part of their self-evaluation:
• Does the curriculum that we offer currently help pupils to develop according to the ‘four purposes’?
• What can we do to promote these four purposes further within our current arrangements?
• How confident are we as school leaders in our capacity to inspire, support and evaluate innovation in our school curriculum?
• How can we encourage creativity, variety and individuality in our approaches, while also achieving consistency and coherence in the curriculum that we offer and in the way that we deliver it?
• To what extent is our school (leaders, teachers and support staff) ready to embrace change and willing to engage with pioneer schools in developing the new curriculum?
• How do our teachers and support staff gain the
skills, knowledge and understanding that they need to develop the new curriculum?
• How can we build on the creativity that exists already among our staff and enable others to develop their imagination in relation to the curriculum?
• Do we provide a wide range of additional extra-curricular
experiences for our pupils and recognise all their achievements?
• Do our teachers and support staff understand
formative and summative assessment and use
assessment information to raise standards and to maximise the progress that pupils make?
• Do we use assessment to help pupils to improve their own work and the work of others?
• Do we ensure that our pupils build well on what they have already learned when they move through and between schools?
• Does our school develop the full range of pupils’ ICT skills and digital competence?

28. Further information Contact us: curriculumforwales@wales. gsi. gov
Further information Contact us: Website: