Curriculum for Wales

Wales is committed to an ambitious reform agenda in realising a transformational curriculum.  The Curriculum for Wales is a purpose-led curriculum placing the 4 Purposes at the heart of all teaching and learning and as the shared vision for every child and young person in Wales.  The Curriculum for Wales framework has been co-constructed in Wales by practioners for practioners, bringing together educational expertise and wider research and evidence.  The Curriculum for Wales framework gives every school in Wales the opportunity to design their own curriculum within a national approach that ensures a level of consistency.

The publication of the Curriculum for Wales guidance in January 2020 signalled the next phase of curriculum reform and the rollout of Curriculum for Wales in all primary schools, maintained nursery schools and non-maintained nursery settings from September 2022.  Those secondary schools ready to roll out the curriculum in year 7 will be encouraged to do so, however formal implementation of the new curriculum will not be mandatory until 2023, with roll out in that year to years 7 and 8 together.

GwE have worked with fellow regional consortia, Estyn and Welsh Government to set out the expectations on schools and settings in respect of reform as we move towards implementation of Curriculum for Wales in Curriculum for Wales: The journey to Curriculum Roll-out. This document also acknowledges the challenge that Covid-19 continues to present to all schools within the renew and reform strategy.

GwE, working in partnership with the 6 Local Authorities across North Wales, have an important role to play to support all schools and settings across the region in their preparations for the new curriculum. Our approach to the new curriculum has been to integrate all aspects of the reform journey so that no element of the wider reform stands alone.  It is viewed from the need of learners and the baseline of individual schools and clusters to deliver change according to agreed expectations.

This area of the website is intended to be a sharing platform where we can share the learning of both ‘process’ and ‘product’ across the region. We recognise that all schools and settings will be in different places therefore sharing the learning of the different stages of the process is essential. Within the following sections, there are also examples that schools have created as they have worked through, as part of the own curriculum preparations.