Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 12 July 2017.
The Member makes an interesting point. I’m not sure that we should be adding more to the Welsh bac. Indeed, listening to professionals, actually, they say they want less in the Welsh bac, so I don’t know whether we’re in a position to add more input into the Welsh bac. What we do need to look at, potentially—there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that modern foreign languages, indeed all core subjects that have not previously been part of the schools’ accountability measure, have seen a drop in the numbers taking them, so music, drama et cetera. So, there may be an underlying trend that schools are entering students into exams that count towards that school’s individual accountability measures and, therefore, there is a narrowing of the curriculum. The Member will be aware that I have announced a fundamental review of accountability measures for schools so that any unintended consequences, whether that be a narrowing of the curriculum or, indeed, early entry, which we discussed earlier, stop. So, that issue around accountability and whether that’s driving some of these behaviours will be tested as part of that review.