Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 1 May 2019.

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Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 1:42, 1 May 2019

Well, thank you for that answer. I think it's actually quite a difficult question to answer outside the traditional world in terms of monitoring and assessment that you've just explained. I actually quite welcome the idea that it's going to be a more varied curriculum, but how to keep tabs on that I think is going to prove quite difficult. And how those links work over the next few years I think is going to be pretty important, because I think it would be fair to say that every new system will have its bedding-in period, even with the less demanding changes that we've seen in the made-in-Wales qualifications recently in moving some children from BTECs to GCSEs, and I know why you did that. We have seen some confusion about how to benchmark standards. Obviously, Qualifications Wales has the main role here, but I would like your view on how we are going to avoid prejudicing the transitional guinea pig cohort of learners—if I can call them that—who are going to be taught by teachers who may have had the CPD but have had no actual experience of teaching the curriculum these first few years. Because we did see casualties when we switched from the grammar to the comprehensive system all those years ago, before the new system bedded in. And I just want to make sure, as I'm sure you do, that you don't want to see that risk repeated. 

The link between the new curriculum and what qualifications look like is still very unclear to me. So, how will you help learners and professionals protect standards and achievement in this transition period so that they're not compromised in the eyes of FEs, HEs and employers in the future who will have huge influence over a learner's post-16 choices?