Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 1 May 2019.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 1:44, 1 May 2019

Well, Suzy, the first step that we are taking to ensure that children's life chances are not compromised was the decision that I made previously to roll out the curriculum over a number of years, especially in the secondary sector. It would have been unimaginable, indeed unthinkable, to think about changing the curriculum during a child's maybe crucial year 10 or year 11 period of study. And that's why you will be aware that the curriculum will begin to be rolled out in our secondary schools in 2022 in year 7, and will follow that cohort through. 

With regard to a bedding-in period, you will be aware, again, that I took the quite difficult decision to delay the implementation of the curriculum, having listened to teachers who told me very clearly that they would need more time to prepare themselves and get ready. So, we had the draft published yesterday. This is now a period of genuine feedback for people to engage—not just the teaching profession, but also the employers, the colleges, the universities that you talked about so that they can feed back to us also. The final curriculum will be published in January of next year, thus giving schools, again, a significant period of time before it becomes statutory before they have to deliver it so that they can truly engage in it.

You will be aware that, throughout this process, Qualifications Wales have been deeply embedded. They have already begun their work on the implications for end of year 11 examinations, as a result of the changes to the curriculum. They are very clear in their advice to me that the GCSE brand is a strong brand—it is well understood by parents, pupils, employers, further education and higher education and they expect GCSEs to remain, but clearly the content may need to change. And we will continue to work with the independent body, Qualifications Wales, to ensure that the currency of those examinations will give Welsh students and young people a passport into the world of work and into the world of study, whether they do that in Wales or whether they choose to do that somewhere else.