6. Statement by the Minister for Education: The Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:45 pm on 8 July 2020.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 3:45, 8 July 2020

Well, Deputy Presiding Officer, I think the Member has thrown down a challenge to me, one that I'm very happy to pick up, to convince him of why he needs to support the change in our curriculum.

The duty will lie on each individual school, each individual headteacher to design a curriculum, and then the legal duty then falls to the headteacher and the governing body to implement that curriculum. They need to do that with regard to, as outlined in the Bill, the four purposes and the individual areas of learning and experience, and then with reference to our 'what matters'. Of course, they were all published earlier on this year. So, there is scaffolding around our expectations of the broad areas that we would expect to be covered. So, in answer to Siân Gwenllian, lessons that would focus on helping to develop children's mental health and well-being, but the topics, for instance, in which you would choose to do that will vary from school to school that is reflective of the children in front.

Now, we recognise, because this curriculum is a curriculum for three to 16, that some of our nursery settings in the non-maintained settings—. So, as part of our foundation phase, Welsh Government funds that setting to deliver early years education. We recognise that some of those are run by charities, some of them are run by small groups, and, therefore, that would be a particularly onerous task for that part of the sector to design a curriculum for them. So, the Welsh Government will have a set curriculum for that age group, so that, as I said, those foundation phase nurseries can actually take that off the shelf, because that would be a very onerous task for that particular part of the sector. But, otherwise, it will be for individual headteachers, using the national scaffolding, to design a curriculum that meets the needs of their children.

The Member asked about the roles and responsibilities of Graham Donaldson, and any linkages and crossovers between our new curriculum and Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland. Well, sometimes people make comparisons, and there are certainly some broad philosophical approaches around devolution of curriculum down to schools, the move away from very strict disciplines and a more cross-curricular approach that both curriculums share. I think we've been at the advantage of understanding where implementation has struggled in Scotland. So, I don't think it's the concept of the curriculum, and I think if you look at the criticisms of what's happened in Scotland, it's not the actual curriculum itself; it is the implementation process that people have found particularly challenging. Because we've been able to learn from that, in fact, we've gone out of our way to try and understand what the difficulties have been in Scotland. Some of that was around, in the very beginning, not enough guidance, and then people got really panicky, because there wasn't enough scaffolding for schools, so then there was a whole industry providing advice and guidance to schools, which meant that teachers got completely overwhelmed with that. So, we've been able to learn from some of the challenges of implementation. So, I think there's a distinction to be made between the curriculum itself and then the implementation process that supports schools going forward.

We will also give a greater level of direction around the content of the RSE curriculum—the relationships and sexuality curriculum—based on the principles from the United Nations. So, we will give greater direction in that regard.

Siân Gwenllian can speak for herself, but I think, if I can—I'm in danger of putting words in Siân's mouth. The issue itself is not with English being on the face of the Bill; it is the unintended consequence of having English on the face of the Bill on the principle of immersion education. So, they're not out to get the English language; that's not what this is about. This is about whether there would be an unintended consequence of English's inclusion on the face of the Bill with regard, then, as I said, to immersion education. Now, the Bill allows for the statutory requirement for English to be suspended to allow for Welsh immersion education, and that's important because we know, in terms of successful language acquisition, immersion is a well-tried, well-tested, really, really important way in which children can acquire Welsh language skills. And I say that as someone whose children have been in that system. Without my children's ability to go to a meithrin, and to go to a Welsh-medium primary school where they did no English, no formal English, until the age of seven, my children would not be bilingual English and Welsh speakers. It is that process that we know makes the difference. There is a concern that the way in which the Bill is currently drafted may undermine that. Now, as I said, I don't believe that, and I think there is some confusion about the language of tuition and the medium of tuition in the school as opposed to the curriculum. But I don't want to in any way undermine the principle of immersion or to ensure that immersion cannot happen. The Bill allows for immersion to happen and for English to be suspended, but there is a concern that that still hasn't got enough safeguards to support immersion, and I'm open to a conversation about what more we can do not to do down the English language, but to ensure and safeguard Welsh immersion, because we know that that is really important and we know that it works. So, I hope I haven't put words in your mouth, but I think that's where some people at least are coming from when it comes to this debate.

With regard to history and democracy and the environment, this brings us back to the principle of cynefin within the new curriculum, and how children learn about the rest of the world first by learning about their own locale. It is by engaging with your own locality and your own history that you can begin to expand your thinking into the wider world. So, Siân last week in the debate talked about her local history and its connection with a slave-trading family, and she didn't know about that. The issue is, you can learn about that in your primary school and you can understand that and you know it because you can see it, but from that then you can go on to have a conversation about British history, world history and the principle of slavery. So, it's about taking the connections from your locale for our very youngest children and then learning out about the world from that principle.

Sorry. I've waited four and a bit years for this.