Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education
This was published under the 2016 to 2021 administration of the Welsh Government
In July the First Minister announced the Curriculum (Wales) Bill will be brought forward during the remainder of this Assembly term.
On 11 July a summary of responses received to the White Paper consultation, Our National Mission: A Transformational Curriculum (Jan 2019), was published. The evidence gathered and our continued work with key partners is crucial to informing our policy and ensuring the proposed legislation fully supports our ambitions for the new curriculum.
Feedback from the consultation highlighted the need for the proposed Bill to articulate more clearly the expectations to be placed on schools for the Curriculum for Wales 2022 to ensure breadth of learning and to support learner progression. I propose to make provision for a statutory framework for the Statements of What Matters in learning and for a statutory framework setting out the broad approach to, and principles of, progression in each AoLE and across the curriculum as a whole.
This will be in addition to legislating for the four purposes, the Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs) and Cross-Curricular Skills.
I proposed in the White Paper, that Welsh and English will be compulsory parts of the new curriculum and that this should be clearly set out in legislation. This proposal will be retained. Responses to the consultation highlighted the need to enable Welsh immersion in primary schools and funded non-maintained nursery settings. As I stated earlier this year, the new legislation will enable this to continue and will support Cymraeg 2050.
I intend to ensure the expectations for different educational settings in addition to maintained schools and maintained special schools is clear. This includes the expectations of funded non-maintained nursery settings, pupil referral units (PRUs) and other education provision which learners may attend when unable to attend school. The aim is to ensure all learners have access to the new Curriculum for Wales which offers them the opportunity to make progress in relation to the four purposes but is appropriate to them.
I will publish a written statement on the provision of Relationships and Sexuality Education and Religious Education shortly.
I intend to issue a further statement relating to responses received to the recent Curriculum feedback phase in due course.