New content has been added, and some alterations made, to the Curriculum for Wales Framework guidance.
The changes have been made for one of two reasons: as a response to consultation feedback that pointed to a need for more information in specific areas; or as a result of the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Act 2021 Act being passed by the Senedd.
What are the main changes?
Update to the ‘Introduction’ section – changed to reflect the passage of legislation, but also to keep it up to speed with new supporting guidance, hence the ‘preparing for 2022’ element has been deleted in deference to the new ‘Journey to curriculum roll-out’ guidance published on Hwb on 22 September.
Statements of What Matters and Principles of Progression – updated following consultation to reflect the draft Codes covering those mandatory elements currently before the Senedd.*
Education Other Than At School (EOTAS) – this now has its own section within Designing your curriculum that sets out considerations for curriculum design for EOTAS.
British Sign Language (BSL) – Guidance for developing a curriculum which features BSL for deaf BSL users and for other learners and a full set of Descriptions of learning for BSL now form part of the Languages Literacy and Communication Area of Learning and Experience. The guidance for EOTAS and BSL has been developed by practitioners through co-construction, supported by other experts including members of the Deaf Community.
The curriculum guidance revisions will be followed by a second set at the end of 2021 to cover:
- Relationships and Sexuality Education
- Religion, Values and Ethics
- Careers and Work-Related Experiences
- The addition of guidance on enabling pathways
- A revised ‘Legislation’ section
- Additional guidance on the UNCRC and UNCRPD
- Updates to assessment guidance
- A draft curriculum for use by funded non-maintained nursery settings, and
- Revisions to the ABC steps within the Cross Curricular Skills Frameworks.
An update on these extra changes will feature on this blog when they occur. Please use the ‘subscribe’ button on the right if you would like to be notified of new posts.
*To allay any confusion about the term ‘currently before the Senedd’, this means that whilst the Act has passed, its various provisions need to be commenced and subordinate legislation agreed. The Codes are subordinate legislation which is subject to the Senedd’s negative procedure. Only once that is done (planned for 15 Nov) will the statements of what matters and principles of progression become mandatory elements. However the updates have been provided in advance to aid planning.