Curriculum for Wales — our Q&A with Education Minister Kirsty Williams

To continue supporting learning at home, parents in Wales will need to be prepared if their child will remain in education beyond 2022 when the new curriculum starts to be rolled out.

There’s a lot of information available online about the Draft Curriculum for Wales 2022. The Welsh Government pages provide overviews on the Areas of Learning Experiences, Assessment Proposals and frameworks related to its delivery.

Education Minister Kirsty Williams answers parents’ questions

We put five questions to Education Minister for Wales, Kirsty Williams, who has responded to parents in a series of exclusive videos.

1. We asked: how can parents get more information on what these significant changes mean for their child’s education?

2. Within the document ​‘Assessment proposals to inform the development of statutory guidance’ the assessment proposals state ​“parents/​carers should also be provided with the opportunity to provide input to the reporting process in order to help capture a full picture of a learner’s achievements, both inside and outside of the setting or school” (p15). We asked: in what ways will parents be able to get involved in the assessment reporting process?

3. In our most recent Annual Parent Survey, 62% of parents in Wales rated curriculum in the top 3 things they want to be consulted on – higher than other topics such as homework or pupil behaviour policies. We asked: what level of involvement do you think parents should have in the development of the curriculum at their child’s school?

4. The Welsh Government consultation closes on 19th July 2019. We asked: if parents have questions on the draft curriculum, such as what the changes mean in practice for their child, who can they ask or how can they find out more before the consultation closes?

5. At Parentkind we want to provide opportunities for parents to have their voices heard. We will be responding to the consultation including feedback from parents in Wales. We asked: the consultation questions may be challenging to answer for many parents who don’t work in education, and they may not respond. How else can all parents have a say on the curriculum issues that matter to them?

If you still have questions, drop us a line at [email protected] and we will do our best to answer them for you.

Keeping up to date with the Curriculum for Wales

Supporting a child as they flourish through school is one of the most fulfilling aspects of parenthood, but large-scale changes part-way through a child’s time at school can be daunting. That’s why Parentkind will gauge parental opinion about the changes so that we can present real parent voice to the government when we answer their consultation. We will be posting more information about ways to get involved and give your views very soon.

More information

See Education is Changing published by the government.

If you wish to tell the government your thoughts about the curriculum, you can respond to their consultation, which is open until Friday 19th July. We will keep you updated with further opportunities to have a say.

See our news piece summarising what we know so far.