Education Policy in Wales

At Parentkind, we take a three-nation approach, working with parents and carers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to make sure that their voices are at the centre of education policy changes.

In Wales, we collaborate with a diverse range of policy partners, from Welsh Government in Cardiff to small rural primary schools. Parents are at the heart of everything we do, including our policy work. 

To inform our work, parents in Wales are able to contribute through a range of polls, surveys and grassroots consultations. This evidence is then represented to policy-makers at all levels, so that parents and their views are considered by them, with the potential to directly inform changes to our education system.

Consultations

When changes are proposed to education policy, either by Welsh Government or by related organisations like Estyn and Qualifications Wales, consultations are often published seeking the views of the people most likely to be impacted.

Parentkind regularly responds to consultations, using evidence gathered from those in a parenting role across Wales.

For information on Parentkind’s responses to consultations and news of our impact, please see below.

The Welsh Government commissioned us to undertake research amongst parents and carers in Wales with a child with attendance issues to understand more about the reasons for their absences, the support offered, and what help their family would find useful. Read more »

We submitted evidence to the Children, Young People and Education Committee.

We responded to the first in a series of consultations called Qualified for the Future’.

Qualifications Wales’ consultation is looking at the kind of qualifications needed for the new curriculum. Their aim is for 16-year-olds in Wales take globally respected qualifications that inspire and prepare them for life, learning and work”. Parentkind has sent an organisational response, citing data from our Annual Parent Survey 2019 to support it.

We responded to the Welsh Government.

We responded to the Welsh Government.

Have your say on the schools inspectorate Estyn’s new inspection framework from 2021. The consultation closed on 2nd December. See the Estyn website for details. 

The government in Wales is consulting on (among other things) removing the parental right to withdraw their child from both Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Religious Education (RE). On that issue, and other changes in readiness for Curriculum for Wales 2022, the government is consulting. The consultation closed 28th November 2019. See a summary of our response to government.

Closed 21st October 2019. Welsh government sought parents’ views on handbook for home educators and draft statutory guidance to help local authorities identify children not at school and to ensure they are receiving a suitable education.

Closed 19th July 2019

Designed by teachers. Built for children. The new curriculum is now available for feedback. This is your chance to get to know the new curriculum and make your contribution. Read about the Draft Curriculum for Wales 2022.

Guidance for parents

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

Cwricwlwm dros Gymru — Cwestiwn ac Ateb gyda’r Gweinidog Addysg, Kirsty Williams.

The curriculum in Wales is changing — what we know so far.

How we responded

Thank you to parents who had their say on the new curriculum for Wales — our response to Curriculum for Wales.

Closed 15th February 2019. Welsh Government held a consultation on their draft anti-bullying guidance and toolkit, which was developed to prevent and challenge bullying in schools. You can read the full consultation here.

The consultation provided an opportunity for parents to give their views on the government’s proposals to date. We invited parents to take a short survey so that we could provide the government with robust evidence of what parents want. The questions in our survey were tailored to directly address the government’s proposals. They were a great way to ensure parent voice is heard where individual parents did not have the time to complete the government’s questions and read the supporting documents.

How we responded

We sent a big thank you to the 107 parents who took the time to complete our survey. We used statistical data and parents’ comments to feed back to the Welsh government on the emotive and important issue as part of our work in championing and supporting parent voice’ to be heard at local and national levels. Read the full results of our survey and our full response to the government here.