Changes are coming for schools in Wales: the country’s government has been busy creating the Curriculum for Wales 2022.

But how will the new system impact upon the classroom? And how different is it to the English system?

Tes spoke to Elaine Carlile, director of qualifications at WJEC and Eduqas, to outline the major differences and explore the similarities.

The new curriculum

In 2022,  a new Welsh curriculum for young people aged 3-16 will be rolled out in all schools across the country.

The Welsh government website describes the new curriculum as having “more emphasis on equipping young people for life”.

It explains that there will be a greater emphasis on digital skills and preparing young people for an online world.

The document also says that the new curriculum will give teachers more freedom over their teaching style and assessment will be for learning.

The new Welsh curriculum offers the following six ”areas of learning and experience”:

• Expressive arts
• Health and wellbeing
• Humanities (including RE, which should remain compulsory to age 16)
• Languages, literacy and communication (including Welsh, which should remain compulsory to age 16, and modern foreign languages)
• Mathematics and numeracy
• Science and technology

The curriculum will also include three cross-curricular responsibilities: literacy, numeracy and digital competence.

Assessment will be a continuous process, taking place on a daily basis within the school and during lessons. 

The new curriculum will use ”progression reference points” to help learners, teachers, parents and carers understand if appropriate progress is being made.

The new curriculum will set out expectations for learners in each area of their learning, relating broadly to ages 5, 8, 11, 14 and 16.

Read more about the changes to the Welsh curriculum

Curriculum content 

The content of the Welsh GCSEs and English GCSEs are very similar but, with all of the Welsh exams, there is a Welsh element to them. For example, for the Welsh Drama GCSE, there will be the option to study Welsh playwrights. 

Some of the qualifications slightly differ in Wales, for example English language GCSE is more focused on functionality and skills, and there are two mathematics GCSEs: mathematics and mathematics numeracy.

Welsh exams still use A*-G grading, whereas in England, exams use 9-1 grading, with 9 being the highest.

England and Wales both use the same amount of guided hours for their GCSEs, and the exams have the same age profile. Both countries use a mixture of linear and non-linear exams.

All exams and exam support materials provided by WJEC are available in the Welsh language, and are not just translations. Welsh language is considered when creating the English language versions of the materials. For example, the word ”both” cannot be directly translated into Welsh, so the words selected in the English versions of the exam questions are influenced by the Welsh versions to ensure parity.

The structure of the Welsh school system

Control over education policy is devolved to the National Assembly for Wales, apart from pay, conditions and pensions, which are retained by the Westminster government.

The Department for Education and Skills is the Welsh government department responsible for education, training and children’s services.

The current education minister is Kirsty Williams, under whom there are 22 unitary authorities, which are responsible for the schools in their areas.

These local authorities (previously called local education authorities) have many roles and responsibilities related to the provision of education in Wales. Local authorities oversee the provision, funding, standards and levels of education in their area.

Funding to local authorities for schools is mostly provided by the Welsh government. Each local authority then allocates that funding to schools in its area in accordance with the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 and the School Funding (Wales) Regulations 2010.  

Welsh local authorities are similar to English local authorities in that they must divide their budget up into a non-schools education budget, a schools budget and an individual schools budget.

Each Welsh local authority must allocate its individual schools budget among schools according to a formula set out in the School Funding (Wales) Regulations 2010, which is based on pupil numbers, ages, needs and other matters.

The local authorities are then grouped into four regional education consortia, which are responsible for improving school standards of literacy and numeracy. Teachers can contact their consortium for guidance on best practice and training.

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