Curriculum for Wales: continuing the journey

In October 2020 'Curriculum for Wales: The Journey to 2022' was published, setting out for schools consistent expectations for the process of designing their curriculum and preparing to implement it from 2022 onwards.

This section of guidance forms part of statutory guidance alongside other sections of the Curriculum for Wales Framework guidance. Further information on its status can be found in the Introduction to this Framework.

Purpose of this section

This section of guidance is designed to support all practitioners within schools (including PRUs and those responsible for the provision of EOTAS in other settings) with the practical steps of designing, implementing and maintaining the ongoing review of their curriculum. It gives guidance on how we consider schools should plan and organise their approaches to realising the expectations of the curriculum.

It is not specifically aimed at nursery settings but they may still find this guidance useful, alongside guidance on Curriculum and assessment arrangements for funded non-maintained settings. Further advice on the requirements for settings to publish a summary can be found in the engagement toolkit.

All practitioners will need to be confident in their understanding of the Curriculum for Wales Framework (Framework) before developing expectations for their own context, and in order to plan, design and implement a curriculum that is inclusive for all learners, including those with additional learning needs, economically disadvantaged learners and more able and talented learners.

You will find links to relevant sections of guidance and supporting information at the end of this section.

The purpose of this section is to support schools and settings to develop the ongoing process of developing and reviewing their curriculum. It is intended to help schools plan and organise their curriculum in the course of fulfilling their duties to design and review their curriculum. Further support for curriculum design can be found in the Designing your Curriculum section. This guidance provides additional support on specific aspects of the curriculum which schools have asked for further detail on such as progression. The guidance should be read in the context of schools’ understanding their wider duties as set out within this Framework guidance.

Support offered by partners, in particular regional consortia, partnerships, local authorities, and diocesan authorities will build on this guidance. This support, and the way we expect schools and partners to work to support curriculum realisation, is outlined in the Curriculum for Wales: Implementation plan.

Priorities for curriculum development and learning

The Curriculum for Wales expects a school curriculum to:

• be driven by purpose, understanding why learning matters is fundamental to developing meaningful curricula
• focus on progression, defined by learners’ personal development
• select a range of purpose driven content to enable progression, within a national framework of expectations
• select specific content that learners engage with as a vehicle to support their engagement with the purpose of learning and to support them to progress
• plan for a broad range of assessment approaches that indicate progression rather than define progression in narrow ways

The role of leadership in the design process

Leadership at all levels within a school is critical to successful realisation of the Curriculum for Wales. The Professional standards for teaching and leadership outline the expectation for all practitioners in Wales to demonstrate leadership through all aspects of their professional practice to:

• develop a culture for change that embeds co-construction and expected ways of working
• prioritise time for professional dialogue that enables the whole school community to understand and engage with change
• recognise the importance of prioritising ongoing time and effort into developing understanding of the Framework across the school and take steps to ensure this happens
• use the school’s development plan to set priorities for the next 3 years, based on an analysis of what is needed to realise a Curriculum for Wales in the school
• ensure meaningful collaboration and shared commitment across the 3 to 16 continuum
• ensure effective transition and progress for all learners along the 3 to 16 continuum
• avoid the creation of curriculum policies or distinct or separate documentation for each area of learning and experience (Area), subject discipline, or aspect of learning, unless this is helpful to practitioners, learners and the school community

Developing a curriculum with purpose

The following four questions should be at the heart of all stages of curriculum design, from whole-school design to day-to-day planning:

• Purpose: what should our learners learn and why?
• Progression: what should progress in that learning look like for each learner?
• Assessment: how are we assessing to enable that progression?
• Pedagogy: how does our daily practice support our curriculum?

These questions are designed to help schools identify and respond to the changing needs of their learners and their communities.

Learners’ health and wellbeing is a key consideration when addressing these four questions. It underpins learners’ needs, enabling learners to progress and forms part of understanding how they are progressing. As schools design their curriculum, understanding how it impacts and supports learners’ wellbeing will be a key to successful learning.

Purpose: what should our learners learn and why?

All curriculum development should have a clear purpose. Asking why aspects of learning matter, including specific knowledge, skills and experiences, helps to focus planning and ensure learners understand the purpose of what they are learning and how it contributes to realising the four purposes. Why specific knowledge, skills and experiences matter will in part depend on learners’ starting points, their needs and their previous learning and experiences. Involving learners in decisions related to their needs and identifying learning that matters to them, is reflected in the pedagogical principles fundamental to realising the four purposes for all learners in Wales.

Asking ‘why’ helps practitioners to understand:

• how learning (knowledge, skills, and experiences) contributes to learners’ realising the four purposes
• how learning (knowledge, skills, and experiences) relates to the statements of what matters or subject specific concepts
• how learning (knowledge, skills, and experiences) supports learners to progress in the ways described in the principles of progression and the descriptions of learning
• how learning (knowledge skills and experiences) can be made appropriately sophisticated and challenging for learners over time
• the relevance to learners of specific learning (knowledge, skills and experiences)

More detailed guidance on selecting the knowledge, skills and experiences for purposeful learning in your context is set out in the Designing your curriculum section of the Framework guidance.

Progression: what should progress in that learning look like for each learner?

Within this Framework, the principles of progression and the statements of what matters must both directly inform planning for progression. In practice, learning in any given area should have a clear rationale of how learners are intended to develop and improve their skills and knowledge over time. In particular, understanding how the learning will help increase their breadth and depth of knowledge, deepen their understanding of ideas and disciplines in the Areas, and refine their skills to support individuals to become more effective learners with increasing opportunities to apply learning in new contexts. Thinking about learners' progress in these ways provides a consistent language to talk about progression and can help to steer and organise professional dialogue about learners' progress in more meaningful ways.

By utilising the principles of progression, schools can draw out and consider the disciplinary learning within the statements of what matters for each Area, as well as reflecting on the increasing sophistication of the cross-curricular skills and skills integral to the four purposes.

Working in clusters and networks is an essential part of approaching progression. The supporting materials Learning with purpose: supporting transition along the 3 to 16 continuum can support schools in designing an effective transition process for all learners along the 3 to 16 continuum.

The resources developed through the Camau i’r Dyfodol project help to support thinking about progression coherent with the Curriculum for Wales.

To support curriculum design:

• the descriptions of learning, which are organised into progression steps are intended to guide practitioners to understand what learners’ progress should look like
• they provide indicators of the pace of progression to support practitioners and inform curriculum design and learning and teaching
• when designing your curriculum, you should use the descriptions of learning as a guide in supporting curriculum and assessment design, not a measure of learner performance

That means using the descriptions of learning to check whether what you want to teach:

• will develop purposeful knowledge, skills and facilitatexperiences to support learners’ progress
• contains the appropriate level of challenge, breadth, and depth for each learner

The descriptions of learning are designed to help understand learners’ expected progression over a series of years. This means that they are framed broadly and recognise it will take time for learners to progress in the ways described. They are indicators of progression rather than the sole definers of what progress may look like. This means schools should select a range of knowledge, skills and experiences that help learners progress in the ways described, deepening their learning over time.

Descriptions of learning are not designed to be ‘achieved’ through a small number of learning activities but used developmentally over time. Information can be found in the section for each Area.

All schools are required by the Direction to develop and maintain a shared understanding of progression that enables all practitioners to engage in professional dialogue around learner progress. Schools must collaborate internally, with their cluster, and with other schools and settings as appropriate, to ensure a coherent process for developing a shared understanding of progression. This helps develop shared expectations for how learners are expected to progress, supporting their transition, and ensures expectations provide sufficient pace and challenge in learning to stretch learners.

Assessment: how should we assess that progress?

The aim of assessment is to support each individual learner to make progress. Assessment enables practitioners to understand the progress learners have made, identify learners’ needs both as individuals and as a group and to plan future learning. Schools have agency in designing a range of assessment opportunities that best reflect the intended learning and to understand the progress learners are making.

This section builds on the following guidance:

• Assessment arrangements (statutory guidance)
• School improvement guidance: framework for evaluation, improvement and accountability (non-statutory guidance)
• Curriculum and assessment arrangements for funded non-maintained nursery settings (non-statutory guidance)

Purposeful assessment design is critical to understanding learners’ strengths and areas for development as an integral part of the curriculum design process. It should inform what specific support and challenge learners need to progress, and their next steps in learning.

Assessment builds from a clear understanding of the purpose of learning and expected progression as articulated in the principles of progression and statements of what matters.

Assessing learner progress should include the consideration of a range of evidence of whether and how learners are making progress - how they are developing in their knowledge and skills and engaging with experiences.

This should include ongoing and informal assessment, including (but not limited to):

• observation
• discussion with learners
• diagnostic tools
• formative classroom assessment
• summative assessments where appropriate to the intended learning
• utilising information from personalised assessments as a flexible means of gaining information about progression in reading and numeracy skills that support individual learner needs. They have been designed as a diagnostic tool and will continue to be a statutory part of the approach to assessment

The role of descriptions of learning in informing assessment

To support assessment, the descriptions of learning have been designed to inform a wide range of assessment approaches that gather examples of learning and help determine whether and how learners are progressing. When planning assessment, they should be used to inform:

• indicators of progress that learners may demonstrate as they develop their understanding and apply their learning in new and unfamiliar contexts
• understanding of the pace of learners’ progress in relation to general expectations at a similar point in the learning continuum
• the development of a wide range of assessment approaches to assess progress

Descriptions of learning provide broad expectations of progress through a series of years and should be used in conjunction with the practitioner’s or school's own expectations of their learners to select challenging and meaningful curriculum content.

Both the descriptions of learning and assessment information should be used as indicators of learner progress rather than definers of learner progress: this recognises that no one method of assessment will give a full view of a learner's progress.

Practitioners should therefore use a range of assessment approaches - and consider which will be most effective for the purpose of learning that has been designed. It may be useful to refer to the following two questions from the School improvement guidance:

• Are learners progressing in the ways described in the principles of progression, supporting them to develop towards the four purposes?
• Is the pace of learners’ progress in line with the expectations of teachers and the curriculum?

A range of knowledge, skills and experiences and a range of assessment approaches over time will contribute to an understanding of how learners are progressing, as learners deepen their understanding and become increasingly effective learners. This assessment information should inform practitioners’ judgement about learners’ progression. 

For these reasons descriptions of learning are not designed to be broken down into a set of assessment criteria or a checklist which drives the selection of knowledge, skills and experiences or determines whether a learner has ‘achieved’ a progression step.

Additional supporting materials are available for practical examples of this process are available at the end of this section.

Pedagogy: how does our daily practice support our curriculum?

The Curriculum for Wales celebrates the agency and professional judgement of all practitioners. As we continue to develop a research informed approach to pedagogy and school improvement, understanding the principles of the Curriculum for Wales is critical to learners’ successful realisation of the four purposes. Being clear about the purpose of learning, intended progression and methods of assessment should all inform and shape the pedagogical approaches and choices practitioners make.

This section builds on the following guidance:

• Enabling learning (statutory guidance)
• Designing your curriculum: pedagogy (statutory guidance)

It is expected that schools regularly evaluate the quality of their provision to ensure that teaching strategies best meet the changing needs of learners in their context. These strategies can include, but are not limited to:

• a focus on the well-being of learners and their future development, facilitating learning that is developmentally appropriate for all learners, building effectively on prior learning and experiences
• a focus on effective curriculum design that supports a purpose driven approach to designing and sequencing learning within and across Areas valuing the process of learning alongside what is being learned to ensure learning has purpose and enables meaningful transfer to new contexts
• providing authentic learning experiences that support learners’ personal growth and to be effective in their ongoing learning

The pedagogical principles support practitioners to understand the needs of their learners and make informed choices about the learning and teaching approaches that best support learner progress within the Curriculum for Wales.

Practical expectations for iterative curriculum

This section of guidance reflects the cyclical nature of curriculum design and the steps schools should take to design, evaluate and refine their curriculum.

There are three stages of ongoing curriculum design and refinement, from whole-school design to day-to-day planning. The 3 phases continue to be relevant to schools as they deepen their understanding and refine their curriculum:

1. Developing and refining understanding of the Curriculum for Wales
2. Planning, testing and refining the curriculum
3. Ongoing evaluation and review.

These phases are cyclical, meaning schools should return to these phases over time and in greater depth. Schools should look to continually develop their understanding of the Curriculum for Wales and of their own learners. They should continually plan, test and refine their curriculum and they should continually evaluate and reflect on how their curriculum is working in practice and how it could be improved. Each step should build on learning in the step before and help schools in the following step.

This gives all schools an ongoing approach to reviewing and refining their curriculum and gives secondary schools an approach that they can use to continue realisation of the curriculum over the coming years. As schools develop their curriculum, they will need to return to the questions set out in each phase of this section of guidance to test and refine approaches.

Investing in the first phase of establishing purpose is critical to ensuring school-wide understanding of this Framework and developing a curriculum that fully embeds the principles of the Curriculum for Wales. This is key to ensuring a solid foundation on which to build and refine a curriculum.

The process of curriculum development should empower schools to be confident in the curriculum they design. Practitioners do not need to justify this by producing extra material, such as lengthy documents to evidence planning processes.

Curriculum design is an ongoing process of continuing improvement. Schools need to meet legislative requirements and continue to develop and refine their curriculum in an ongoing iterative process.

The thinking that underpins development of the curriculum will instil confidence in what is taught. Likewise, developing learners that engage in learning throughout their lives is as crucial to supporting realisation of the four purposes as the choices made about what is learned. Schools should not rush or take shortcuts in the design process, for example, by purchasing an ‘off the shelf’ curriculum.

Developing and refining understanding of the Curriculum for Wales

Practitioners should develop an understanding of the Curriculum for Wales model and the principles that underpin it. This involves engaging with and developing an understanding of guidance and research, to refine their vision and curriculum design. All practitioners should reflect on current practice and seek to understand the changing needs of learners in their communities.

What this means for schools

Firstly, leaders and practitioners within schools and settings should continuously develop their understanding of this Framework and their learners including:

• the role and importance of purpose in designing a curriculum– focussing on what learners should learn and why
• how the four purposes drive priorities for school improvement and learner progression
• the curriculum model and approach to assessment set out for all practitioners in this Framework guidance
• the range of experiences, needs, abilities, cultures and values of learners to help establish what the four purposes mean for them and their context
• the conceptual understandings set out within the statements of what matters and how these can be developed through the curriculum to secure learner progression
• the learning and experience from evaluating and reviewing the current curriculum

Developing deep understanding will take time and should be an ongoing process. Leaders and practitioners should ensure their approach to curriculum design:

• is guided by a vision for the curriculum and the learning and teaching that supports it
• recognises learners’ needs and contexts and how these are evolving
• engages learners, families, governors (or management committees in PRUs) alongside others in the school’s wider community to best reflect the school context and needs of learners
• recognises the iterative nature of curriculum design, responding effectively to the changing needs of learners in their communities
• considers knowledge, skills and experiences and the role each plays in enabling learning, as set out in this Framework guidance
• supports the development of research informed pedagogy in pursuit of the school as a learning organisation
• values the role of professional learning in curriculum reform and understands the expectations for this to support all practitioners
• includes two-way engagement with parents, carers and the wider school community
• includes ongoing peer collaboration and engagement, including through local networks and the National Network
• reflects evaluation of rollout to date (both within the school and nationally)

Key questions for schools to develop and refine understanding

• How do we ensure a common understanding of what a purpose-led curriculum is?
• Does leadership throughout the school support the culture and conditions needed for change?
• What are the main barriers to change? How are they being addressed?
• How well does our current curriculum reflect the aims and aspirations of the Curriculum for Wales?
• How well do we ensure that required resources are in place to support curriculum development?
• How have we considered our response to the questions posed in the introduction of ‘Designing your curriculum’?
• What do the four purposes mean for the capacities and dispositions of our learners and in our context? How should these drive our school priorities and practice?
• What is our shared understanding of what success means for our learners?
• How do the statements of what matters inform curriculum design? How do they relate to what our learners need?
• How are we understanding the changing needs of our learners and community? How has our curriculum and practice changed? What is working well? Why?
• What is the purpose of our current learning and teaching? What aspects of our current approach can be built on? Where is the purpose unclear? How is professional learning supporting purposeful learning?
• What have we learned from engagement with local networks and the National Network?
• How are practitioner professional learning needs identified? What is the impact of professional learning on learner progress? How do we know?
• What have we learned from our process of curriculum evaluation and review?

Planning, testing and refining the curriculum

Schools must develop and refine their curriculum and assessment arrangements, in line with the mandatory requirements having regard to the statutory guidance. They should also take forward their priorities to support realising their curriculum in their school improvement plan. Schools should consider the extent to which all practitioners understand the purpose of the learning being designed, how clearly the purpose of that learning is guiding learning and teaching and how this supports a coherent and well sequenced learning experiences for all learners.

A school’s curriculum should build on the vision for curriculum. It should consider what key knowledge, skills and experiences learners should have to progress towards the four purposes. This means that the curriculum should enable learners to:

• increase their effectiveness as learners
• deepen their understanding of and engagement with the ideas and disciplines within the Areas
• develop and apply skills with increasing sophistication
• increase the breadth and depth of their knowledge
• increasingly make connections and transfer their learning to new contexts

What this means for schools

Schools should establish and refine design principles that help:

• ensure high standards and enable suitable and sustainable progress for all learners
• develop, evaluate, and refine approaches to the mandatory requirements of the curriculum

Schools are required by the Direction to develop a shared understanding of progression. This must be developed within the school and between the schools that the majority of learners transition from and to. They must build a common understanding of the expectations for learners’ progression, recognising that the content or contexts of topics or themes are likely to vary. Using the mandatory statements of what matters and principles of progression, practitioners are expected to identify the conceptual understandings that will enable learners within their context to make progress in their learning. Jointly developing, evaluating and refining a shared understanding of progression across a cluster is critical to ensuring expectations are high, challenging and coherent: ensuring learning develops across the 3 to 16 continuum.

Leaders must support and facilitate collaboration in clusters to ensure progression is jointly owned. This is critical to ensure the effective transition of learners along the 3 to 16 continuum. This should provide curriculum coherence across schools and year groups while reflecting each school’s distinct vision. It should support learner progression and involve jointly developing, evaluating and refining processes to support the transition of learners along the whole 3 to 16 continuum.

A shared understanding of progression within a school helps ensure a coherent curriculum across the school (including assessment arrangements to support progression for all learners). Schools should:

• ensure an understanding of how the intended curriculum will support learners to realise the four purposes, providing learners with opportunities to further develop deeper understanding over time and transfer learning to new contexts
• consider approaches to how the statements of what matters, principles of progression, disciplines within Areas, and aspects common to more than one Area are used to inform curriculum and assessment design, as well as how integral skills, cross curricular skills and cross cutting themes are embedded
• consider the role that different disciplines play in supporting learners to realise the four purposes as well as the importance of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches in helping learners develop more rounded, joined up understanding). Asking why learning matters in these disciplines is essential to this
• having developed whole school or setting-wide expectations for progression, consider how knowledge, skills and experiences can be sequenced to best support learners’ progression
• plan learning and teaching that builds on their curriculum

Schools should select a range of approaches to learning that are appropriate to the disciplinary knowledge, skills, and experiences in question alongside the developmental needs of learners. They should build on natural connections between the concepts, knowledge and skills developed in different Areas. This requires a strong understanding of what progression looks like in different component disciplines first, before developing any interdisciplinary approaches within and across Areas. Where approaches combine learning in different disciplines, they should deepen understanding of key concepts and knowledge in conjunction with the development of skills.

It is essential that learning is meaningful and developed in a context authentic to the purpose of the learning. A single approach is very unlikely to be appropriate in all circumstances, for example seeking to link all learning to a single theme or topic.

Schools must also publish a summary of their curriculum.

Curriculum summaries

The summary of legislation section sets out the requirements regarding publishing a curriculum summary.

Curriculum summaries can support schools and settings in their engagement and communication with parents, carers and their wider communities. The published summaries should include:

• information on how practitioners, learners, parents, carers and the wider community are being engaged to inform the curriculum’s ongoing development
• how the curriculum meets the required elements set out in this Framework, starting from the four purposes
• information on how the school is approaching learning progression and its arrangements for assessment
• how the curriculum is being kept under review, including the process for feedback and ongoing refinement

Curriculum summaries should be published before the start of each academic year.

Examples of curriculum summaries have been published in an Education Wales blog.

Key questions for schools to plan, test and refine their curriculum

• To what extent does our curriculum realise our school vision?
• How are we understanding the wellbeing needs of our learners?
• What knowledge, skills and experiences will our learners need to progress in their understanding of the concepts within the statements of what matters? How is this contributing to learners developing the values and dispositions of the four purposes? Why are these important to our learners?
• How does our planning for curriculum design reflect the mandatory requirements of the Curriculum for Wales?
• How are we understanding the principles of progression? How do we expect learners to progress? How can we ensure this is based on understanding of progression in learning and of child development? What should this progression look like over their 3-16 learning journey? How can we collaborate to support this?
• What Areas, statements of what matters and disciplines are learners progressing in through engaging with the planned learning and teaching (knowledge, skills, and experiences)? What meaningful connections can broaden and deepen learners’ understanding?
• How are we embedding the cross-cutting themes in our curriculum?
• How can disciplinary, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches support learners to progress in their learning (knowledge, skills, and experiences)? What approaches might be appropriate at different stages and ages in a learner’s journey?
• How can we consistently set high expectations for learners across the continuum of learning? How do we support all learners to have high expectations for themselves?
• How can we ensure our curriculum is inclusive for all learners?
• How can we ensure our curriculum reflects our priorities? What resources are required to support this?
• How are we utilising our local networks and the National Network to refine our thinking?

Ongoing evaluation and refinement

Within the context of school improvement guidance, schools should establish an ongoing cycle for evaluation and review of their curriculum design as agreed by the head teacher and governing body. Schools are required by the Act to keep their curriculum under review and ensure it continues to comply with legal requirements set out in the Act. Schools should also look to respond to the changing needs of their learners and communities and seek to maintain or improve existing practice to help realise high expectations for all. Schools should reflect on the effectiveness of their curriculum and use that insight to improve.

What this means for schools

Schools should:

• reflect on the curriculum’s impact on learners, including the extent to which the curriculum and its content helps to: engage learners and support them to realise the four purposes; raise standards; close the attainment gap, and support learner progression
• reflect on the design of their curriculum, informed by experience and their developing understanding to inform future refinement of the curriculum and further development as the curriculum is extended to additional year groups
• develop, and use, mechanisms to reflect on the effectiveness of the Curriculum for Wales, pedagogy and assessment arrangements, and use that insight to improve experiences for learners
• review the breadth and depth of the current curriculum and how more connections could be made across learning
• use evaluation and review to inform future thinking in developing and refining understanding. This should help ensure deepening understanding of the four purposes, and what they mean for designing purposeful learning for learners, and use of this to guide curriculum refinement and approaches to assessment and pedagogy
• develop, evaluate and refine whole-school professional enquiry models to inform and help facilitate ongoing curriculum design
• continue to develop, trial and refine transition planning as part of curriculum design to ensure an effective process for the transition of learners along the 3 to 16 continuum
• continue to develop, trial and refine appropriate arrangements that engage parents and carers in two-way communication about the progress of their child
• review their curriculum summary to ensure it continues to reflect their curriculum
• consider what learning would be helpful to share with other schools, local networks and the National Network

As part of this review, schools must review whether the curriculum is continuing to meet the legal requirements of the framework.

Key questions for schools to evaluate and refine their curriculum

• Does our curriculum realise our vision and priorities? How do we ensure our curriculum remains relevant, challenging and inclusive?
• Are we meeting the legal requirements and expectations of this Framework?
• What’s worked well? Why has it worked well? How can we build on and expand those principles?
• How can we continue to raise expectations for all learners?
• How can we ensure our curriculum responds to learners’ changing needs as well as our experience and growing understanding of curriculum design?
• How can we ensure our pedagogy and practice continues to evolve to support the curriculum for all learners?
• How can we continue to develop our curriculum within the context of a learning organisation?
• How are we engaging with parents, carers and the wider school community? How do we know our learners are making progress as a result of our designed curriculum? Are we satisfied with our approach to monitoring that progress? How are we communicating this effectively to parents and carers?
• What has worked well? Why has it worked well? How do we know it has worked well?
• How well do we evaluate the impact of change to identify our next steps for improvement?
• What can be improved? How? Why is that improvement needed?
• How can we ensure learners’ ongoing experiences inform refinement of our curriculum?
• What can we learn from other schools’ experiences? What are the principles of what’s worked well in those schools? How can we build on those principles in our own context?
• How are we securing an ongoing cycle of evaluation to inform a curriculum vision and design that continues to meet the changing needs of our learners and context?
• How are we utilising our local and national networks to inform our cycle of reflection and evaluation?

The curriculum should be continuously evolving, striving to realise the highest expectations, and highest levels of support for wellbeing and responding to learners’ changing needs, supported by evolving and improving learning and teaching. It is not a one-off, once-and-done activity.

Further information and useful links

For detailed guidance on the expectations of the Curriculum Framework and how to use it to design your curriculum.

Statutory guidance

Guidance to help to get started and get engaged with the Curriculum for Wales:

• Introduction to the Curriculum for Wales.
• Specific support around designing a curriculum coherent with the Curriculum for Wales is available in the Designing your curriculum section.
• Guidance on pedagogy coherent with the Curriculum for Wales is in the Enabling learning section.
• Effective iterative curriculum design is supported by effective processes for Self-evaluation and improvement.
• Understanding the role of learner wellbeing is central to supporting effective curriculum and assessment design, and the Framework on embedding a whole-school approach to emotional and mental well-being can help with this aspect.
• Effective curriculum and assessment design is key to enabling learner progression, guidance is available in the Supporting Learner Progression section.
• The introduction to the professional standards for teaching and leadership sets out the requirements and offers guidance on the roles and responsibilities of practitioners.

Non-statutory guidance

• The Summary of Legislation explains the legal requirements of the Curriculum for Wales Framework.
• Creating the culture and conditions for effective curriculum and assessment design can be supported by the Schools as Learning Organisations tool.

Supporting materials to support curriculum design

• Key terms from the Curriculum for Wales, PDF with information from the guidance and hyperlinks to find the references and for further information.
• Navigating the Curriculum for Wales Framework is a hyperlinked document that will support you to navigate the Curriculum for Wales Framework guidance.
• What are schools legally required to do? will support your understanding of the mandatory and statutory duties for headteachers and governing bodies.
• The Assessing learner progress supporting materials provide practical support for effective assessment design coherent with the Curriculum for Wales.
• Developing a shared understanding of progression.
• Principles of progression: supporting self-evaluation and a shared understanding of progression.
• A range of Professional learning resources are also available to support effective curriculum design.
• Supporting learners to navigate key transitions within their education is a requirement of designing a curriculum that allows learners to progress along the 3 to 16 continuum. These Learning with purpose: supporting transition along the 3 to 16 continuum supporting materials are about this transition.

• Shared understanding of progression: supporting cluster working, PDF infographic sets out a model for cluster working to support planning, designing, reviewing, and refining curriculum and assessment.

Timeline

For primary schools and settings, the Curriculum for Wales was introduced in September 2022. Secondary schools that chose to introduce the curriculum to Year 7 early also started in September 2022; with the curriculum being mandatory for Years 7 and 8 from September 2023.

As the Curriculum for Wales is extended year by year until 2026 to 2027, secondary schools should work very closely with their cluster primary schools to understand their experiences, including understanding their experience of learners’ progression, to inform planning for transition. All schools are expected to engage with work within and across their clusters and networks, including through the National Network.