Resources and supporting materials guide

About this guide

This guide is for anyone involved in the production of resources that seek to support the Curriculum for Wales. The term ‘resources’ is used in this guide to reference a wide range of supporting materials on curriculum design, learning and teaching.

It sets out 7 key principles aimed at helping you to produce high-quality education resources that are relevant in Wales. Each principle is supported by guidance on things to consider, as well as things to avoid in the development of resources.

In time, a quality assurance framework for the commissioning, development and approval of fit for purpose resources will be established by Adnodd.

About Adnodd

Adnodd, Wales’ bilingual educational resources company, has been established to give easy access for learners and practitioners to high-quality and bilingual resources that will enrich their experience of the Curriculum for Wales. Although still in its start-up phase, the team at Adnodd are working at becoming fully operational by the end of 2024.

Adnodd’s aim is to work collaboratively with practitioners and a wide range of other stakeholders, providing a strategic oversight of the learning and teaching resources available to support learners aged 3 to 19, ensuring that resources are relevant, timely and are made available at the same time in both Welsh and English. Adnodd will look at facilitating collaboration across partners and sectors to make the best use of available funds, expertise, knowledge and skills, and to enable innovation. Another key part of Adnodd's role will be to promote awareness and use of resources, increasing the benefit and value for learners and practitioners.

About the Curriculum for Wales

The Curriculum for Wales is a purpose-led curriculum. A school or setting’s curriculum is everything a learner experiences in pursuit of the four purposes of the curriculum. It is not simply what is taught, but how and why it is taught. The statutory national framework guidance includes the curriculum requirements set out in legislation, as well as supporting guidance.

If you have any queries on the Curriculum for Wales, please contact curriculumforwales@gov.wales.

Professional learning

The professional learning area on Hwb has been organised to help practitioners find the right resources to meet their professional learning needs, whatever those needs may be. Within the area, practitioners will find a wide breadth of training, self-guided learning, case studies, guidance and research on all aspects of professional learning. Professional learning resources cover 4 broad areas:

curriculum, pedagogy and assessment
leadership and governance
well-being, equity and inclusion
developing as a professional

Practitioners can filter the resources within these categories or search for resources using keywords.

Developing educational resources

The purpose of resources is to support practitioners’ curriculum design and pedagogical approaches to enhance the quality of learning and teaching. For both curriculum design and pedagogy, resources can support schools and settings to:

ensure all learning is purposeful and supports the four purposes
ensure all learning enables learners to progress towards the four purposes
support an understanding of the progress learners make

Within the Curriculum for Wales, schools are curriculum designers. The role of resources is to support this process, rather than to provide practitioners with products to adopt. Schools and settings have the flexibility to design resources that meet the needs of their learners.

You should consider the following 7 principles when developing new resources or adapting existing ones. This is particularly important if you want to make them available nationally through Hwb.

1. Be consistent with the principles of the Curriculum for Wales

The four purposes of the curriculum are the starting point and aspiration for all learners. You need to be clear how a resource helps learners to:

realise the four purposes
progress in their learning along the 3 to 16 continuum as set out in the curriculum framework

Practitioners need your support to understand how your resource helps that process as part of their development of learning and teaching.

What to consider

Use the four purposes as the starting point and aspiration for all learners. Consider whether the resource helps learners to realise the capacities and dispositions within the four purposes.
Your resource should support learners to progress along the 3 to 16 continuum in relation to specific statements of what matters, through experiences, knowledge and skills.
Support practitioners by making relevant reference to mandatory aspects of the Curriculum for Wales.
Reflect cross-curricular skills and cross-cutting themes.
Ensure the learning resulting from your resource can be assessed by the practitioner.
Resources aimed at practitioners should meet the requirements of the 'Continuing the journey' section of curriculum guidance.

What to avoid

Representing the four purposes as specific learning objectives or creating and developing content directly from the four purposes.
Superficial reference to the four purposes that add no value.
Isolated activities that don’t relate to prior learning or a learner’s next steps. Not providing practitioners with a sense of how it moves learners forward in their development.
Not considering the learning in your resource in the context of the mandatory elements of the curriculum.
Developing materials focused on 1 task or learning objective or encouraging practitioners to ‘tick off’ the curriculum guidance framework.
Assessment should not be separated from learning and teaching.

2. Have a clear learning rationale (the why, not just the what)

It is essential that resources have clear aims for learning based on the needs and aspirations of learners. In your teacher guide, your resource should be underpinned by explanations of:

the understanding that the resource is looking to develop and/or deepen in learners that can be transferred to new and unfamiliar contexts
what knowledge, skills and experiences are included and what indicators of progression could look like for these
why the learning intentions are important and how they contribute to the overall purpose of the learning in a given aspect of the Curriculum for Wales
how the resource supports learner development

What to consider

Your resource should develop learners’ experiences, knowledge and skills to support their progress in the ways described in the principles of progression.
You should consider (and explain for practitioners) how your resources will support learners to develop over time through a practitioner guide that outlines the purpose of the resource, with suggestions on how to use it.
Developing (over time) a wider range of resources that support learning progression across the 3 to 16 continuum to better reflect differing learning needs, aptitudes, dispositions and abilities.
You should provide a clear sense of why the resource matters and how it contributes to broader learning.

What to avoid

Resources focused on an activity or task that have no clear or significant knowledge or skills related to learner development.
Long complicated learning aims. Keep it concise.
Producing one-off activity-based resources aimed at particular year groups, with no plans to build from that.

3. Support practitioners to design and develop learning

Practitioners in schools and settings are best equipped to make decisions on how they design, plan or organise learning to meet the specific needs of their learners. This reflects the principle of subsidiarity that continues to guide the Curriculum for Wales’ development.

What to consider

Your resource should support flexibility for schools and settings in their curriculum design and planning within their own context.
Your resources should support practitioners to understand and develop learning.
Build on the designing your curriculum sections of curriculum guidance by suggesting topics, themes, possible activities, approaches and learning for an aspect of the curriculum. This could discuss why these could be effective and include information on what has not worked in trialling the resource with practitioners and learners.

What to avoid

Creating a detailed curriculum, scheme of work, prescriptive lesson plans or modules designed to be used off the shelf.
Timing activities or ordering use of materials in the classroom.
Teacher guidance weighted towards undertaking activities or tasks, at the expense of options to develop learning set out in the curriculum framework.
Prescriptive teacher guides that tell teachers how to teach using the resources.

4. Support appropriate and research-informed approaches to learning and teaching in line with the Curriculum for Wales

Resources should help practitioners to make informed judgements on how they apply materials in their teaching. Where there is research that suggests particular approaches to teaching are more effective, your resource should highlight those to help practitioners in their approaches to learning and teaching. This will ensure that they are coherent with a purpose-led curriculum. This is also important to support practitioner understanding of the potential impact of a learning aim.

What to consider

How further reading, thinking and evidence could help support the use of your resource.
Consider whether the 12 pedagogical principles can be reflected to support schools and settings in their use of your resource, their key elements and likely impacts, and how and why the concept or topic is taught.
Use illustrative examples and examples of practice to stimulate thinking and critical engagement.

What to avoid

Being overly specific on how a lesson must be taught.
Providing advice that is incoherent with the principles of the Curriculum for Wales.

5. Involve a process of co-construction

Co-construction brings together the expertise of developers, experts and users to create resources of higher quality. The best way to do this is to engage with:

current practitioners working with the Curriculum for Wales
wider subject-related stakeholders and experts
community organisations
learners

What to consider

Co-construct your resource with practitioners currently working with the Curriculum for Wales.
Collaborate with a range of practitioners from the start of the development process to ensure your resource meets user needs, and includes an appropriate level of rigour and suggestions for further development.

What to avoid

Resource development without direct practitioner input, which would also prevent testing drafts in learning settings before finalisation.
Demonstrating activities or tasks without suitable challenge or stretch.

6. Plan and develop Welsh- and English-medium resources

Your resource must be developed in both Welsh and English. Both languages must be of equal quality, use the correct terminology and be available at the same time. This includes videos, audio clips and all other elements of the material. To meet Welsh language standards, we can’t publish materials that treat the Welsh language less favourably than the English language.

What to consider

The availability of resources should reflect the needs of schools and settings in all language categories, to ensure timely access to high-quality and diverse resources.
Use of Welsh and English terminology that clearly aligns with the Curriculum for Wales framework guidance.
You should resolve any potential issues at the outset to ensure that Hwb is able to accept and publish your materials.

What to avoid

Not planning from the outset for this fundamental requirement of your resource development.
Commissioning translations at the end of resource development without reference to correct terminology available on Hwb and BydTermCymru.

The production of fully bilingual materials may present some challenges, such as producing videos. Please seek advice, if needed, from Safonau Standards at Safonau.Standards@llyw.cymru. Early dialogue with the Welsh Government will help ensure a better end product in both languages.

7. Be accessible to all learners and practitioners

Your resource must follow accessibility requirements and guidance. Read our creating accessible documents guide for more information.

What to consider

A guide to create accessible digital communications
Adobe’s workflow for creating accessible PDFs
Welsh language standards and Cymraeg Clir
Plain English guidance
British Deaf Association
National Deaf Children’s Society

What to avoid

Submitting resources for publication on Hwb without accessibility checks.

Criteria for Hwb resources

In addition to aligning with the 7 principles set out above, all resources on Hwb must also meet the following criteria.

Free to use and access

All resources should be free to use and access and not require a login. Where possible, avoid linking to websites within your resource that require a further login or request for details. The exception is linking to resources or tools that are behind the Hwb login.

Non-commercial

All resources must be non-commercial in nature and cannot promote any service or organisation where there is any commercial activity. A user should not have to purchase an app or software to access the resource.

Accessible

All resources published on Hwb must be accessible. Read our creating accessible documents guide for more information.

Find out more about creating accessible videos on Hwb.

Copyright for text

Wherever possible you should create and use your own text in a resource for Hwb. The only permissible use of an original text in a resource is for the purpose of quotation. This needs to be accompanied by an appropriate citation and must be limited to what is necessary for the purpose of illustrating the point made. You must not scan textbooks, newspapers, magazines or any other printed material and use it in a resource for Hwb, even small extracts from such publications. Copying by hand or typing out the text is still an infringement of copyright.

Copyright for images

Photographs and illustrations, including those found on search engines such as Google Images and Bing Images, are protected by copyright and cannot be used without the permission of the owner.

Some websites, such as Wikimedia Commons, host images for reuse under Creative Commons licenses. Some are ‘public domain’ which are free to use but be aware that some are subject to ‘attribution’ licenses which require you to credit the copyright owner.

Use sites such as Pixabay, Pexels and Unsplash which have a number of copyright-free and attribution-free images available to download. Search for photographs on Flickr under the filter ‘No known copyright restrictions’.

Copyright for audio and video

Audio and video clips are protected by copyright and as such should not be used in a resource unless you have created them yourself or have the express permission of the creator. Buying a CD, DVD, Blu-ray or digital file does not give you the right to use the content without restriction. You are only buying the physical media and the right to listen to the music or watch the film for personal use. As with images, just because a clip is already online doesn’t mean it’s in the public domain and therefore free to use.

Instead of embedding an online video in your resource, link to the clip on YouTube. Beware of using audio clips such as sound effects that you have ‘bought’ online as the licence terms may be limited to personal use only.

For more information on copyright, refer to the Copyright Licensing Agency or the Intellectual Property Office.

Secure

If the resource is not hosted on Hwb, the website must be HTTPS secure.

Hosting or signposting

We can host resources on Hwb or we can signpost by linking to a webpage or online file from the resource card.

Resources should only ever be hosted in one place. If the resources are already hosted on your website then we would prefer to provide links directly to them from Hwb, such as to BBC Bitesize. An exception would be if the materials are hosted behind a login but you want to make them publicly available on Hwb.

If your resources are not already hosted anywhere then they can be hosted on Hwb. If you choose this option, you will need to ensure that any links to the resources on your website direct users to where they are hosted on Hwb. Meic Cymru have taken this approach. This should also be considered if there are issues with an existing website such as limited lifespan, dependency on funding or lack of updates.

Quality assurance and content design

Resources created by external organisations

You will need to have quality assurance processes in place before sending the materials to Hwb.

You may be asked the following questions by a member of the Hwb digital content team when it comes to reviewing the documents.

Who wrote the content? Are they a subject specialist?
Has the content been fact-checked by more than one person?
Has the content been copy-edited by someone other than the author?
How was the Welsh version created? Did it go to a professional translator?
When was the resource written and created?
Has the correct housestyle been applied when writing the materials? For materials produced for the Welsh Government, please refer to the GOV.WALES style guide.
Have all copyrighted images, videos, music and any other materials been cleared for inclusion? For resources created for or by the Welsh Government has the model release form been completed to obtain permission?
Do the materials take account of issues of representation (such as English and Welsh examples of learners’ work, mix of genders, ethnic minorities) and any accessibility considerations?

Resources commissioned by the Welsh Government via third parties

If the resources have been commissioned, the Hwb digital content team will then be a part of the development process once the contract has been awarded. The team will advise on:

how to improve the format, structure, design and language to make it as simple as possible for users
the correct housestyle to be applied when writing the materials
approved translators who can be commissioned to supply Welsh versions
materials commissioned for inclusion in the resources, for example images, videos or music, and the correct permissions for their use that must be obtained from any participants (utilising the Welsh Government model release form)
the use of extant copyrighted materials in the resources and the proper permissions that must be obtained from copyright holders for their inclusion
issues of representation (such as English and Welsh examples of learner work) and any accessibility considerations

Promoting and evaluating your resources

You should promote your resource and let practitioners know how to find it.

Evaluate and review your resource over time (at least yearly is suggested) to ensure it remains fit for purpose.

Hwb resource upload form

If your resource complies with our criteria, please complete our Hwb resource upload form.

If you’d like to discuss your resources before you submit the form please contact educationcontent@gov.wales.