This Estyn thematic report reviews and evaluates the impact of the support and professional learning provided by regional consortia and local authorities to schools and PRUs to support the national delivery of the Curriculum for Wales.
It found that the four regional consortia supported the national development phase of the Curriculum for Wales well. This included supporting the recruitment process of pioneer schools and allocating a substantial number of their officers to support the design process. Being involved in this work helped to develop officers’ knowledge of curriculum design to be able to support schools.
The regional consortia generally supported pioneer schools well to engage in the national development phase. In addition, they provided suitable opportunities for pioneer schools to share updates with those schools who were not in the pioneer schools’ network.
Schools that were not in the pioneer schools’ network do not feel that there were sufficient opportunities to learn about the work of pioneer schools and develop their understanding of the national design process. A majority of the non-pioneer network schools said that they were not kept informed of national developments regularly enough. Throughout the design process the national expectations of pioneer schools evolved. These involved additional requirements that often affected their capacity to work with schools outside of the pioneer network.
Overall, the support to improve the quality of teaching is too variable. This is because, too often, support for teaching does not identify or target the specific aspects of teaching that require improvement within the context of a particular school. In addition, the support for subject and phase specific approaches to teaching has decreased overtime.