Written question WQ86059

Supporting learners to acquire knowledge continues to be a key element of education in Wales. The Curriculum for Wales aims to enthuse children and young people about learning in ways that develop their discipline-based knowledge, helping them to work towards being ambitious and capable, creative and enterprising, ethical and informed, and healthy and confident.

The curriculum’s mandatory statements of what matters set out the concepts that must be taught as part of a broad and balanced curricula for learners. The principles of progression, which are also mandatory, include increasing sophistication of knowledge as a critical way in which learners should progress. Drawing upon this national structure and making effective links between them, schools are required to support learners to develop a coherent and robust base of knowledge. This encourages learners to use and apply this knowledge more effectively, building an increasingly sophisticated understanding of concepts within and between disciplines. This is considerably more challenging than covering a list of arbitrary facts with little opportunity to make connections between them.

Broadening and deepening knowledge in this way is a key principle of the new curriculum, fundamental to learners’ progression across all learning. However, knowledge acquisition is not the sole element of an effective education.

The Curriculum for Wales gives learners opportunities to develop the skills they need to make connections between different parts of their learning and apply their knowledge in different, unfamiliar, and challenging contexts. This is crucial to preparing young people for adult life.

Experiences that enhance and enrich their education and contribute to a joy of learning are also fundamental to a rounded education. This holistic approach to developing knowledge, skills, and positive behaviours and dispositions is helping our young people to become ambitious, happy and effective individuals.

This approach to knowledge in the Curriculum for Wales will improve learners’ overall understanding of concepts and disciplines, which should prove advantageous for further learning or the world of work both inside and outside Wales. New qualifications that match the scale and ambition of our new curriculum are in development and will ensure learners in Wales are in the best possible position to move onto their next steps at the end of secondary education.

In order to understand learners’ progress and attainment nationally, the Welsh Government is also developing a national monitoring programme. National monitoring will allow us to understand learners’ progress and attainment over time in different areas, including how they are developing their knowledge and understanding in and between elements of the curriculum, and target support to meet any challenges that arise.