Written question WQ87849

One of the important aspects of the Curriculum for Wales is that it puts learning and teaching about politics and citizenship at its heart. Every child will have opportunities throughout their school career to become active citizens, and democracy education is key to this. We are continuing to work closely with a range of key partners, including Electoral Commission Wales, to help equip all schools to do this.

Citizenship, and supporting learners to exercise their democratic rights and make political decisions, is a mandatory expectation for all learners in the Curriculum for Wales. This means that all children will develop “an understanding of how systems of government operate”.

We have developed a wide range of bilingual resources on democracy education – many of these resources are already available on the Hwb platform, and a further tranche will be added very shortly. These include:

• ‘Voice2Vote’ resources, to educate young people on the importance of voting;

• Welsh Baccalaureate resource on political awareness, developed by WJEC, for the Global Citizenship Challenge;

• professional learning resources, developed in partnership with the Association of Citizenship Teaching; and

• case studies to support schools to consider Global Citizenship learning in the Curriculum for Wales.

The Politics Project was successful in its recent application to the Welsh Government’s Democratic Engagement Grant scheme, and will be delivering 160 engagements between young people and their local politicians through Dialogue sessions, Leaders Live sessions and Hustings, helping to engage with 4,000 young people to gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to engage in democracy in Wales.