Written question WQ89301

I am committed to raising aspirations and supporting the ambitions of all our learners. The new Curriculum for Wales is at the heart of our ambitions for improving the education system in Wales, and I very much welcome the overriding message from Estyn that increasingly schools and settings are successfully embracing the Curriculum for Wales. I am particularly encouraged that more and more schools are co-operating well with others in local clusters, and further afield, to share effective practice in teaching and learning and address the requirements of curriculum and ALN reform.

The National Professional Learning Entitlement plays a key role in our journey to ensuring that all practitioners across the whole of Wales have access to consistent and high-quality professional learning throughout their career to enable them to deliver high quality teaching and learning. We have agreed an additional national professional learning inset day for three academic years until August 2025. Alongside the annual £12 million professional learning grant to schools, this contributes to the time and space practitioners need to develop their practice.

Estyn has helpfully set out some further areas where things are working well and some aspects to focus on. These align with our understanding of how this significant change programme is moving forward – and how schools and settings should be supported this year. Our aim is to develop a self-improving culture which requires all partners in the education system to support each other to enable improvement.