Successful Futures for all

WISERD Director, Professor Sally Power, has been elected to sit on the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Council. BERA is a membership association and learned society committed to advancing research quality, building research capacity and fostering research engagement. They aim to inform the development of policy and practice by promoting the best quality evidence produced…

Wales is in the process of undertaking a major overhaul of its national curriculum. Until recently, the curriculum largely resembled that put in place by the 1988 Education Reform Act. The new Curriculum for Wales, based on the Successful futures for all review by Graham Donaldson (2015), entails a radical move away from the traditional…

This week, Dr Nigel Newton presented findings from our ‘Successful Futures for All’ project to members of the Children, Young People and Education Committee of the National Assembly for Wales. The project explores the way the new curriculum is being developed in Pioneer Schools and the potential impact on children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Curriculum for…

Following on from the previous Eye On Wales programme last month, when Dr Nigel Newton was involved in a discussion which introduced the new education system, Dr Newton now discusses whether or not the new curriculum will help to close the attainment gap. Almost two-thirds of teachers at schools that have trialled Wales’ new curriculum feel it will…

Dr Nigel Newton comments on Wales’ new curriculum in a BBC news article.

Wales’ education system is about to change. Eye On Wales finds out what’s involved and Dr Nigel Newton takes part in the discussion which introduces the new system (6:27).

Dr Nigel Newton writes about new research which suggests the new curriculum in Wales, although more holistic, may mean students miss out on subject knowledge.            

Since 2015, ‘pioneer’ schools across Wales have been contributing to the development of a new national curriculum based on Professor Graham Donaldson’s (2015) report, Successful Futures. As part of a Welsh government-funded research project being conducted through the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD),*  over 30 teachers involved in this…

    WISERD Co-Director, Professor Chris Taylor and Dr Nigel Newton presented at an education event sponsored by WISERD and the Learned Society of Wales this week, where a new report by the Institute of Welsh Affairs on implications of curriculum reform was launched. Following a review undertaken by Professor Graham Donaldson in 2015, the…

Wales is in the process of developing a curriculum that is designed to transform the nature of teaching and learning in primary and secondary schools. The ‘Curriculum for wales’ – sometimes referred to simply as ‘Donaldson’ after the person who developed the proposals – is based on ‘ a brand new way of developing a…