Curriculum for Wales Formative Evaluation

The Welsh Government seeks to contract for a formative evaluation of the curriculum for Wales which will provide us with the broad qualitative and quantitative picture of how the reforms are working, how practice is changing and how these changes are being experienced by practitioners, learners and their families. Each year it will include a limited number deep dive case studies to give us a more detailed understanding of specific priority curriculum elements (e.g. Areas Of Learning and Experience, cross-curricular skills, mandatory cross curricular elements); and specific theory of change activities / outcomes (e.g. initial teacher education, professional learning, leadership).

The evaluation will specifically aim to answer key research questions, including:

To what extent are the aspirations of the Curriculum for Wales (CfW) framework being realised?

What are the trends in progress towards CfW aspirations?

To what extent is the human capital and social capital (as described in the Theory of Change, and conditions in settings supporting professional practice conducive to CfW aspirations?

To what extent is activity across the system supporting the development of human capital, social capital and conditions in settings in ways that support CfW aspirations to be realised over time?

How is the work of those across the education system supporting the realisation of CfW aspirations?

To what extent does curriculum realisation vary for schools, settings and practitioners?

How are curriculum implementation efforts helping practitioners to support learners with ALN and those experiencing different types of disadvantage and/or vulnerability?

How are learners with ALN and those experiencing different types of disadvantage and/or vulnerability experiencing the curriculum and why?

Additionally, the ‘deep dives’ will each have their own specific focus, questions and populations, and these will be outlined in the Invitation to Tender.

To ensure we get a nuanced understanding of experiences of curriculum implementation we expect curriculum / pedagogy expertise will be represented within the research team. It must also include expertise in conducting research with learners experiencing different types of disadvantage and/or vulnerability, including Additional Learning Needs. The ability to conduct the work within a Welsh/English/ Bilingual environment is essential. Given the breadth of experience required and the scale of the evaluation it is unlikely that one organisation will be able to fulfil the contract and a consortia approach will be required. All consortia members must demonstrate that they meet the requirements of the Cyber Essentials Scheme.

Engaging with schools and individuals across the full range of experiences and challenges relating to curriculum implementation will be very important. We recognise the burden on schools and practitioners in particular. The research should seek to allow those with the least capacity to engage with the evaluation. This will be challenging and we expect bids to explicitly address how the risk of a self-selecting sample providing a skewed perspective will be mitigated.

An additional challenge in the research will be ensuring a representative sample of parents and learners is achieved. This will be needed at a population level but we will also need boosted samples for some groups to understand the extent to which the curriculum is working for all learners, irrespective of their background or needs. Bids will need to provide a detailed approach to achieving these samples and sub-samples. At this stage our thinking is that, for the quantitative elements of the research at least, we should not rely on schools to facilitate research with parents and learners due to burden this will place on schools and because of the risk that findings may be skewed towards experiences of learners attending schools which have the greatest capacity to engage with the research.

Engaging with the range of available and emerging evidence around curriculum implementation and other key research in relation to Welsh education reforms, for example, the Evaluation of Additional Learning Needs System will be crucial. We also expect that the Supplier will work collaboratively as required with suppliers of other elements of the Curriculum for Wales evaluation programme, in particular the National Sample Based Monitoring study which is described in the Curriculum for Wales Evaluation Plan, and the supplier of the ALN evaluation study. This is to ensure that our evidence gathering is aligned and so we have a coherent understanding of education reforms more widely. Additional information: The Scoping study for the evaluation of the curriculum and assessment reforms in Wales: final report published in July 2022 developed recommendations for a robust monitoring and evaluation programme.

A Curriculum for Wales (CfW) Evaluation Plan was published on 3 July 2023. It describes the shape and purpose of the formative evaluation in the context of the overall evaluation programme.