Consultation display
Stakeholder event on ‘The teaching of Welsh history, culture and heritage in schools’
- This consultation has completed. It ran from Thursday, 21 February 2019 to Thursday, 21 February 2019
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Purpose of the consultation
The Culture, Welsh Language and
Communications Committee held a stakeholder event to discuss ‘the teaching
of Welsh history, culture and heritage in schools’ at the National Waterfront
Museum, Swansea.
Background
The
Committee ran a public poll during summer 2018, inviting members of the public
to select from a list of potential inquiry topics. Nearly 2,500 people
participated in the poll, with 44% voting for ‘Teaching of Welsh history,
culture and heritage in schools’.
Many
of the proponents of the Committee undertaking this inquiry argued that the
history of Wales is not taught from a Welsh perspective and there is not enough
of it in the curriculum .
However,
there was an alternative view that there is already considerable coverage of it
within the current GCSE and AS/A level specifications and opportunities to
study it at previous stages of schooling. For instance, the Welsh Government’s
Cabinet Secretary for Education, Kirsty Williams AM, has said ‘in the new
A-level, AS-level and the new history GCSE [there] is a much greater emphasis
on the need to teach children aspects of Welsh history’.
Purpose of the session
The
Committee held a one-day stakeholder event to gather views.
Discussion points
The Committee focused on the following
discussion points:
- To what extent the current
curriculum and GCSE and A/AS level History specifications, adequately ensure that a sufficient amount of
history taught in schools is Welsh history and/or from a Welsh perspective.
- Whether the new Curriculum
for Wales, under development following the Donaldson Review, will enhance or
constrain opportunities for Welsh history to be taught and/or from a Welsh
perspective.
- How to strike the right
balance between flexibility and discretion for education professionals to
deliver a local curriculum suitable to their particular schools and ensuring
consistency and sufficient coverage of Welsh history and the Welsh perspective
in what is taught.
- The extent to which the
wider Welsh public are aware of, and have opportunities to learn about, the
history, culture and heritage of their nation.
Contact details
Should you wish to speak to someone regarding this consultation, please use the below contact details:
Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee
Welsh Parliament
Cardiff Bay
Cardiff
CF99 1SN
Email: Contact@senedd.wales
Telephone: 0300 200 6565