Draft framework for Welsh in English medium education!

Draft framework for Welsh in English medium education: our group response

By Mathias Maurer, Barri Mock and Carys Swain

In February this year, Welsh Government launched a public consultation for a new draft framework for Welsh in English medium education.

We have written a group response and invite those fellow practitioners who share our views to put their name to it.

We hope that as many practitioners as possible will respond.

The framework sets out the experiences, knowledge and skills which children and young people in English medium schools, settings and streams need to progress in Welsh. It is non-statutory.

• There are two parts to the consultation:
•  Feedback on the framework itself
• Additional supporting materials, resources and professional learning needed alongside the framework

Apart from the publicly available consultation response form, there will be a series of on-line consultation workshops in March and April to capture more in-depth views on the draft guidance. All stakeholders are invited to participate in these workshops.

The consultation closes on 13^th of May.

We welcome the publication of the draft framework for consultation.

By inviting stakeholders to feed back and join consultation workshops, Welsh Government have shown a genuine commitment to engage with the profession and to tackle the challenges the EM sector faces together with the professionals in the classroom. Diolch!

As members of an established cross-phase PLN,  we feel it is our professional duty to respond to the governments’ offer to engage and collaborate. For this reason, we spent several weeks analysing the draft framework, and after a period of  professional conversations and debates, we have now formulated our group response.

We outline what we believe to be the strengths and the weaknesses of the framework, and what we suggest would be the most effective way to support its implementation.

Our response is honest, detailed and specific, but above all it is written in a constructive spirit of collaboration. It is our initial contribution to supporting the government in the important and challenging task of improving outcomes in the EM sector.

Over the past few weeks, we have held many conversations with colleagues from across the EM sector. Based on these, we believe that a significant number of EM colleagues might share the views we have expressed in our response. For this reason, we  have decided to make our response public before submitting it.

We invite you to reflect on the arguments we put forward, and, should you share our views, to put your name to the document.

We hope that as many practitioners as possible will respond.

This will help us and Welsh Government to gain a better understanding of how many colleagues share our views regarding how to best support the implementation of the framework.

To read our response, please follow this link. To add your name to the group submission of the response, please use this Form. You will be given the choice of submitting your name publicly or privately.

To read more about the consultation process  and our group response, please read on:

The framework is part of an initiative to support the EM sector, and as such, it is highly welcome by many stakeholders, not just teachers in the EM sector.

Consider the Language Commissioner’s 2020-21 Annual Report for example:

“He looks forward to the publication of the Welsh language framework to support English-medium schools and teachers so that they can contribute fully to the Welsh Government's target that 70 per cent of 15-year-olds will be able to speak Welsh by 2050.”

By referring to Cymraeg 2050, the Language Commissioner emphasises the ultimate purpose of the draft framework:

To support EM practitioners so the sector can meet its own target as part of the EM/WM combined 70% of pupils who report that they can speak Welsh when they leave school by 2050.

The EM contribution to this target requires half of all pupils leaving EM schools by 2050 to report as Welsh speaking.

Mathias Maurer has written in detail about the implications of the 2050 target for the EM sector here, and about the main obstacles for the EM primary sector here.

In order to evaluate the framework, we should therefore ask ourselves the following question:

How effective is the framework in supporting EM practitioners to improve the outcomes in the EM sector so that the 2050 target can be met?

As a group, we have undertaken two steps in response to the consultation:

1.    Together with highly experienced colleagues from the EM  secondary sector, Further Education and Higher Education, we have written a detailed, constructive group response to the framework itself, using the official consultation response form.
2. After consultation with Miller research who organise the consultation workshops on behalf of Welsh Government, we have submitted a list of EM colleagues who would be interested in forming a focus group as part of the consultation process.

Between us, we have several current and former secondary EM Heads of Departments, several highly experienced FE and HE practitioners, several primary and secondary Welsh Sabbatical alumni whose work since completing the course has been highly influential and inspiring across the EM sector, and several experienced primary subject leads.

As a group, we have experience in designing and delivering professional learning in all phases, from school and cluster level all the way to consortium level, further education and higher education.

Our group feedback to the draft framework

Welsh Government is giving the option to submit the consultation response form as a group.

After careful consultation with the colleagues in our PLN, we  have decided to publish our written feedback to the draft framework first before submitting it. This is so that stakeholders who agree with the points we make can add their names to the submission.

Our response is detailed and specific. Here are a few excerpts:

“We would like to express our gratitude that the challenge for the EM sector to implement Welsh in Curriculum for Wales has been recognised.”

“In our view, the draft framework is a first step in the process of developing the coherent combination of documentation, resources and professional learning we require to achieve the improvements we aspire to. “

“We have come to the conclusion that significant further support is required. In particular, the framework in its current form does not take into account the vast variation in Welsh language proficiency, pedagogical knowledge and curriculum planning expertise among EM primary teachers.”

“The framework on its own is not suitable as a working document for the majority of EM primary teachers for the following reasons: 

• is not specific enough. Non-specialists cannot translate the prose statements into meaningful, coherent curriculum content.
• is not coherent enough. There are numerous instances of sequential and hierarchical incoherence.
• is too large. 107 statements for PS3 alone for example are beyond what is helpful for most teachers to get a meaningful understanding of the progression it attempts to outline. 

All of these issues are conceptual and therefore difficult to solve by making isolated, discrete changes.”

“The framework can however act as a useful support tool for the development of a core language progression and a core curriculum. This is specialist work that will require careful planning and implementation.

It is absolutely vital that this work is led by EM specialists with teaching experience, who are familiar with the challenges the sector faces. They are best placed to have a good understanding of the kind of support they themselves and their non-specialist colleagues will benefit from most. “

“We have four key recommendations that we believe offer the best bets to support a successful implementation of the framework:

1. shared core language progression as basis for all further support. The progression needs to be sequentially and hierarchically coherent and must span all phases. 
2.      A shared core curriculum based on this language progression.
3.      High quality, sequenced teaching resources to support the delivery of this core curriculum.

4.   specific professional learning that is tailored to the core language progression, to the core curriculum and to the pedagogic principles that inform the supporting resources.”

To finish, we’d like to emphasise that the gratitude we express to Welsh Government for taking initial steps to support the EM sector is heartfelt and genuine. We are delighted about being consulted and the opportunity to advise on supporting materials, resources and professional learning.

Cymraeg 2050 can only succeed if all sectors are sufficiently supported to achieve their individual targets. This support needs to be specific to each sector’s challenges and obstacles.

We believe that, as a group, we have the combined experience and knowledge to make a serious contribution towards making Cymraeg 2050 a success in the EM sector.

We’d be delighted if our feedback and our offer to collaborate with WG could facilitate the implementation of a realistic and specific strategy to develop the kind of support the new framework requires, so that Welsh in the EM sector can become the success story we all want it to be.