Next Steps - The Framework for Welsh in English-medium Education

 

Guest Post - Mathias Maurer

Today, we submitted our group response to the open consultation on the draft framework for Welsh in English-medium education. Together with Barri Mock and Carys Swain, I had written and published the group response a few weeks ago, and by today we had gathered 52 supporters from across the education sector who were happy to add their names to the document. 

I also submitted a supporting paper titled ‘Next Steps’.  You can find ‘Next Steps’ below this introduction. In the hope of starting a constructive conversation about how to best follow up the consultation process, I sent  ‘First Steps’ to the following major stakeholders, with an invitation to meet and discuss the issues raised in the paper:

Jeremy Miles MS, Minister for Education and Welsh Language

Jeremy Evas, Head of Cymraeg 2050

Bethan Webb, Deputy Director, Welsh Language Division

Awen Penri, Head of the Welsh In Education Development Branch

Jane Hutt MS, Minister for Social Justice (my local MS)

I sincerely hope for an opportunity to talk to each of the above and explain in more detail the views and suggestions expressed in our group response, and in ‘Next Steps’.

 Next Steps

A statement to accompany the group response to the open consultation on the draft framework for Welsh in English-medium education.

By Mathias Maurer

Cymraeg 2050 and Welsh in English-medium education: the challenge

It is widely acknowledged that Welsh-medium education is an essential pillar of the Cymraeg 2050 one million speakers strategy: in the Cymraeg 2050 document, Welsh-medium immersion education is explicitly mentioned as the “principal method for ensuring that children can develop their Welsh language skills, and for creating new speakers.”

Far less talked about is the fact that Cymraeg 2050 also provides an ambitious target for English-medium education:

To reach a million speakers, we need to transform how we teach Welsh to learners in all other schools [non-Welsh medium schools], in order that at least half of those learners report by 2050 that they can speak Welsh by the time they leave school. (Welsh Government, 2017)

To re-phrase: It is the responsibility of the English-medium and bilingual sectors that, by 2050, half of all English-medium and bilingual education pupils describe themselves as Welsh speakers by the time they complete their GCSE.

This means that from the total of 70% Welsh speakers we want to leave education by 2050 in total, nearly half will have to come from the English-medium sector. This is the challenge.

In this paper, I will take a closer look at the current situation of Welsh in the English medium sector. In particular, I will comment on the following:

The consultation process for the new draft framework for Welsh in English-medium education that was been launched in February by Welsh Government.

The options available to Welsh Government once the consultation closes.

The consequences the government’s decisions might have for the future of Welsh in English-medium education.

 

A new framework for Welsh in English-medium education

On 14th February this year, Welsh Government launched an open consultation on a draft framework for Welsh in English medium education, and on additional supporting materials, resources and professional learning needed alongside the framework. The consultation will close on 13^th May.

I am in no doubt that the way in which Welsh Government handles the feedback from the consultation responses will have far-reaching consequences for the future of Welsh in English medium education, and, ultimately, for our nation’s effort to have one million Welsh speakers by the year 2050.

Please find in a separate document the professional group response to the draft framework that I recently published together with Barri Mock and Carys Swain, experts from the secondary and further education sectors. We invited stakeholders to put their name to it, and 52 colleagues have expressed their support: 28 English-medium primary teachers, 13 English-medium secondary teachers, 2 teachers from bilingual schools, 2 from English-medium all-through schools, 3 tutors from further education colleges, 3 from higher education institutions, and one independent commentator. Several Deputy Headteachers and Heads of Department are among the signees.

The following statement rephrases a central message of our professional group response:

The framework on its own, in its current form, will have no discernible effect in the English-medium primary sector unless a carefully designed support structure – core progression, core curriculum, core resources and professional learning specific to all of these – is put in place. Most EM primary teachers will have neither the time nor the skills required to translate the framework into meaningful, effective classroom practice. 

Controversy or collaboration – which is it going to be?

In our opinion, the open consultation offers a striking opportunity for Welsh Government to take an approach that is fundamentally different from the approach England has chosen for the teaching of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL). Recently in England, much controversy has been caused by the Ofsted 2021 Curriculum Research Review for Languages and the National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy (NCELP) approach to curriculum planning and pedagogy. A significant number of MFL practitioners and renowned academics have publicly criticised what they perceive to be the selective and misleading quoting of research, and the promotion of a pedagogical approach that is unlikely to succeed in secondary schools with an intake that is less privileged than the one in the schools that were selected for initial trials. Many stakeholders feel excluded by what they perceive is a misjudged, heavy-handed top-down approach to improving uptake and outcomes in Modern Foreign Languages.

Here in Wales, our government, too,  will soon have to make important decisions about the way stakeholders’ views are taken into account. To what degree will the public responses to the open consultation inform the planning, design and delivery of resources and professional learning to support the implementation of the non-statutory framework?

As we see it, there are two general options:

• With minimal involvement of the teaching community, we can make a number of small but ultimately cosmetic changes to the draft framework itself before its final publication, and provide a selection of well-meaning, but potentially incoherent and therefore ineffective resources and professional learning opportunities. I fear this approach could ultimately lead to a controversy similar to the current one in England regarding the Ofsted research review and NCELP’s approach to curriculum and pedagogy. More importantly, it could well mean that this historic opportunity to set Welsh in English-medium education on the right tracks for the Cymraeg 2050 goals has been squandered. In my opinion, this would be a massive strategic error.

• Alternatively, by using the consultation responses as a starting point, we can choose to sit down with specialist English-medium practitioners from all phases, and genuinely listen to their concerns and their suggestions. Much credibility and sector-wide buy-in could be gained if Welsh Government decided to use expert practitioners’ contributions to develop a coherent support structure for the delivery of the new framework. Crucially, this support structure should be based on practitioners’ practical needs in the classroom. To make it effective, it would have to include a well thought-out, coherent suite of documentation, resources and professional learning opportunities that offer the best knowledge and practice to improve outcomes genuinely and sustainably in the English-medium sector.

Reasons for optimism

Once the consultation closes, Welsh Government will have the opportunity to signal a much welcome shift in approach, away from what recently has been perceived by some English-medium practitioners as a top-down, introduce-first-and-consult afterwards approach, towards a genuine engagement with the classroom workforce. Together with many of our English-medium colleagues, we are hoping for a realistic, strategic plan to develop a core curriculum for Welsh in English-medium education. This will require the following:

• the effective integration of a coherent core language progression
• carefully sequenced resources
• a specific professional learning programme

The professional learning programme must build on the successful Welsh Sabbatical programme, but in addition, alternative effective learning opportunities need to be provided for all those practitioners who, for a variety of reasons, are unable to commit to the sabbatical programme. This is crucial.

Since taking office, Jeremy Miles, the Minister for Education and Welsh Language has made commendable and much appreciated efforts to engage with the education workforce on multiple occasions and platforms. This has not gone unnoticed, and makes one hopeful that this open and collaborative approach will extend to the follow-up process for the consultation on the draft framework for Welsh in English-medium education. If experienced specialists for the teaching of Welsh in English-medium education were invited to shape in earnest the development of supporting documentation, resources and professional learning opportunities, then there would be many winners, not the least the Welsh language itself.

 

No quick fixes, please

A word of warning: there are no quick fixes. A realistic strategy would require a dedicated team of specialists to embark on a long and challenging journey of meticulous language planning, curriculum design, resource creation and the development of specific professional learning opportunities.

Experienced, highly qualified practitioners from all EM phases, from primary over secondary all the way to further education and higher education have already expressed their interest in forming small working groups with the aim to develop sample units for their respective settings. Co-ordination and collaboration between the different working groups would ensure coherence across primary, secondary and further education sectors, while simultaneously drawing on practising teachers’ expertise to closely tailor the curriculum, resources and professional learning to the needs of their respective settings.

Demonstrating what a combination of core language progression, core curriculum, carefully sequenced resources and specific professional learning could look like for each phase, these sample units could then be presented for scrutiny to all stakeholders in the English-medium sector.

Not only would this process allow for peer-feedback and crucial adjustments to be made before embarking on the main development work, it would also be likely to contribute to crucial buy-in and support from the main audience: EM classroom practitioners, who would eventually deliver the core curriculum in their classrooms, using the core resources with the support of carefully targeted professional learning opportunities.

Four key recommendations

In summary, I believe that the following four key recommendations offer the best chance to provide the support the EM sector requires. They are taken from the group response to Welsh Government’s open consultation on the draft framework that I have recently published together with my colleagues Barri Mock and Carys Swain:

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

Much will depend on Welsh Government’s decisions following the consultation on the draft framework. I for one would be cheering if we did not follow the top-down approach taken across the bridge, but instead found our own way to genuinely draw on the already existing expertise among colleagues across the country, to create the kind of support that helps all teachers and all pupils, not just the privileged few.

Mathias Maurer

St Athan Primary School

CSC Lead Practitioner for Primary International Languages

Co-author of the Welsh Sentence Builders book