Welsh school curriculum review calls for 'radical' overhaul

School leaders, teachers, parents and above-all young people should welcome this potentially game-changing report. It frees schools to find the right forms of learning and open up possibilities for all those working hard to learn in them.

Donaldson’s recommendations have the potential to reduce time presently spent on meaningless bureaucratic tasks. He recommends that we abandon the misguided attempt to cram too many subjects into too little time in the classroom.

We need to give these recommendations very careful thought but this could be a game-changing moment. We should make sure that we don’t pass it up.

Many of Professor Donaldson's recommendations, especially those around the proper place of testing, the true purpose of assessment, the promotion of creativity, and the need for breadth in the curriculum will be very welcome to the profession. The implications and implementation of the recommendations will require careful analysis and reflection. Quick curriculum reform is botched curriculum reform, as we can see from England. We now need a sustained national conversation to tease out and ponder the way forward. There are no prizes for speed but there will be many for careful and considered implementation. We hope the Welsh Government will engage openly and constructively with the profession, pupils, and parents.

Professor Donaldson sets out a compelling, exciting and ambitious vision for a new curriculum in Wales. The scope and scale of the changes he envisages are both fundamental and wide ranging and will take time to create and secure.

What we do know is that the sustained and active participation of educational practitioners and the wider community will be essential to building this new curriculum.

Both Professor Donaldson and I are committed to ensuring that Wales’ new curriculum is one that if fit for the 21st century and one that is built by all of us.