Staff from Public Health Wales’ Health Improvement Team recently hosted an event to introduce the draft Curriculum for Wales 2022, which will put health and wellbeing at the core of education in Wales.
New Curriculum English Final from Public Health Wales on Vimeo.
The draft Curriculum for Wales 2022 seeks to embed health and wellbeing into the core of the new curriculum by making it one of the six Areas of Learning Experience for Welsh schools from 2022 onwards.
The six new Areas of Learning Experience are:
• Science and Technology
• Mathematics and Numeracy
• Expressive Arts
• Humanities
• Health and Wellbeing
• Languages, Literacy and Communication
The event, held at the Grand Hotel in Swansea was hosted by the Health Improvement Division, Public Health Wales, who have been supporting Pioneers schools and Welsh Government to develop and refine the Health and Well-being Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE).
The day started with a highly entertaining, interactive gameshow style presentation from Tom Hills, Deputy Head teacher at Whitchurch Primary in Cardiff, and one of the Pioneer Schools involved in the development of the Health and Well-being AoLE. The presentation helped the audience to gain an insight into the rationale, background and development of the new curriculum including the four purposes.
Kelly Forrest Mackay, deputy head teacher from St Illtyd’s Primary School in Blaenau Gwent gave a presentation on the development and refinement process of the Health and Wellbeing AoLE, introducing the audience to the five What Matters statements:
• Developing physical health and well-being has life long benefits.
• How we process and respond to our experiences affects our mental health and emotional well-being.
• Our decision-making impacts on the quality of our lives and the lives of others.
• How we engage with different social influences shapes who we are and our health and well-being
• Healthy relationships are fundamental to our sense of belonging and well-being
A range of workshops was offered for participants to discuss and feedback on the individual What Matters statements. The workshops were facilitated by Curriculum Pioneer teachers who were involved in the development of the Health and Well-being AoLE over the past 2 years.
The draft Curriculum for Wales 2022 is open for feedback until 19th July.
For more information on the new curriculum see the Welsh Government's page below:
hwb.gov.wales/draft-curriculum-for-wales-2022