Successful futures - the Donaldson reportIn the week running up to the Schools for the Future launch a crucial Welsh Govenment report was released which will transform the education curriculum in Wales.  It’s called “Successful Futures”, which afterall is what we’re all working towards, and shows the direction of government thinking against which our community vision will be judged.

The author of the report, Professor Graham Donaldson, has already helped turn round the standards of rural education in Scotland and last year the Welsh Assembly commissioned him to set out a vision that would do the same for us. So he’s worth listening to.

The highlights for us:

Donaldson says there’s an increasing trend “to see a two-way relationship between the quality of education systems and the wider health of society and the economy.”
So the future of our schools is crucial to the future of our community.

Donaldson is putting digital skills at the heart of the curriculum. So we need to be thinking of creative ways of using computers and online learning in our plans.

He wants the new curriculum to be a flow of learning from 3 to 16;  “a coherent and progressive whole, including the move between the primary and secondary sectors.”

He says, “Children and young people should have opportunities to learn from expertise and experience from outside the school”.  So a chance for local businesses, artists, National Park and all to make the wealth of expertise in our community even more central to our young people’s education.

And good news, kids – he wants fewer tests!  Don’t we all.

Overall, his proposals are ambitious and imaginative. The government likes big ideas that will give young people an education fit for the 21st century – so we can afford to think big when it comes to the plan for our own schools.

You can read the whole of the Successful Futures review here.

Tell us what you think of it and  what it means for the St Davids Peninsula.