Made-for-Wales: Reflecting diversity, inclusivity and belonging.

In our latest blog, Paul Evans, Qualifications Development Officer, outlines the crucial measures we’re implementing to ensure our new suite of GCSEs and related qualifications actively incorporate diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

Developing a new suite of qualifications for Wales is an exciting task, it’s an opportunity to equip learners with the skills and knowledge they require to thrive and reach their full potential. Reflecting the ambitions of the Curriculum for Wales, our goal is to foster inclusivity and inspire learners, by providing an authentic learning experience. Our qualification content should resonate but also challenge thinking – no easy feat, but one we have embraced with the support of experts from across Wales and beyond.

Supporting the ambitions of the new Curriculum for Wales

As an organisation, we’re dedicated to ensuring that our qualifications are accessible and relatable to learners across Wales. One of our goals is to support Welsh Government’s plan towards an anti-racist Wales by 2030, therefore, as part of our development process, we have focused on diversity, belonging and inclusion.

Furthermore, the Curriculum for Wales aims to support learners to become ‘ethical’; with our new qualifications, we aim to help our learners become better informed citizens of Wales and of the world. We believe that by incorporating opportunities for teaching diverse and inclusive subject topics, learners will be able to engage with familiar and challenging topics, that will broaden their understanding and appreciation of each other, as well as different cultures and perspectives.

Working with our partners

Collaboration has been the foundation to our development approach. By adopting a co-construction approach, we are engaging with a range of diversity experts to ensure that our qualifications provide opportunities to recognise Rich cultures across Wales and beyond – whilst also promoting inclusion, equity, and the feeling of being valued.

As part of this approach, we have worked closely with DARPL (Diversity and Anti-Racism Professional Learning). They have been a key partner in this process, providing objective advice and guidance on diversity, and offering constructive feedback.

In addition to offering a sounding board to our thinking, DARPL’s Rachel Clarke, and proud granddaughter of Betty Campbell MBE (Welsh community activist and Wales’ first black head teacher), has delivered tailored training via ApexEducate to our Qualification Development Team and over 40 of our Subject Specialists who are the leading the development of our qualifications.

The training covered a range of topics including the fundamental importance of adopting an anti-racism approach, unpicking white privilege within the curriculum, the impact of racism on mental health, and explored literary representation of race and culture.

From this training, our teams can confidently challenge their thinking and apply these principles when developing our new qualifications, introducing new topics or explore familiar subjects from an alternative perspective.

Listening to our stakeholders

Alongside partnership working, we also believe it’s extremely important to consider the opinions of our stakeholders as part of our development process. To capture these voices, we have established a series of stakeholder groups which included a Learner Advisory Group, Union Advisory Group and Overall Stakeholder Advisory Group.

Our Overall Stakeholder Group includes representatives from a broad range of organisations, including advocacy groups such as Diverse Cymru, British Association of Teachers of Deaf Children and Young People, British Dyslexia Association. In addition, our Learner Advisory Group includes members from a ranges of backgrounds across Wales, ensuring we capture the opinions and experiences from all walks of life.

These groups provide a vital sounding board to us, where constructive feedback is provided from a variety of perspectives. These important discussions inform our development work and will ensure that our qualifications incorporate a broader range of subject areas and learning opportunities.

Broadening subject areas

Developing these new qualifications, with a greater focus on diversity, inclusivity and belonging has also given us opportunities to introduce new subject areas and texts. We have already made progress within our existing qualifications, whereby we introduced new materials which examined themes including LGBTQ+ acceptance, gender non-conformity, migration, and coming-of-age. Looking to our new suite of qualifications, we will build upon this to introduce topics which improve representation, where learners can recognise the different cultures within their society and celebrate the diverse nature of all societies.

This is merely a snapshot of the extensive work that we are undertaking to ensure our qualifications reflect the rich diversity that we have in Wales. We are extremely grateful to the organisations who have supported our work and look forward to sharing our qualifications in the coming months.

Paul Evans
Qualification Development Officer

To keep you up to date with the latest news, opportunities and FAQs regarding the new GCSEs and related qualifications, visit our ‘Made-for-Wales’ web area. This area hosts a wealth of material, including an introduction to our Qualification Development Team who will lead the creation of the new GCSEs.