New Academic Year – Celebrating Success

As we move swiftly into the new academic year, I would like to thank you and your colleagues for the extraordinary work undertaken during the summer in supporting the return to external assessments. As an education community, we overcame many challenges to ensure learners received qualifications that have enabled them to progress, and for that I thank you.

Looking to the future, we recently launched our Professional Learning 2022/23 schedule, which features over 600 face-to-face and online training. Each session is led by a subject expert, providing practical advice and guidance that can be taken back to the classroom. I would ask you to encourage your teachers/lecturers to attend and access these courses which cover a variety of subjects and topics.

I am also pleased to announce that following a thorough and rigorous qualification development process, our Advanced Skills Baccalaureate Wales (Level 3) has been approved by Qualifications Wales. This achievement reflects our strong knowledge base, extensive experience and underpinned by our broad expertise in the development, delivery and awarding of qualifications. Our teams will now focus on delivering a series of training courses and will be publishing free digital resources to support centres as they begin preparatory work to deliver this qualification, which will commence in September 2023.

Our teams have also engaged with Qualifications Wales and the wider stakeholder community, to discuss the delivery of Wales’ new curriculum, with a particular focus on a new suite of GCSEs which will be delivered from September 2025. Once the regulatory requirements have been finalised, our teams will begin the qualification development process whereby we will engage with a range of stakeholders and subject experts to produce qualifications that are fit for the future. Updates regarding this process will be circulated via our digital channels at regular intervals.

There have also been some internal developments here at WJEC. I am pleased to announce that Richard Harry, our current Assistant Director (Standard, Processing & Research) has been appointed as the new Director of Qualifications, Assessment and Responsible Officer, succeeding Elaine Carlile.

Elaine is a familiar face to many of you, and after 15 years here at WJEC, she has decided to step down from her role and will be leaving the organisation at the end of this calendar year. Elaine has been a key member of the organisation, and has been pivotal in the development of our qualifications and assessments, and provided strong leadership through the challenges of the last few years. I’m sure you will all join me in thanking her and wishing her the best for the future.

Having an open and honest dialogue continues to be important and over the last 12 months I have welcomed the opportunity to meet with many of you, and, as always, I am more than happy to meet with you to share feedback and suggestions for the benefit of our learners.

Over the coming months, we will be providing further important updates and launching new initiatives to support teachers and their learners. Our website and social media channels are regularly updated, and key messages will continue to be communicated via our mailing lists so please ensure you are signed up with us.

I wish you all the very best in the new academic year, and on behalf of all of us at WJEC, I would like to thank you and your teams for your continued support, dedication, and professionalism.