Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received no apologies for absence. Suzy Davies is going to be arriving a little bit late. Are there any declarations of interest, please? No? Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is an evidence session to scrutinise the Welsh Government's progress in developing the new curriculum for Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Claire Bennett, who is deputy director for curriculum and assessment. Thank you all for attending this morning, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance to the committee. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so if it's okay, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking you what the main messages are that you've received during the feedback period on the draft curriculum.
Thank you, Chair. If I may, I think it's important to understand what the level of that feedback has been. So, there was a concerted effort and a plan drawn up to try and ensure that there was as much engagement, knowledge and opportunity as possible. So, working through the regional consortia, approximately 120 separate events were organised, and we believe that in the region of 6,000 headteachers, teachers, governors and teaching assistants have actually had an opportunity to participate in those events. We also held a number of focus group sessions specifically for young people themselves, so that they could give us their feedback. There were 24 focus groups that were arranged for children and young people. We also held some specific events to engage with the business community. We'll all be familiar, won't we, with the narrative of, 'Oh, we're sending people out into the world of business without the skills that we as an employer are looking for'. So we thought it was really important to engage business so that they can have their say and their input into the process. And obviously we work very hard on making it as easy as possible via new technology for people to have their say. So, Members, I'm sure, will have been aware of the specific pages on Hwb that outlined the draft curriculum, and we had 275,000 unique visits to the Hwb curriculum pages. It's really interesting to see the breakdown of the areas of learning and experience—which particular AoLEs were the most popular and were being looked at the most—with our creative and performing arts and the creativity and the expressive arts being the most popular. So that's really interesting that people really wanted to engage in the content of that particular AoLE. What, then, have people said to us? Well, I'm really pleased that there has been broad support for the curriculum changes that we are proposing. There's real support for the need for change, because that's the first question, actually; why are we doing this, and why do we need to change? So, support for the need for change, and lots of support for the principle of a purpose-led curriculum. So, good levels of support for the four purposes, and that driving the content below it. Strong support for greater autonomy and agency for the profession—so, the ability of the profession to take a framework and then truly let them adapt it to meet the needs of the children that they are working with in their communities. Also, a great welcome of the emphasis on formative assessment and the importance of formative assessment. In terms of some of the things that people are asking us to look again at, some of that is around some of the language used. Can we clarify, can we simplify in some areas, are there things that are repeated in a variety of AoLEs? Can we use that as an overarching, rather than repeating ourselves? Can we simplify it and clarify some of the language? Also, in some areas—. It's interesting; in some areas people want it simplified and cut down, but in other areas, people say, 'Well actually, in this bit of it, we need a bit more detail, and a bit more depth and clarity'. So we'll be reflecting on all the feedback that we've had. That process has already started, but considering that this is a massive change, I have been hugely encouraged, actually, by the high levels of engagement and support for the broad principles of what we're doing.
Okay. Thank you, Minister. You said that you're reflecting on the messages that you've received. Are you able to give the committee any early indication of what level of change you anticipate making to the guidance?