How Wales Is Transforming Its Schools Into Learning Organisations

By Marco Kools
Analyst, OECD Directorate for Education together with Skills

Photo credit: Element5 Digital/Unsplash

In 2011, Wales embarked on a large-scale reform to ameliorate the lineament together with equity of its teaching system. Since then, the reform has increasingly focused on the implementation of a new, 21st-century schoolhouse curriculum that calls for developing immature people into “ambitious, capable together with lifelong learners” who are “enterprising together with creative, informed citizens, together with salubrious together with confident individuals”. This vision besides aligns amongst the framework existence developed past times our Education 2030 project.

To back upward the successful implementation of this curriculum, Wales has laid an objective to educate its schools into learning organisations. These schools stimulate got the capacity to modify together with arrange to novel environments together with circumstances as its members learn, collectively together with individually, how to implement a shared vision. Schools inward Wales stimulate got already made substantial progress toward this objective, as nosotros depict inward our novel report, exactly a considerable percentage all the same lag behind.

Our report, Developing Schools as Learning Organisations inward Wales, aims to back upward Wales past times assessing the extent to which schools stimulate got developed as learning organisations. It besides identifies areas for farther improvement at both the schoolhouse together with scheme level. Our analysis was based, inward part, on information from the Schools as Learning Organisations (SLO) survey which corresponds to the vii dimensions of Wales’ SLO model. 

The bulk of schools inward Wales seem good on their agency toward developing into learning organisations, exactly a pregnant percentage all the same lag behind.

According to our report, the bulk of schools inward Wales seem good on their agency toward developing into learning organisations. Data from the SLO survey advise that close vi out of 10 schools (58%) inward our sample had position at to the lowest degree 5 dimensions of learning organisations into practice. 

But a considerable percentage of schools are all the same far from realising this objective. Some 42% of schools seemed to stimulate got position inward exercise 4 or less of the vii SLO dimensions, amongst 30% reporting the implementation of ii or fewer. And secondary schools are finding it especially challenging to educate as learning organisations.

Schools are besides engaging unequally amongst the vii dimensions that brand upward Wales’ SLO model. Two dimensions are less developed: “developing a shared vision centred on the learning of all students” together with “establishing a civilisation of enquiry, project design together with exploration”. And many schools could produce to a greater extent than to “learn amongst together with from the external surroundings together with larger system”.

The instant role of our study identifies a issue of recommendations for strengthening policies together with ensuring the effective implementation – or “realisation”, as it is ofttimes referred to inward Wales –  of its SLO policy. These include:

• Reviewing Wales’ schoolhouse funding model to realise the country’s commitment to equity together with pupil well-being. The Welsh regime should consider conducting an in-depth analysis of schoolhouse funding to explore a model that promotes greater equity together with efficiency.
• Developing national criteria for schoolhouse lineament to guide self-evaluations together with external evaluations. These criteria should promote Wales’ SLO model, monitor pupil learning together with well-being across the curriculum, together with recognise learning needs and  well-being inward staff evolution plans. These together with potentially other criteria should encourage schools to position their ain strengths together with priorities for improvement.
• Implementing system-level surgical operation measures that acquire beyond the commutation subjects (English/Welsh, mathematics together with science). This includes the transition menses to the novel assessment, evaluation together with accountability framework. 
• Developing an easy-to-understand narrative. Such a narrative would explicate how Wales’ SLO model tin guide schools inward their development, how it forms an integrated role of the curriculum reform together with how it relates to other policies. 

This study was published as role of the OECD’s novel Implementing Education Policies programme, which supports countries together with jurisdictions inward the blueprint together with effective implementation of their policies. While this study was existence finalised, the Welsh regime began to educate an SLO implementation project design that volition cast an integral role of its larger curriculum reform effort. The regime together with other teaching stakeholders are instantly using our findings together with recommendations to assistance shape an implementation project design to empower all schools to educate as learning organisations.

Ultimately, nosotros promise our findings are valuable non exclusively for Wales, exactly besides for the many countries that are looking to found collaborative learning cultures across their schoolhouse systems.

Read more:

• Developing Schools as Learning Organisations inward Wales
• The Welsh Education Reform Journey: H5N1 Rapid Policy Assessment
• OECD Education 2030
• Implementing Education Policies