I was invited to be part of a panel discussion at yesterday’s launch of the Welsh Assembly’s school capital programme. The 21st Century schools programme is a major collaboration between government, the WLGA and local authorities and although the budget has not been set it could be as much as £2bn. The introduction to the conference – held at the SWALEC stadium in Cardiff – from Leighton Andrews AM alone was a fascinating insight into the thinking around the programme but also education policy in Wales.
Having worked extensively in Wales for the past 10 years on agendas such as Out of School Hours Learning and Community Focused Schools I know the policy context well. It is much more locally political (it was amazing how many councillors were there) and long term in focus. I liked his personal mantra – ‘better implementation, fewer initiatives and keep it simple’ – as is their focus on addressing climate change, developing schools as community resources and using technology as the connector between buildings and learning. There were also some great case studies from Torfaen to Blaenau Gwent to Newport.
We were recently commissioned by the WLGA 21st Century Schools team, led very ably by Martin Lipson (former 4PS), to work with them on identifying best practice, creating study tours and exploring other ways of connecting them to the BCSE and Centre for School Design’s work. Videos and materials from the day will be available soon so watch this space.
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