Cymraeg

The Curriculum Innovators

Illustration of a woman in a lab coat and headscarf, with glasses and a thoughtful expression. She is holding glowing lines and colourful stars, constellations and diagrams floating in the air. Darlun o fenyw mewn cot labordy ac yn gwisgo hijab, gyda sbectol a mynegiant myfyriol. Mae’n dal llinellau llachar gyda sêr lliwgar, cytserau a diagramau’n arnofio yn yr awyr.

The Curriculum Innovators utilise the new-found freedom of the Curriculum for Wales to weave together lessons from multiple subject areas, and offer a good example of what the new curriculum could achieve.

They are normally:

  • Working in primary school settings.
  • Creative and exploratory.
  • Adept at creating resources and lesson activities that allow for rich learning experiences.
  • Quick at adapting or pivoting their lessons to suit current events or relevant topics.

Resource preferences

Curriculum Innovators are highly reflective and creative practitioners who view resources as building blocks rather than finished products. They rarely use resources straight from a platform without adaptation and often combine multiple tools to design bespoke learning experiences. Their resource use is shaped by a desire to align tightly with the values and flexibility of the Curriculum for Wales.

Curriculum Innovators often curate materials from diverse sources, including online platforms, social media, peer networks, and AI tools. Platforms such as Canva, ChatGPT, Twinkl, and Pinterest serve not as end points, but as starting points for idea generation. Visual inspiration, flexible formats, and the ability to rapidly customise are essential features for these practitioners.

Preferred resources are those that:

  • Come in highly editable formats, such as Word, Google Slides or Canva templates.
  • Offer visual and interactive elements to hook learners.
  • Provide inspiration rather than prescriptive content.
  • Include ready-to-use visuals, templates or short explainer videos.
  • Can be easily combined, repurposed or tailored to different learners.
  • Offer multiple formats for download to support flexible planning.

Common challenges

The greatest challenge for Curriculum Innovators is the time it takes to piece together, create, and adapt resources, particularly when tailoring for multiple ability levels or for bilingual delivery.

Other challenges include:

  • Over-reliance on their own time and creativity to produce differentiated resources.
  • Fragmented resource journeys: moving between Pinterest, Google, AI tools, social media and platform repositories.
  • Frustration with static resources that can’t be edited easily (especially PDFs).
  • Difficulty re-finding resources after initial discovery across multiple platforms.

Opportunities and recommendations

To best support Curriculum Innovators, platforms and resource providers should prioritise tools and content that act as springboards for creativity rather than fixed content for direct delivery. Key opportunities include:

  • Curating spaces for idea-sharing and showcasing creative practice.
  • Ensuring resources are editable by default and available in multiple formats.
  • Providing visual inspiration and high-quality templates that are flexible to use.
  • Introducing collections of topical or seasonal resource suggestions that spark ideas for lessons (e.g., around cultural events or national days).
  • Embedding tools to help organise, favourite or bundle resources into personalised collections.
  • Creating spaces where teachers can share adaptations, tweaks or classroom examples of resource use.
  • Supporting collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas within teacher networks and clusters.

Case study – The Curriculum Innovators

One experienced deputy headteacher working in a small, rural primary school in Wales exemplifies the Curriculum Innovators archetype. With over two decades of classroom experience, this individual has embraced the freedom offered by the Curriculum for Wales to create rich, bespoke learning experiences that draw across multiple subject areas.

For this practitioner, the shift to the Curriculum for Wales has fundamentally changed the approach to planning and resources. Where previously resources created for the English curriculum could be adapted, the gap has now widened, particularly in areas like humanities. As a result, this teacher now creates the majority of resources from scratch.

The teacher uses a range of digital tools – including AI platforms – to generate content quickly and tailor it to specific teaching needs. Slide decks are built out in advance of each half term, providing a flexible structure that can be adapted week by week as learning progresses or pupil interests emerge.

Looking ahead, this practitioner sees huge potential in resource platforms that:

  • Offer genuinely Wales-specific content, particularly in humanities.
  • Allow for easy adaptation and customisation.
  • Integrate AI tools to support resource creation.
  • Provide clear and powerful filtering to quickly surface relevant resources.
  • Present content in a professional, education-focused and user-friendly design.