Where is the ‘New’? Teachers’ perceptions of the opportunities and challenges for the Expressive Arts AoLE in the Curriculum for Wales (2022)

The new Curriculum for Wales officially began its national roll-out in September 2022 after a five-year period of consultation and co-construction. This ambitious educational reform is underpinned by a philosophy of pedagogic flexibility and subsidiarity, with teachers having agency to design a curriculum appropriate to their school context. This paper draws on a dataset gathered between October 2021 and May 2022, utilising online questionnaires (n=62) and semi-structured interviews (n=4), to explore how Expressive Arts teachers perceived the opportunities and challenges presented by the new curriculum prior to its launch. Emergent themes relate to freedom and flexibility of design; cross-curricular learning and collaboration; resistance to change; teacher efficacy and confidence; training and government steer; and time and resource allocation. The data reveal tensions and anxieties within processes of planning and design, leaving many teachers sceptical about the expectations and realities of managing curriculum change within their subject-area.