When it comes to the new curriculum that Wales launched a, a few years ago, why do its supporters think it's the right answer, and why do you have concerns over it?

This...

Its supporters think it's the right answer, um, and, and they, they share that view, um, with, with m- many people, to be honest, in the international community.

There's a big international trend towards this kind of curricula in the early 2000s.

Um, Wales has kind of leaned into that more than any other country.

Um, Wales has a le- a least, the least specific curricula of, of 14, um, curricula that I was recently involved in analyzing.

Um, more, you know, more so than Scotland, more so than New Zealand, other countries that have taken a similar approach.

What are your other concerns about this kind of curriculum? Is it that the teachers have actually got to do a lot of the work of designing the curriculum themselves?

think that

the takeaway from that, although why does that matter so much? It's not just about, oh, we'll have more nursery and less school.

I think it's a good thing because for historical reasons or cultural reasons, but we start school earlier in this country means that children have to be educated.

In the educational care of the state during the school day, I think that's a positive thing because we've got this time where these children have me best help them.

But I think sometimes what happens is we expect too much of them too soon or we don't.

For some children, they are not yet ready to start a more formal curriculum.

And therefore some children get left behind right from the beginning and they never really catch up.

What were you asked to do? What came out of it? What did you actually say people should do differently? And tell us a little bit about what made that easy and difficult to do.