Teachers from across Wales are learning lessons from education systems around the world.
From 5 -10 February five teachers from five schools in west Wales will head to Ontario to see the province’s innovative approaches to modern foreign language learning.
The Welsh Government’s Global Futures Plan aims to tackle the decline in the number of pupils in Wales studying modern foreign languages at GCSE level. It is hoped that this visit, arranged with the Ontario Ministry of Education and British Council Canada, will help the teachers develop new approaches to teaching languages back in Wales.
A group of seven senior managers from five Welsh further education colleges and Colleges Cymru will visit Seattle from 27 February to 3 March, to see how colleges in the city work with partners to ensure students are successfully prepared for the world of work. Colleges Wales say ideas gathered from the visit could help shape the future of Wales’ further education sector.
Wales’ new school curriculum has a major focus on digital skills and eleven teachers from nine primary schools in Cardiff and north Wales will be heading to Hong Kong in March, to find out how local organisations and schools have developed a high level of digital skills among their students. A previous visit to Hong Kong influenced the development of Wales’ Digital Competence Framework and has also led to schools allowing pupils to bring their own mobile devices to school to use in the classroom.
The visits are organised by British Council Wales and funded by Welsh Government as part of its International Professional Learning Communities (IPLCs) programme. IPLCs are a ground breaking initiative, unique to Wales, and allow Welsh teaching professionals to work together to learn from other countries and then use this knowledge in their own schools and colleges to better implement Welsh Government education priorities.
Other recent IPLCs have included school leadership in Malaysia, numeracy in India, literacy in Canada, arts in special educational needs in Los Angeles and reducing the impact of poverty on attainment in New York.