Can heads of department be agents of change? Preparing for the new curriculum for Wales in a Welsh secondary school

Wall, James 2024. Can heads of department be agents of change? Preparing for the new curriculum for Wales in a Welsh secondary school. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This study explores heads of department agency (Priestley et al., 2015; Biesta et al., 2015) in the context of implementing the new Curriculum for Wales within a Welsh secondary school, investigating how heads of department navigate curriculum reform as agents of change. The Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Act 2021, passed March 2021, establishes a new framework for the curriculum for pupils of compulsory school age in maintained schools and pupil referral units in Wales. The subsidiarity framework of Welsh Government (2019) underpins a significant policy shift in the design, implementation and evaluation of the new Curriculum for Wales (Newton, 2020). Heads of department are positioned as proactive designers and implementers of educational experiences. This is a small-scale study of seven departmental leads across all Areas of Learning Experience (AoLEs) using a qualitative, constructivist approach (Cresswell, 2020). Data were generated through two sets of semi-structured interviews conducted over a single academic year (September 2021 to July 2022), allowing for in-depth insights into how heads of department understand their agency, decision-making, and the challenges posed by curriculum reform. This study developed a conceptual framework which integrated Schwab’s (1973) Commonplaces of curriculum development, Walker’s (1971) Naturalistic Model for Curriculum Development, and Eisner’s (1976) Educational Connoisseurship and Criticism to better understand the achievement of teacher agency within the ecological model of Priestley et al. (2015) and Biesta et al. (2015). Findings show that heads of department express agency through risk-taking. Emotional risk affects this risk taking, either positively through the promotion of self- v esteem or negatively through the fear of failure. Trust in professional relationships at the micro-level of heads of department agency is essential to reducing these negative emotional risks. At the meso-level of heads of department agency, engagement with educational research broadens professional discourse, reducing emotional risk through re-negotiated norms and culture of the school, enhancing the achievement of agency in curriculum development. Deliberation emerged as a key process for supporting the achievement of agency. Deliberation supports heads of department to critically evaluate alternatives, align decisions with long-term normative purposes, and integrate professional values with practical realities. However, the study identified limitations in the quality of deliberation amongst the participants, particularly a reliance on objective driven discussions and prescriptive evaluative methods, which constrain the participants’ ability to envision and justify curriculum changes. The implications for professional development focus on educational connoisseurship (Eisner, 1994;1976) as a means of enhancing heads of departments’ capacity for meaningful deliberation in curriculum development. Connoisseurship positions curriculum development as an artistic problem, highlighting the emergent and evaluative aspects of teaching over rigidly objective driven methods. Integrating connoisseurship into deliberative practices supports critical engagement of emotions – felt experience – and long-term aspirations, providing heads of department with the tools to navigate the complexities of curriculum development. Recommendations include the prioritisation of strategies that reduce emotional risk for heads of department undertaking curriculum changes; supporting heads of department engagement with educational research; and integrating deliberative vi processes that prioritise the pupil milieu and longer-term educational purposes. This study contributes to the understanding of heads of department agency in curriculum change by bridging the gap between research based knowledge and its practical application in a school setting providing recommendations for this study’s school and more widely across Wales.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 May 2025
Last Modified:	30 May 2025 16:18
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/178416

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