What Camau i’r Dyfodol Taught Us About Curriculum for Wales - The Architecture of Curriculum Alignment (Part 2)

In Part 1, we looked at A.V. Kelly’s three curriculum models – content, product and process – and how each demands a different kind of aligned assessment. The key takeaway was simple: if curriculum and assessment sit in different “rows” of that matrix, teachers get mixed messages, and the assessment message usually wins.

In this post, we zoom in on Wales. The Camau i’r Dyfodol project offers a rare thing: a system‑wide, theoretically grounded attempt to help teachers understand a new national curriculum and to see what happens when they work explicitly with a process model. It also gives us a preview of what goes wrong when that model isn’t shared or isn’t matched by the wider assessment system.

Curriculum for Wales: a process curriculum in disguise?

On paper, Curriculum for Wales (CfW) looks very different from a traditional product curriculum. It is purpose‑led and progression‑based. The Four Purposes sit at the heart of the framework. Schools have significant autonomy to design their own curricula within broad “what matters” statements and principles of progression.

But in the early phases of CfW’s implementation, Camau found something telling:

• There was no shared understanding of what kind of curriculum CfW really was.
• The phrase “purpose‑led” sounded attractive but didn’t give practitioners a clear design model to work with.
• People were understanding and realising CfW in “different and competing ways”.

To address this, the Camau team brought curriculum theory into the co‑construction process. Using Kelly’s three models as a lens, they worked with practitioners to ask a deceptively simple question: If we look past the branding, which model does CfW actually align with?

The answer, reached collaboratively, was that CfW aligns most fully with curriculum as process. In other words:

• It is not just a list of content to be covered (content model).
• It is not simply a list of tightly specified outcomes to be ticked off (product model).
• It is a framework for designing developmental learning experiences, where progression is understood as deepening capability over time.

That conclusion has consequences. If CfW is process‑based, then planning, pedagogy and – crucially – assessment all need to reflect that process logic.

Stenhouse in practice: three elements of curriculum making

To operationalise this process view, Camau turned to the work of Lawrence Stenhouse. In a Stenhouse‑informed approach, curriculum making is not just about listing aims or outcomes; it is a professional activity that weaves together three elements:

1. Establishing a focus and aims
   Teachers start by clarifying what is educationally worthwhile in a given context: what are we trying to explore here, and why does it matter?
2. Identifying educational processes and experiences
   They then design the pedagogies, activities and experiences through which those aims can be pursued with real learners in real settings.
3. Considering how learning will be assessed
   From the outset, they think about what kinds of evidence will show that learning is happening, how progression will be interpreted, and how this will feed back into teaching.

Camau used this triad in practical design‑team work with schools:

• practitioners worked with CfW’s “what matters” statements and principles of progression;
• they co‑designed units and projects using this three‑element structure;
• assessment was framed as part of curriculum making, not an afterthought.

What’s important here is that assessment wasn’t reduced to “what test shall we give at the end?” but treated as an ongoing question: What will count as evidence that our learners are progressing in the ways CfW describes?

What happened when teachers worked with a process model

When teachers were supported to work explicitly with this process model, several patterns emerged:

• Greater responsiveness to learners
  Teachers reported being more responsive to learner interests and needs, able to follow lines of enquiry and adapt plans without feeling they were “off piste”.
• Deeper, slower learning
  There was a shift away from racing through content towards fewer, richer experiences that allowed for depth, reflection and revisiting.
• More inclusivity and individualisation
  The process approach made it easier to recognise and value different ways of demonstrating learning, leading to more individualised learning experiences and better inclusion of pupils who might struggle in purely test‑driven environments.
• Stronger engagement – for pupils and teachers
  Teachers noticed higher learner engagement and enthusiasm, and many reported more enjoyment in their own practice. Collaborative planning and professional conversations became a source of stimulation rather than compliance.

In short, when curriculum making, pedagogy and assessment were all pulling in a process direction, CfW behaved much more like the curriculum it was designed to be. The model wasn’t just theory; it translated into different classroom realities.

…and what happened when the model wasn’t shared

Camau also surfaced some hard truths about what happens when the process model isn’t clear, or isn’t supported by the wider system:

• CfW as a “low‑definition” curriculum
  Without explicit theory, a flexible framework can feel like “just the bones” of a curriculum. Teachers spoke about the “lonely game” of trying to invent coherent practice from sparse guidance. In that vacuum, almost any approach could be justified as consistent with policy.
• Reversion to what’s familiar
  Where teachers felt ill‑equipped for local curriculum making, they tended to revert to what they know – typically, a more product‑style model. That means planning backwards from tests, focusing on easily measurable outcomes, and treating progression as incremental score gains rather than as richer developmental trajectories.
• System messages that don’t quite match
  If professional learning, accountability and assessment arrangements are still framed in product terms (“What levels are pupils at?”, “How many are meeting the standard?”), they quietly undercut the process message of CfW. Teachers quickly learn which signals really matter.

This is the Integrity Gap in miniature: a process‑oriented curriculum in principle, but a mixture of product‑style habits and signals in practice. The Camau work shows that theory is not a luxury add‑on; it is the scaffolding that allows teachers to make sense of a low‑definition, purpose‑led framework and to pull their assessment practices into line with its underlying model.

Why this matters for assessment – and for ACJ

By now, the connection to assessment design should be clear:

• If CfW is a process curriculum, then assessment arrangements that behave like a product system will create drag.
• Teachers will feel torn between the rich, developmental language of the curriculum and the narrow signals of the assessment and accountability system.
• Under pressure, they will almost always prioritise what “counts” in assessments, even if it conflicts with CfW’s spirit.

This is why Camau’s message that “curriculum theory is vital” really matters for tools like RM Compare. Adaptive Comparative Judgement is not inherently process‑friendly or product‑friendly; it is agnostic. It will faithfully amplify whichever conception of quality and progression it is given.

If we want assessment infrastructure that supports curriculum rather than undermines it, the first step is exactly what Camau did: make the process model explicit, give teachers shared language for aims, processes and assessment, and use that to design aligned ways of gathering and interpreting evidence of learning.

In the next post in this series, we’ll look directly at ACJ and RM Compare: how the same engine can support content, product or process models – and what it takes to configure it so that it genuinely fits a curriculum like Curriculum for Wales.