The national roll-out of Wales’s new play-based foundation phase for three to seven-year-olds will be postponed to 2008, it was confirmed this week.
In today’s TES Cymru (see page 23), Jane Davidson, education and lifelong learning minister, says more work needs to be done to improve the training and qualifications of teaching and other staff.
Support for the scheme - now in its second pilot year - is overwhelming, according to an interim report. But more work is needed on legal changes and curriculum and assessment matters.
Ms Davidson said the pilots would be extended, but the foundation phase will not become compulsory for all pre-school groups and primary schools until 2008.