Cultivating Deeper Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Survey Report

This report shares findings of a survey carried out in the first half of 2025. The key findings in this report are based on responses from 291 teachers in secondary schools across Wales. Teachers in Wales report frequent professional conversations with their teaching colleagues. They are much more likely to talk about the content they are teaching than they are to talk about the purpose of what they are teaching. The most frequent conversations take place between teachers of the same subject. Conversations about content taught in AoLEs are also frequent, but conversations about content or purpose with teachers outside AoLEs are much less frequent. Conversations between teachers about the relationship between their subjects are much less frequent than conversations about content or purpose. Most teachers in the survey agreed that there was a positive school environment to encourage professional dialogue with over 80% agreeing that there was a friendly atmosphere in their school when teachers engaged in curriculum conversations. There is a collegiate interdisciplinary feel for many teachers. Over 50% reported that senior leaders encouraged curriculum conversations between teachers from different AoLEs and the same number said time was set aside for teachers to support one another on what they teach. In terms of agency, only 40% of teachers reported that they were given agency to decide the focus of curriculum conversations and, supporting this, over 50% reported that in their school senior leaders decided the focus of curriculum conversations. Crucially for this project, more than half reported that surface level curriculum conversations for easy solutions were common and only just over 30% reported that deeper, more challenging curriculum conversations were common. 80% of participants suggested that ‘subject-specific networks to support professional learning’ would support them in deeper curriculum conversations with teachers of other subjects. In comparison to teacher talk about content, purpose or relationship with other subjects, talk about sustainability and climate change is much less frequent. Over half of survey participants reported never talking to teachers outside their subject about sustainability or climate change issues that they teach.