Finnish Education in Cardiff
Wales has spent recent years rebuilding its own national curriculum around broad, connected learning, giving Cardiff schools an unusually good starting point for adding Finnish-style K-5 pedagogy on top.
- No school in Cardiff currently delivers Finland's national curriculum, but Wales has been rolling out its own reformed Curriculum for Wales since 2022, reaching all learners by 2026.
- Curriculum for Wales groups learning into six broad Areas of Learning and Experience instead of narrow subjects, a structure that echoes Finland's own broad-based, transversal competence framework.
- Wales built its curriculum reform on international best practice, an outward-looking approach that Finnish pedagogy fits into naturally.
- Cardiff's concentration of teacher training universities and its role as the Welsh capital make it a strong base for piloting Finnish-inspired practice inside the new Curriculum for Wales.
Why Finnish pedagogy fits naturally with Curriculum for Wales
Wales did not simply import an existing subject list when it built its new curriculum, it designed six broad Areas of Learning and Experience around real understanding and skills. That structure sits close to Finland's own national curriculum, which likewise groups learning around broad competences and cross-subject phenomena rather than isolated topics.
Both systems also share a holistic aim: Wales wants ambitious, capable learners who are healthy, confident and ethical citizens, language that closely echoes what Finnish pedagogy has pursued for decades.
What Finnish-style teaching adds inside the new Welsh curriculum
For a Cardiff primary school already implementing Curriculum for Wales, Finnish pedagogy offers a tested way to deliver the new framework in the classroom: phenomenon-based projects that combine several Areas of Learning and Experience at once, frequent short outdoor breaks, and low-stakes, descriptive feedback in place of early formal grading.
A unit on Cardiff Bay, for example, could combine geography, science, Welsh and English literacy and numeracy in a single project, exactly the kind of cross-curricular design the new Welsh framework asks schools to build.
Cardiff's advantage as a teacher training hub
Cardiff hosts several of Wales's leading teacher training providers, giving schools in the city easier access to professional development as they adapt to both the new national curriculum and any Finnish-inspired methods layered on top of it.
As the Welsh capital, Cardiff is also well placed to pilot approaches that other Welsh local authorities may later look to for guidance, much as Helsinki has served that role for schools across Finland.
Curriculum for Wales asks schools to teach broad, connected understanding rather than narrow subjects, which is exactly what Finnish pedagogy has practised for decades.
Frequently asked questions
Is Finnish pedagogy officially part of Curriculum for Wales?
No. Curriculum for Wales is Wales's own national framework, fully rolled out by 2026. Schools may voluntarily draw on Finnish-inspired teaching methods, such as phenomenon-based projects, to help deliver its broad Areas of Learning and Experience, but this is a local choice, not a national requirement.
Is there a Finnish-curriculum school in Cardiff?
Not currently. No school in Cardiff runs Finland's national curriculum directly. Interest in Finnish pedagogy in the city currently takes the form of teacher training and partial adoption of Finnish-style methods within Curriculum for Wales.
What age group benefits most from this approach?
Finnish-style teaching has the strongest evidence for the early years and primary stage, broadly ages five to eleven, which aligns closely with the K-5 focus this site covers and with the early phases of Curriculum for Wales.
How can a Cardiff school start introducing Finnish methods?
Most schools begin with a pilot: training a small group of K-5 teachers to design phenomenon-based units that satisfy Curriculum for Wales's Areas of Learning and Experience, then expanding once results are visible.
Related reading
Bring Finnish pedagogy to your school
OPPI affiliates a selective cohort of schools each year for its K-5 Finnish-pedagogy programme, backed by Education Finland. Tell us about your school and our team will reach out.
Backed by Education Finland. Over 20 schools have already affiliated, including DPS, Radcliffe and Sanctus. Places in each cohort are limited.
Apply to the affiliation cohort →