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Report on the results of a survey conducted with almost 10,000 children and young people in Wales for the Children's Commissioner for Wales.

This paper presents data that considers ways in which young people experience the curriculum through the lens of subject examination syllabuses (for GCSEs), their associated assessment techniques and structures and educational policies at national and school level concerning subject choice. Drawing upon an original qualitative dataset from a mixed-methods study of students’ views and experiences of GCSE from Northern Ireland (NI) and Wales, the paper explores students’ perceptions of choice and fairness in relation to studying various subjects at GCSE. Factors of importance are the subjects available to them through subject option selections at the school level and the ways in which GCSE courses are then administered. In relation to notions of choice and fairness, the paper considers how students see access to the curriculum moderated by national and school level decisions regarding the assessment of GCSEs; the extent to which assessment techniques such as tiering, controlled assessment and modularity, as well as school-level policy decisions about timing of entry to GCSEs (known as early entry) all combine to restrict students’ access to the full range of subjects and influence the ways in which they experience these subjects as curricula within their particular school settings.

The report finds numerous examples of differential outcomes for children in areas such as health and wellbeing\ud and educational attainment, particularly for those from a lower socio-economic background. Children from areas of\ud higher socio-economic deprivation have higher rates of infant mortality, air pollution in their local areas, exclusion\ud from school, tooth decay and obesity. They also have lower levels of educational attainment at each Key Stage, as\ud do looked-after children and children from Gypsy and Gypsy Roma backgrounds.\ud More data are needed in some areas to assess whether further inequalities exist. In particular, there are gaps on\ud data relating to asylum-seeking and refugee children, and disabled children and children from ethnic minorities\ud living in poverty. There is also an absence of disaggregated data in respect of instances of bullying in schools.