Curriculum for Excellence update November 2008

Curriculum and Qualifications Implementation Timetable

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop, has announced a further year of implementation for Curriculum for Excellence. This will allow teachers more time to prepare for and develop Curriculum for Excellence. It is planned that the experiences and outcomes will be made available for schools and authorities to continue to plan on the basis of introducing approaches based on the guidance from August 2009, with all schools expected to be using the guidance from August 2010, enabling young people to undertake the new qualifications from 2014.

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Trialling and Engagement Feedback

Feedback is invited until 30 November 2008 on the draft experiences and outcomes for technologies, heath and wellbeing, religious and moral education, and religious education in Roman Catholic schools, and there is also a questionnaire for employers.

Feedback on the first set of draft experiences and outcomes included:

• over 1100 questionnaires - many of which came from large or representative groups, making the number of individuals who contributed to the process much larger than that figure
• 150 reports from schools or local authorities involved in trialling the experiences and outcomes
• responses from 16 specialised focus groups across the country
• 51 other submissions from a range of interested parties.

The online questionnaires, focus groups and trialling feedback all yielded similar results, indicating a consistent set of messages.

Results show that respondents welcome the ways in which the draft experiences and outcomes give opportunities to develop the four capacities. They generally welcome the scope for flexibility and creativity which the draft experiences and outcomes provide and are generally very positive about the opportunities these offer to teach in motivating ways and connect learning across curriculum areas. The most common concern was that the draft experiences and outcomes need to be more specific about expectations, and respondents provided views on a wide range of other aspects which will be very helpful to us in the next stage of the process. A number of the points raised can be addressed through editing of the draft experiences and outcomes, most of which will involve relatively minor but meaningful changes. In addition, there will be some further explanations of particular points, and examples of the experiences and outcomes in practice in areas of priority.

All this means that schools and teachers can continue with reflection and planning for change on the basis of the draft experiences and outcomes. The extra year which has been allocated for implementation recognises the importance of the process of engagement, planning and development as teachers work with the final experiences and outcomes.

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Orkney and Shetland Learning Festivals

Towards the end of October Orkney and Shetland held their own learning festivals. Based around a theme of Integrated Children’s Services, the Orkney event was attended by all practitioners working in Orkney, numbering more than 250. Seminars focused on a wide range of areas, including Glow, games-based learning, parents as partners, Building the Curriculum 3 and community and youth development work.

More than 400 practitioners attended the Shetland Learning Festival to celebrate the successes in learning in the islands. Based around Curriculum for Excellence and Building the Curriculum 3, an extensive programme of seminars looked at Glow, youth work, games-based learning and early years, as well as the curriculum areas of Curriculum for Excellence, CPD and financial education. There is strong support for Curriculum for Excellence across the authority, in which recent HMIE inspections have supported Curriculum for Excellence innovations. The authority’s principal and classroom teachers are demonstrating particular interest in the notion of curriculum development to fit the local context.

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Youth Work

As part of the mapping of schools and youth nationally, Learning and Teaching Scotland has undertaken visits to local authorities, staff in schools, young people, Community Learning and Development, the voluntary sector and other agencies. The visits involved discussions with each group about Curriculum for Excellence and its impact.

As a result of this mapping a number of case studies exemplifying schools and youth work partnership were identified. These case studies have been filmed and will be made available on the Curriculum for Excellence website.

More on youth work.

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Learning and Teaching

Two new pedagogy papers have been added to the Curriculum for Excellence website. The first of these comes from Brae High School in Falkirk, with Gillian Campbell and David Ironside describing Falkirk’s Leading Teachers scheme and the impact it has made. The second, by Tom Hamilton, focuses on exploring pedagogy in Scotland and the rest of the world.

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Glow in Action

Kenny Stewart, Principal Teacher of Computing and ICT at Grove Academy, sees the potential of using Glow not only as a teaching aid but also as a tool for managing information. He describes how, with Glow, you can organise your daily activities and make documents normally collected from the staffroom available for teachers to download 24/7.

Laura Kerr, a P1 teacher in Lairdsland Primary in Kirkintilloch, chose the Katie Morag stories which follow the adventures of a young girl growing up on a small Scottish island. In order to bring this topic to life and to engage the children, Laura utilised Glow Meet to link up with a rural school in Shetland. This enabled pupils from both schools to gain an understanding of life in a city and a rural area by asking each other questions about their different communities.

Two events are being sponsored by Google Earth and Glow Meet to make them available in the Social Studies national Glow group. This will allow geography teachers in remote areas of Scotland access to the courses and news and video clips about the event have been added in the national Glow group.

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Engaging with Parents and Carers

We are beginning to see lots of activity in relation to parents around the country, with more events for parents and Parent Councils at both school and local authority level. Mostly parents seem to welcome Curriculum for Excellence but they are keen to know what the changes will mean for them in their own area, and in their own school. It has therefore been encouraging to see so many events around the country where authorities are trying to show parents what is happening already in terms of Curriculum for Excellence:

• Aberdeenshire had a very successful annual Parents Conference with lots of great examples on display and workshops for parents to see Curriculum for Excellence in practice.
• Clackmannanshire held a good event for parents in October where there were staff on hand to show and explain examples from their schools and nurseries including co-operative learning and the strong emphasis they are placing on the health and wellbeing agenda.
• Angus has just completed a week-long Learning Festival in schools where staff have been trying to show parents how they are taking forward Curriculum for Excellence and making effective links with parent/pupil involvement.
• Orkney and Shetland have also just held their successful learning festivals and parents were able to participate in workshops to understand more about Curriculum for Excellence and how they could contribute to it and support it.

Parents, in general, want to know what Curriculum for Excellence looks like, so we have put together a few example video clips on the Parents as Partners website which can be used for this purpose.

Lorraine Sanda, National Parental Involvement Co-ordinator, is keen to hear from you if you have any examples that may help others.

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Tramway Theatre Interactive performance

On 17 October the Tramway Theatre performed an interactive presentation on Curriculum for Excellence for 25 arts professionals. Run by Children in Scotland and supported by the Scottish Arts Council, the purpose of the presentation was to provide an overview and general understanding of Curriculum for Excellence. Participants work with school and community arts groups across Scotland and the presentation aimed to help them to focus some of their planning on the expressive arts experiences and outcomes and show how they could contribute to developing the capacities in young people.

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Sharing Practice

Viking Exploration (social studies)

One primary school provides an excellent example of engaging pupils in collaborative working and decision-making skills during a Viking exploration task which involved pupils planning a Viking voyage. The pupils worked in mixed-ability groups and planned all the details of the trip including the type of boat to be used, the destination and purpose of the journey, and an inventory of suitable goods to be taken. They presented their work through a group poster, individual letters, pictures and a presentation to the class. Each week a homework task was explained, and all the tasks were posted on the school website so that pupils could continue the work at home.

Initially some pupils found this approach to learning difficult, whilst others fully enjoyed the tasks. One group even arranged a study group where pupils met at each other's homes out of school to carry out further work!

Nature’s Treasures (technologies and art and design)

Aboyne Academy recently took part in a cross-curricular project which involved the investigation, development, design and production of a copper jewellery item. This project involved linking art and design and technology, requiring pupils to develop skills in bending and shaping metals, using engravers and punches and enamelling techniques.

Robokid (technology)

Monquhitter Primary will be participating in a project with Heriot-Watt University called Robokid. The project involves pupils at P6/P7 working with state-of-the-art electronic technology in the form of a small robot vehicle. Pupils are required to build the kit and use the finished product to perform a series of activities which demonstrate various aspects of robotic and electronic technology.

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