Posted in Culture change, Curriculum for Excellence, Ideas, Strategic, TESS on Jun 8th, 2009 5 Comments »
One of the conclusions I’ve gradually come to over the years is that in order to facilitate real change in any system it’s necessary to change the landscape. It’s come to me slowly and for all that I believe that focusing upon cultural change is still fundamentally the correct route to improvement - I’ve also [...]
Posted in CPD, Curriculum for Excellence on May 31st, 2009 1 Comment »
I attended the National Education conference on Thursday. The event was organised by the General Teaching Council Scotland (GTCS).
I’ll make a few posts on some of the things I learned during the day and the first of these will relate to the OpenLearn website which gives free access to Open University course materials. By accessing [...]
Posted in Culture change, Curriculum for Excellence, Partnerships, Public Services on Nov 11th, 2008 No Comments »
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2941559903/
A recurring theme in discussions with colleagues about the implementation of A Curriculum for Excellence has been the need to keep a strong focus on promoting a culture of trust in the professionalism of teachers.
All too often people in positions such as mine can focus upon the technical elements of implementation and see it a [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence, Health, Management, Uncategorized on Nov 3rd, 2008 4 Comments »
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennyuhh/2917293212/
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to a draft implementation strategy for A Curriculum for Excellence and have identified a key element in its success to be a strong focus on maintaining and supporting the mental health and well being of teachers and headteachers.
All too often people in positions such as mine can focus [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence, Uncategorized on Oct 26th, 2008 2 Comments »
Photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/f-r-a-n-k/251794370/
I’ve been invited to chair the ADES (Association of Directors of Education Scotland) Network for A Curriculum for Excellence (ACfE).
ADES represents the 32 Scottish Local Authority education departments. The role of the ADES network for ACfE is to support the implementation of ACfE, identify emerging issues and to work with the Scottish Government and Learning and Teaching Scotland .
The [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence, Uncategorized on Oct 12th, 2008 4 Comments »
“Motherhood and apple-pie” is a phrase used to describe something which is virtuous, heart warming, unassailable and praise worthy.
A Curriculum for Excellence (ACfE) sets out the “four capacities” where young people are to be enabled to become:
Successful Learners
Effective Contributors
Confident Individuals
Responsible Citizens
Who could possibly disagree with an educational inititiative which espoused such noble intentions? They are undoubtedly [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence, School visits, Uncategorized on Sep 15th, 2008 3 Comments »
My good friend Mark Walker, Principal of Elsternwick Primary School, Melbourne, has one of the most interesting and stimulating blogs on education written from a school leader’s perspective.
It was Mark who alerted me to Edutopia through one of his recent posts on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recent speech on educational revolution in Australia. There was [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence on Sep 14th, 2008 3 Comments »
I had a very interesting meeting on Friday with someone who used to work in the field of further education. We were discussing A Curriculum for Excellence and the pressure on Scottish education system to have external examinations in order to create a level “playing field” in terms of equality of standards.
As we chatted about [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence, Uncategorized on Sep 2nd, 2008 No Comments »
The recent OECD report on Scottish education contained a recommendation that “a Scottish Certificate of Education be developed to sanction completion of an approved programme of studies or training.” This ‘graduation’ certificate would have defined minimum requirements to reflect the purposes of the new 3-18 curriculum but also substantial flexibility as to content, level and [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence, Uncategorized on Aug 29th, 2008 10 Comments »
By engaging in the reverse engineering process I’ve started to throw up some issues which hadn’t been quite as obvious until you try to deal with some of the practical challenges presented by the guidance set out in A Curriculum for Excellence.
One of these emerging problems has been in relation to the S1 - S3 curriculum - [...]
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