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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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“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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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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I’m going to try to explore some timetabling models to go alongside my Imagine posts - as with other posts this series it will evolve over the next few weeks
Block scheduling
What’s wrong with the six/seven period day
Block scheduling - good or bad?
The case against block scheduling
Flexible Modular scheduling
Modular scheduling: a personal view
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I’ll develop a outline of an S2 curriculum here over the next three weeks. This post links with Imagine S6, Imagine S5, Imagine S4, Imagine S3 and Imagine S1, and Reverse Engineering
This will be a different kind of post as I will publish it as it goes, i.e. THIS POST IS NOT YET COMPLETE
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