Apr 24 2008
What to do?
I’ve just seen this on the BBC News website:
Although this threat has been there for some time, my heart sank when I saw it. When these initiatives & changes come along, I find it quite hard to commit to putting in extra effort to update and improve courses which could well be in the bin very soon. To finally see Standard Grade’s card being marked is particularly disappointing for me personally. Due to the current “efficiency savings” we are having to review our departmental resources as we will not be able to afford the photocopying in the future. I had decided to use this as an opportunity to try to develop & improve the course to encompass the Curriculum for Excellence experiences & outcomes and to incorporate activities which are based on ideas such as active learning and social constructivism. In fact, I have started the process of collecting some baseline data for this project this week. This would obviously be a very long and demanding task - probably taking nearly two years to complete.
I am now faced with the prospect of carrying out two years worth of developmental work (and encouraging my department to join in) with the axe hanging over my (our) head(s) - so to speak.
I know the new courses will probably not be a million miles away from what we currently have and that they (probably) will incorporate Curriculum for Excellence experiences & outcomes [for some reason this isn't actually mentioned in the article - surely this is what is driving this change!?!?] - but this doesn’t help with my demotivation. I really struggle to go the extra mile when I’m not sure of the long-term plan.
Am I being unreasonable?
Hi Fearghal,
The BBC article doesn’t have much in it. There is a full copy of the speech here: http://tinyurl.com/3fxlds
When you read it oyu realise there could be a huge amount of change. There is a lot of talk about allowing pupils to progress at their own pace - meaning Highers over 2 years, or 18 months, or 1 year.
This is something we’ll (you’ll) be facing at our school from August when pupils have to be recoursed into the second half of a 2 year course. How can you plan out activities when you don’t know how long you have to deliver the course? Do you have to have three versions of the same thing? I suppose it comes back to yestrday’s lunch.
Not read the full thing. Will have a look.
It sounds a little like yesterdays lunch, but taken to an extreme!!
Congrats on the job btw!