Aug 28 2008
What is a Curriculum for Excellence?
I’ve been arguing that teachers should be given the opportunity to consider what exactly a Curriculum for Excellence is before they get too bogged down in experiences & outcomes, or even Don’s questions. So I thought maybe I should try and think what it is to me.
A Curriculum for Excellence is about (in no particular order):
- Preparing pupils for working and living in the 21st Century
- A shift of focus from content to skills
- An emphasis on social contructivist inspired teaching strategies
- Giving teachers greater autonomy
- Encouraging more dynamic, innovative and interlinked schools
- Engaging pupils in their own learning
A Curriculum for Excellence is not about (in no particular order):
- Buying pre-made off the shelf courses
- The four capacities - we will surely aim to foster these qualities in our pupils, but plastering these phrases around the school and in paperwork will not get us anywhere
A Curriculum for Excellence will work if (in no particular order):
- HMIe and the SQA lead the way
- Teachers are converted by the pedagogy
- Teachers are supported in the transition
- Teachers are given the opportunity to work together in the implementation
- Councils & senior management teams embrace the changes and allow their staff to take risks
There’s obviously much much more which could be added to these lists.
What would you add/remove/question?
Hi and good luck with your modules, found your blog very useful in getting an insider picture of the way that aCfE is going (up or down?) in schools. I’m currently writing a report on the nature of pedagogy in Scotland (for another European country’s teacher educators). Are we (Scotland) just re-inventing pupil-centred teaching here or is there more to it than that? The crucial thing seems to me to be whether the agencies and discourses around teaching can change themselves, including the painful business of writing bigger cheques as necessary. This also includes letting go of their obsession with measurement and accepting that teacher judgement is a valid form of knowledge. Will this be the case?
Thanks Peter. You raise a couple of good points. I agree with you that the agencies around teachers need to engage with aCfE for it to stand a chance. Particularly HMIe and the SQA in Secondary Schools. I actually think that this is more important then the sizes of cheques.
And whether this is simply reinventing pupil-centred teaching or not - I don’t think so, but I’m not sure why. Will have to mull over that one…
Hi Fearghal,
I wonder if there is a central paradox here, which is that aCfE is essentially about autonomy whilst being promoted and implemented from the centre, albeit with a lot of devolved thinking. In other words, is it a genie escaping from the bottle?
Perhaps the difference between this and previous versions of pupil-centrism is that there is now the technology to support it. Along with the opening-up of the curriculum, we have the unlimited availability of information and therefore the need for a much more dialogic or conversational form of pedagogy to convert information into knowledge and critical thinking. But this requires much more teacher-pupil contact time…hence more money?
I’m currently involved in a bid for EU funding for a large project which will (by default) be looking at pedagogy in science education - we have already drawn on AcfE in some of our thinking and if we get funded, will be keen explore science teachers’ experiences with implementing it. Hope we can involve you in this - if you are interested email me and I’ll send you some information.