Getting to grips with a Curriculum for Excellence August 31, 2008
Posted by fkelly in : Biology, Chemistry, Curriculum for Excellence, Physics , 1 comment so farWelcome to the new website for East Lothian Science teachers.
On Friday 29th August 2008, Science teachers from each of East Lothian’s secondary schools gathered at Ross High School. This meeting was chaired by Annette Smith and aimed to give us an opportunity to consider the implications of Curriculum for Excellence. The first portion of the meeting was spent considering four key questions, before breaking off into the three specialisms to discuss our next steps.
The date and format of future meetings has yet to be decided, and will be emailed out to staff as well as posted on here.
On behalf of Annette, a huge thank you to all staff who made the effort to attend and contribute to the very fruitful discussions.
The four Curriculum for Excellence questions discussed as a mixture of Science teachers, and the responses, are listed below:
Q1 What will it mean to us as teachers?
- Work (always!)
- Change
- Excitement!
- Uncertainty
- Risk taking
- Collaboration
- Hassles
- Challenges
- Freedom
- Fear (of change?)
- Using untapped skills
- Early retirement application will treble
- But more people encouraged into a more dynamic profession
- Primary liaison
- Work! Confusion – outcomes are not clear, in fact seem to be growing in number. Mind set myst change – less facts more processes, however, we must retain good points of current practice.
- Collaborative work across school.
- Pupils have basic knowledge to apply to further processes. Skills not enough?
- Primary/Secondary transfer kids ‘forget’ knowledge – how can we expect to transfer/apply knowledge across the curriculum.
- Personal choice of teacher greatly influence pupil knowledge base?
- Financial impact?
- Concept awareness? Need to give pupils a range?
- Require a basic set of knowledge to develop?
Q2 How will it change the way we teach?
- Less teacher centred
- More emphasis on practicing skills
- Age and stage implications
- Learn from previous initiatives – take the best, lose the worst
- Evolution, not revolution
- Relevance to everyday life
- More pupil responsibility
- Courage to hand over control
- More flexible
- Won’t change at all
- More pupil input and responsibility
- Investigative approach
- Liaise with other departments
- ICT
- Become facilitators
- Development time?
Q3 How will it affect the pupils?
- Use current resources – change way delivered
- Many teachers already following guidelines about methods – any change?
- How will pupils who transferring schools cope?
- Pupils should be more responsible for their own learning?
- Create life-long learners?!
- No knowledge – but skills to get it
- Might not suit all learners
- Will encourage them to take more responsibility for their own learning.
- More actively involved
- More variety
- Help them see the bigger picture – links with ‘real world’ examples
- More choice and freedom as long as curriculum is not too overcrowded
- Opportunity to work cross-curricularly
- More motivated (potentially?)
Q4 How will it affect the curriculum?
- Modernise
- More open-ended
- More meaningful
- More personal (student ownership)
- Hopefully very little
- How will we assess?
- More formative assessment
- How we do things rather than what we do
- Shift towards skills, including thinking skills
- More exciting for pupils and teachers
- More cross-curricular working
- Change to structure
- Content will change
- Subject disciplines? Will they stay distinct?
- More choice for students
- Vocational courses
- What does society need?
- Are there abilities that we do not currently teach/assess?
- Will the assessment tail wag the dog?
