Curriculum for Excellence timeline
Will CfE be implemented in August 2010? That is the hot topic of the moment.
This has been hot on twitter for the last few days, prompted by Tuesday’s Newsnight Scotland and First Ministers Questions this week.
The BBC seems to suggest that CfE might be postponed by a year to ease secondary teachers concerns.
The Curriculum for Excellence Management Board wrote to all teachers today to update the progress and timeline (link here) and included a survey to gather views on how ready we are to implement our new curriculum. The direct survey link is here.
For what it’s worth, my own thoughts are that the new Curriculum should go ahead as planned. I don’t believe that there is an Early Years, Primary or Secondary establishment in the country ready to bring all of the Experiences and Outcomes into the classroom – but isn’t the point of the new Curriculum that what and how we teach will constantly evolve? Priorities will change depending on stage and local need. We now have the freedom to choose what is important for the learners in our schools.
I don’t mean to suggest that there isn’t a lot of work still to be done – we need to see how to evaluate progress; active learning needs time to be embedded into the classroom; reporting to parents needs to be refined, but we are entering into a Curriculum that will evolve and improve over the coming years.
“Progress with CfE ExemplificationAll key policy decisions relating to CfE have now been taken and communicated to schools and teachers. Examples of curriculum, learning and teaching and assessment are being prepared based on practice in schools across the country and will be made available as soon as possible. Materials have been distributed to schools to use to inform parents and learners about CfE. SQA have begun the process of developing the new qualifications and will provide information to presenting centres about individual subjects and courses as soon as possible. A formal programme plan exists to ensure effective management of the programme across all streams of work and across the country. A schedule of planned delivery dates for future advice, support and information is attached to this letter (Annex A). More detailed information about what is available and what is planned is available on the Curriculum for Excellence website.”
I find the Primary/Secondary debate uncomfortable to listen to – I completely disagreed with the SSTA spokesman on the Newsnight Scotland programme who spoke carelessly and improperly when describing Primary colleagues – he completely missed the point about assessment in the secondary schools. He also showed a complete lack of respect to the work, professionalism and opinions of Primary teachers. We all share the same end goals for our young people. Also, we have been told time and time again that WE must drive assessment and take responsibility for measuring achievement - teachers are working on this already with NAR exemplification and conversations re consultation with SQA on what the new National 4 and 5 outcomes will look like are starting to take place.
I hope the majority of the respondents to the Management Board survey show the hard work and motivation that exists to make a success of CfE and that Mike Russell can confidently say that Scotland is ready to implement a new Curriculum that will inspire, challenge and give choice to our young people.
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My name is Alan Hamilton and I am a Glow Development Officer for Learning Teaching Scotland.
My substantive post is teacher of Business Education at Stirling High School, Scotland.
I have started this blog after many months of reading and learning from many people in education, both in Scotland and in the global community.
I am interested in learning about new ways of learning for my pupils, using web 2.0 technologies. I am passionate about learning, enterprise and trying new things in the classroom.
I agree with you Alan.
I find this attempt at primary/secondary division very unfcomfortable and was appaled by the tone taken by the representative on the news. Unfortunately, I was off sick that day and I can tell you that was broadcast on the lunchtime and evening news as well as Newsnight Scotland.
We have to accept that we are all now working from the Experiences & Outcomes – including the SQA. We are not starting S1 in the dark as many people suggest – we are starting S1 with the E&O’s and as SQA are working from the same information, the qualifications will be in line with our work. It is worring that any secondary staff feel that they cannot deliver an S1/2 course without seeing the specifications for S4/5/6 – this is surely one of the issues we are actually striving to address. And anyway, there is much more information out about the new qualifications than many people seem to realise: http://www.sqa.org.uk/curriculumforexcellence
I would urge as many people as possible to answer the survey as honestly as possible, keeping in mind the timescales and support which is actually already in place.
I agree: I thought the SSTA rep was extremely unprofessional and (as a prospective secondary teacher) was not impressed at his cheap shots at the primary sector/heads. There can be no them and us if we want to make Scotland’s education better – whether through ACfE or not.