Highland Curriculum for Excellence Seminars

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Highland Curriculum for Excellence Seminars
Curriculum Architecture Workshop
Eddie Broadley, Area Adviser, LTS May 2007
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Area Adviser Local Authority Groupings
Eddie Broadley Highland Orkney Western
Isles Shetland Perth Kinross
Peter Eavers Aberdeen City Aberdeenshire Moray Ang
us Dundee
Pat Campbell Fife Clackmannanshire Stirling Falkir
k North Lanarkshire
Norman Emerson East Lothian Midlothian Scottish
Borders West Lothian Edinburgh South Lanarkshire

• Joanne McLauchlan
• Argyll and Bute
• Dumfries and Galloway
• East Renfrewshire
• North Ayrshire
• South Ayrshire
• East Ayrshire

Peter Kormylo Glasgow East Dunbartonshire West
Dunbartonshire Renfrewshire Inverclyde
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• Area Advisers work with local Education
  Authorities on a wide range of local and
• national priorities these currently include
• ACfE and Glow
• Health Promoting Schools
• Assessment is for Learning
• Journey to Excellence
• English as an Additional Language
• Not in Education, Employment or Training
• Virtual Advisory Service

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The fun and easy way to
Create professional-quality architecture
Preface by Prof I M Auphill
Curriculum Architecture
Values, Purposes and Principles explained
A reference for normal mortals
Nora Morra and Gerra Way
Authors of From here to infinity Gone in the
wind
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Determination
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Purposes of this session

• To give a flavour of emerging thinking regarding
  Curriculum Architecture
• To look briefly at some examples of work going on
• To reflect on the implications for schools, ASGs
  and Education Authorities for session 2007-2008
  and beyond

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Big ideas of the ACfE programme

• Focus classroom practice upon the child and
  around the 4 capacities of education
  (successful learners confident individuals
  responsible citizenship effective
  contributors)
• Simplify and prioritise the current curriculum
• Encourage more learning through experiences
• Create a single framework 3-18 for the curriculum
  and assessment which supports it

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• A flexible, local,
• curriculum so that
• young people become
• successful learners
• confident individuals
• effective contributors
• responsible citizens.

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Solve well known problems with transitions and
progression issues including crossing the great
divides
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Make the curriculum more relevant to pupils for
the 21st Century
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Organising learning

• Organising learning through 8 curriculum
  areas - to provide breadth 3-18
• Health and wellbeing
• Languages
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social studies
• Expressive arts
• Technologies
• Religious and moral education provide
  breadth

Cross Cutting themes Citizenship Enterprise Creati
vity Sustainable development Literacy and numeracy
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Levels of Achievement

• Level Experiences and outcomes for most children

Early In pre-school and in Primary 1
First By end of P4, but earlier for some
Second By end P7, but earlier for some
Third In S1-S3, but earlier for
some Fourth Fourth level equates to SCQF Level 4
General
Senior In S4-S6, but earlier for some
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Proposals looking at the curriculumdifferently
through the 4 contexts for learning -

• The curriculum should be thought of as
  providing learning outcomes experiences not
  only from
• 1. Curriculum areas and subjects but also
  including learning through
• 2. Ethos and life of the school
• 3. Interdisciplinary projects and studies
• 4. Opportunities for personal achievement

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Curriculum Architecture (1) Some givens

• Curriculum described through experiences and
  outcomes which promote the development of the 4
  capacities
• Learners at the core of the curriculum role for
  pupil voice?
• Less rushing through levels, more time for study
  in depth
• Emphasis on literacy, numeracy and health and
  wellbeing
• Wider achievement and raised attainment for all
  young people

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Curriculum Architecture (2) Scope for
flexibility

• In
• how things are taught
• how learning activities are organised across the
  school - scope for quite different approaches
• within parameters, what is taught
• design of interdisciplinary activities and
  opportunities for personal achievement

• Through
• emphasis on outcomes not inputs
• fostering and using teachers - their
  professionalism, creativity and knowledge of
  their students
• expectations set out as tools and guidance - not
  prescriptive models
• timetabling as servant not master
• Effective use of partnerships e.g. with pupils,
  parents, tertiary education, business, etc.

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Curriculum Architecture towards a definition

• Inhibiting factors
• any factors that might pose limitations on
  curriculum design e.g., number and size of
  classrooms, scheduling flexibility, faculty
  workload issues, etc. Saint Josephs
  University
• Enabling factors
• each school must create its own curriculum,
  based on its own study of its students, its
  community, its faculty, and with the real
  involvement of the students themselves. The task
  is to design a place of our own.
  
  Hawkins and Graham

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Curriculum Architecture

• A means of identifying how to deliver Values /
  Purposes / Principles Learning Outcomes
  Experiences
• Opportunities to be creative in curriculum
  delivery for teachers to work collaboratively
• Considering the how and the what through the
  4 contexts for learning
• Still very much a work in progress at the
  developmental stage

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p15, Progress and Proposals 2006

• The curriculum areas should provide a basis
  for learning and the development of skills across
  a broad range of contexts. They offer
  opportunities for citizenship, sustainable
  development, enterprise, creativity and cultural
  aspects. ..
• It will be open to schools to organise the
  outcomes and experiences differently (for example
  by designing challenging interdisciplinary
  projects), to plan for progression, breadth and
  depth of learning.

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Re-shaping outcomesWork in progress

• Planet Earth Learning Outcomes
• From .
• I can construct a food web and predict the
• consequences of change (P5-P7)
• To
• I can use my knowledge and understanding of
• food chains and webs to create, plan and
• protect a wildlife area

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Planet Earth Learning Outcomes

• Version 1 Level 3
• I can describe how plants produce their own
  food through photosynthesis
• Version I,000,001
• From investigations on the process of
  photosynthesis I can contribute to a presentation
  on why plants are vital to sustaining life on
  Earth, and can evaluate other presentations

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Planet Earth Learning Outcomes

• Level 4 depth of study
• I can investigate the environmental factors for
  growing plants in order to understand how to help
  feed the Earths population

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What might a future curriculum look like?

• Learning would take place in a range of contexts
  and use a range of methods. .Students would be
  involved in doing as much as in thinking or
  knowing.
• Students would focus particularly on learning to
  make connections between different contexts.
  Skills would be revisited and practised over
  time, so that knowledge gained earlier in an
  educational career could be applied creatively to
  new problems.
• Students would gain depth of understanding in a
  number of disciplines, or domains of knowledge,
  including traditional academic subjects. They
  would also learn explicitly how to combine
  interdisciplinary knowledge in completing a
  project goal.
• The Creative Age - Knowledge and Skills for the
  New Economy. DEMOS 1999.

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Victorian Essential Learning Standards

• Three interwoven strands
• Physical, personal and social learning
• Discipline-based learning
• Interdisciplinary learning

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Possible design options

• Incorporate the interdisciplinary and physical,
  personal and social strands of the Standards into
  existing discipline-based subjects and broaden
  their focus in this way.
• Integrated approach where one or more disciplines
  and other relevant domains are combined and
  addressed through key questions or themes.
• Combine all three strands in the context of
  extended projects that students are to complete.
• Mix of integrated and domain specific subjects
• Different approaches at different year levels
• A mix of approaches at each year level
• PLUS others
• sourceDepartment of Learning Teaching
  Victoria, Australia

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Melbourne Girls College
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Interdisciplinary projects and studies

• Queensland Rich Tasks
• Rich tasks allow schools to promote learning
  across a wide range of contexts and well planned
  experiences, with opportunities for diversity of
  approach according to local circumstances.
  Concept-based studies such as rich tasks,
  emphasise intellectual rigour to ensure depth and
  progression in learning.

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Development work going on

• Orkney Islands - Schools of Ambition, PS-SS
  curricular transition work and published ACfE
  planning advice
• Early Years (Nursery-P1) work
• Oban HS - rich task planning
• Anderson High School, Shetland
• Grantown PS - Science
• Dornoch Academy - Ice cream
• Kinlochbervie HS S4-6 curriculum
• Bishops Park College, Essex

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Workshop activity
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Successful learner? Confident individual?
Responsible citizen? Effective contributor?
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• Adoption accelerates

• Adoption accelerates

ACfE Timeline
2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10
2010/2011
Year of Phase Phase
Phase
PhaseDevelopment One
Two Three Four
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• Curriculum Architecture in summary
• Lots of shaping up still needed, advice coming
  via BtC
• Looking for good practice examples including
  those where the views of pupil and parents are
  integrated
• Think about the 4 contexts in design of future
  curriculum
• Interdisciplinary studies should focus on
  learning intentions and outcomes not on
  subjects
• CD of material available via Peter Finlayson
• LTS and International Education remit Study
  visits?
• Website update and reservoir of ideas

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Only those who will risk going too far can
possibly find out how far one can go
T S Eliot