AIMING HIGH

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AIMING HIGH

• Alistair Marquis
• HMIE
• RSS October 2007

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WHY CHANGE?

• Present curriculum in Scottish schools changed
  little over many years
• Crowded curriculum
• Fragmented across sectors lack of planned
  continuity and progression
• Learning and teaching methodologies not
  consistently meeting pupils needs

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What is involved?

• First full-scale review of the curriculum in
  Scotland ages 3-18
• Challenge is to declutter curriculum avoid
  over-prescription and detail
• Free up teachers to apply their professional
  skills
• Enable pupils to be active learners

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Who is involved?

• Teachers
• Support staff and support agencies
• Education authorities
• Parents and carers
• Pupils
• Other relevant stakeholders

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One minute only!

• Shoulder partner (s)
• Share with your partner what
• one big change you would want
• to see in the Scottish school
• curriculum from a RSS standpoint

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How will this be done?

• Pupils will be provided with more opportunities
  to make choices
• Pupils will be encouraged to become independent
  learners
• Pupils will be enabled to become effective team
  workers and collaborators

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The Four Capacities

• CfE aims to create
• Confident individuals
• Successful learners
• Responsible citizens
• Effective contributors
• - and equip children and young people with the
  skills needed for life, work, life-long learning
  and leisure in the 21st century

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Also aiming to deliver.

• For our young people a
• Greener
• Smarter
• Safer and stronger
• Healthier
• Wealthier
• and Fairer Scotland

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No national curriculum

• Continue to provide guidelines
• Pupils learning experiences to be broad and
  balanced
• Teachers to be encouraged to be innovative
• Focus to be on positive outcomes impact on
  pupils learning

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Curriculum guidance

• Curriculum area/aspect Due approx.
• Science Numeracy issued
• Modern foreign languages Oct 07
• Mathematics Social Studies Dec 07
• Gaelic Classical languages
• Expressive Arts
• English language and literacy Jan/Feb 08
• Gaidhlig (fluent) Technologies
• RME RME (RC)
• Health and Wellbeing May 08

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Steps towards implementation

• Communication
• Engagement
• Implementation

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Revolution or evolution?

• Not throwing out current practice which delivers
  well for pupils
• Develop and recognise wider achievement
• Changes to learning and teaching are at the heart
  of CfE
• CfE is also about leadership at all levels

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Improving Scottish education

• Scottish education system is successful
• Many strengths but change required improvement
  not happened to extent that it should
• Equip young people to play their part in a global
  economy where prevalent constant is rapid,
  unpredictable economic and technological change

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Improving Scottish education

• Foster a culture of resilience, self-reliance and
  enquiry
• Founded on expectation of lifelong learning and
  retraining and readiness to move between jobs and
  industries/areas of interest

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What are expected outcomes?

• All skills are valued for learning, vocational,
  for life less formal assessment
• Attainment/achievement improves pupils
  stretched and engaged brisk learning pace
• Attendance and staying on rates improve
• Smarter and happier children/young people
• Improved outcomes for lower attaining and
  disaffected young people literate / numerate

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Effective learning

• Shoulder partner (again!)
• 1. Share with your partner a successful, happy
  learning experience you have had and try to
  explain why this was the case.
• 2. Share with your partner a less successful and
  perhaps unhappy learning experience and try to
  explain why that was the case.

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Bad learning experiences

• I didnt want to learn in the first place
• I couldnt see the point of learning it -
  irrelevant
• I didnt understand it, couldnt make sense of it
• No chance to work out what it really meant
• I got bad comments from the teachers really put
  me off I was too nervous to learn properly or
  do it well
• I felt I had been made to look stupid
• I felt tense and under pressure
• I was afraid of making mistakes and was unsure
  what to do next
• Boring activity no action or interest

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Good learning experiences

• I learned by doing it lots of activity and
  engagement
• I could have a go without any concerns
• By practice and more practice
• By trial and error
• By learning from my mistakes in a supportive
  environment
• Other peoples positive reactions / positive
  comments
• Someone helped or encouraged me
• Someone complimented me
• I was told how to improve in manageable chunks

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Capturing best practice

• What does CfE mean for RSS?
• Opportunity or threat?
• Revisiting resources learning and teaching
  approaches
• Needing to listen to schools, to teachers, to
  children and young people - responsiveness
• Failure to do so.?

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Back to the future

• Quality and improvement happen because of
• Commitment to children and young people
• Educators who are passionate about sharing their
  knowledge with children and young people
• Inspiration and enthusiasm
• Role models who are thinking practitioners
• Hard work, perseverance and patience
• Learners see relevance in what is delivered, are
  interested and motivated

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What has RSS to offer?

• Confident individuals
• Successful learners
• Responsible citizens
• Effective contributors
• Can we in RSS help deliver CfE?

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Curriculum for Excellence

• The journey to excellence
• in equipping children and young people with road
  safety skills, knowledge, understanding and
  informed attitudes starts here with us

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Curriculum for Excellence

• www.journey toexcellence.org.uk
• www.acurriculumforexcellencescotland.gov.uk
• www.hmie.gov.uk
• www.LTScotland.org.uk

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