Curriculum or philosophy?

Scotland's schools are heading for radical change, but no one is quite sure what it will involve

By David Lee

Education policy in Scotland has a turning circle slightly larger, and a bit slower, than the average super-tanker. The teaching unions (especially the archaically-named Educational Institute of Scotland, or EIS) are still all-powerful and most councils continue to run schools in an old-style command-and-control fashion.

Yet when the new school year starts next month, change is a-coming. Not just change, but radical change – and the natives are restless.

The big change is the introduction, after a protracted and often painful process, of A Curriculum for Excellence. No one can really argue with its aims. It strives for the very best (the excellence bit) and wants to provide a structured, coherent “educational journey” for children all the way from three to 18.

The curriculum has four key planks – the four ‘capacities’, as they are awkwardly known. And who could possibly argue they don't want their kids to grow up as “successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens”?

We are a little way into Motherhood and Apple Pie territory here, but the point stands: the new initiative is being brought in for all the right reasons.

So why have teaching unions spoken of working to rule and why has there been so much moaning about this new curriculum? Partly because it isn't really a curriculum at all, as many of us understand it. It's more of a framework, though Framework for Excellence sounds like a scaffolder with a quality mark. Curriculum for Excellence is a philosophy which aims to make learning more active and child-centred, a holistic approach to education which tries to make everything fit together better.

It would be wrong to say that everyone is opposed to it. Far from it - many are hugely enthusiastic, others have described it as “the only show in town” for Scottish education - but many just cannot grasp exactly what the new initiative means.

The Scottish Government website says it is "a coherent, more flexible and enriched curriculum from 3-18, firmly focused on the needs of the child and young person" and promises "a better quality of learning and teaching and increased attainment and achievement for all children and young people in Scotland".

This is a very big claim. Listening to some junior ministers, you might think it was a Magic Wand for Excellence, a sprinkle of faith, trust and pixie dust over Scottish education. Yet the enthusiasm for the new initiative expressed by some MSPs is often matched by their inability to explain precisely what it is.

Let's pick up on a word from the website - "flexible". Again, no one argues that any educational structure must be flexible enough to cater for all abilities. Yet at a recent education conference in Edinburgh, the headteacher behind Scotland’s most far-reaching and successful innovation for a generation voiced his fears that Curriculum for Excellence was too rigid in some respects.

Dugald Forbes, of Kirkcudbright Academy, has presided over a radical curriculum flexibility project at his school in south-west Scotland. Kirkcudbright turned the traditional school system upside down, grouping S1 pupils by interest, bringing Standard Grade choices – and exams – forward a year and revamping the upper school to allow all pupils to follow a pick ‘n’ mix curriculum that balanced academic and vocational subjects.

The results were described as “staggering” by an independent University of Glasgow review team. The educational Holy Grail had been achieved – exam results were better, as pupils beneath the academic high-flyers benefited from having longer to sit Highers, but staying-on rates were greatly improved too.

Mr Forbes stressed that early presentation for Standard Grades was just one part – but a crucial part - of the new structure. All the evidence suggests this has worked in Kirkcudbright, yet the Curriculum for Excellence says early presentation for Standard Grades should only happen in exceptional circumstances.

Early presentation won’t necessarily work everywhere, but it has worked in Kirkcudbright – proved by six years of rigid external examination. Other schools are following the example. So let’s go back to that word “flexible”. The Curriculum for Excellence cannot just be flexible where it feels like it.

Mike Russell seems like a sensible and intelligent Education Secretary and has done a solid job since taking over from the hapless Fiona Hyslop last year. He has rightly tried to move the debate away from sterile arguments about class sizes and teacher numbers – but early indications that he was open to innovative new ideas have largely been dashed. A tentative step towards more devolved powers for school clusters has pretty much stalled as all energies focus on the new curriculum.

What Mr Russell has to ensure is that the hoopla over the changes does not  overshadow or undermine real success – and certainly does not do anything to put the brakes on schemes that have worked. That includes Kirkcudbright, which is being watched closely by many other schools who are keen to learn from its success.

It is rare for such fundamental changes to work so well – and to be classed as a success after a detailed review process covering a cohort of pupils passing through the whole school.

Mr Russell must not throw the baby out with the curricular bathwater. If he does, that would  be neither flexible nor excellent.

28 July 2010

David Lee. Former Senior Assistant Editor of The Scotsman,