Curriculum Cohesion Design, Development and Delivery

Scottish Education Department  “It is quite impossible to treat subjects of the curriculum in isolation from one another if education is to be meaningful to the child”.  1965!  “A Curriculum for Excellence”?

The Intelligent School  “The curriculum needs to be planned in a way that achieves richer learning experiences for pupils. Such planning needs to ensure that there are different types of experience to enable learning across the curriculum.”  MacGilchrist, Myers & Reed

The Intelligent School  “In our experience, in spite of the best efforts of their teachers, many pupils are bored with the curriculum and find school an irrelevant experience.”  “We know that some pupils are motivated to continue with their studies even if they are not engaged with the work.”

The Intelligent School “For a significant number, when faced with a record of failure through the assessment system and a curriculum that appears to have no relevance to their lives, they are more likely to “switch off”, truant or be disruptive.”

Improving Scottish Education 2006  “recent and continuing societal and technological changes now present new needs and challenges”.  “The curriculum must evolve to meet learners’ and society’s needs in the less certain world of the 21 st Century”.

Improving Scottish Education  “Recently, awareness in schools of the need for the curriculum to be appropriate for individual learners has become more acute”.  Links disengagement to “weaknesses in learning and teaching” in some schools.

Considerations  What we teach  What is learned  How it is organised  How it is taught  How it is learned

Impact on schools...  “The document has profound implications for what is learned, how it is taught and what is assessed.” Peter Peacock, Foreword to “A Curriculum for Excellence”

Curriculum Principles  Challenge and enjoyment  Breadth  Progression  Depth  Personalisation and choice  Coherence  Relevance

Implications for S3 –  Subject based courses and exams likely to remain the main provision for most pupils  Increased emphasis on vocational education  Enrichment activities

Implications for S1 - 2  HMIE views of S1 – 2  Lack of pace and challenge  Fragmented curriculum  Building on prior learning

Curriculum Groupings and Faculty Structures  Health and Wellbeing  Languages  Maths  Sciences  Social Studies  RME  Technologies  Expressive Arts  Health  English  Modern Languages  Maths  Science  Humanities  Business and ICT  Technological Education  Creative Arts

Organising the S1 Curriculum  Use ACfE organisers / Faculties  Faculty structure geared towards promoting cohesion and effective learning and teaching  Start from where we are  Build capacity over time  Build in “cross-cutting” themes

Organising the S1 Curriculum  Easier to link with P7 Curriculum  Easier to build on prior learning?  Flexible – can be replicated in S2 or not as a school and its stakeholders decide  Greater possibility of a P7 – S1 coherent curriculum

Practical examples....  Collaborative approaches to Assessment (and AIFL) in Social Subjects  Creative Arts showcase  Thinking skills / Philosophy in S1  Delivery of problem solving and ICT through Technological Education  Health Promoting events involving HE / PE / Active Schools / PSE / partner agencies  Tracking of pupil attainment across P6 – S2

Link.... Curriculum S1 model (See Word Document on Web Site)