1st November 2021
Professor Ken Muir is the independent advisor to the Scottish Government for Education Reforms following the publication of the OECD’s report into Curriculum for Excellence. In response to the report, the Scottish Government announced:
- that it would accept in full all 12 recommendations from the OECD
- that the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) would be replaced
- the remit of Education Scotland would be reviewed, and its Inspection role would be removed.
Professor Muir wants to hear views from young people, parents/carers, teachers and other education stakeholders, to help inform his recommendations. He launched an Education Reform public consultation (ends 26 November 2021).
Connect will submit its own response, and we want your views to help us enable the voices of parents and carers to be heard in the consultation. So we are running surveys to ask you about the following:
- Opportunities for young people in secondary schools, assessment and options going forward
- The role of parents and parent groups in school/nursery inspections
We encourage parents/carers and Parent Councils to take part in our surveys, and also ask that Parent Councils support and encourage parents in their school to take part.
You can read our summaries of the OECD report recommendations and overview of Curriculum for Excellence below. You can also read Professor Muir’s blog to parents/carers here.
The Children’s Parliament, the Scottish Youth Parliament, and Together are providing materials to support the gathering of children and young people’s views, which can be found here.
Background:
There have been two recently published important reports on Scottish Education by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):
Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future (June 2021) recognised that ‘education is a source of pride in Scotland’ and that there is huge commitment across the country to improving children’s lives through education. But it also highlighted issues with the curriculum. Specifically, there have long been concerns (confirmed in the report) about a disconnect for learners with their Curriculum for Excellence learning experiences and SQA qualifications.
Recognising young people’s achievements was further investigated in a second OECD report, Upper-Secondary Education Student Assessment in Scotland: A Comparative Perspective (August 2021). This report looked at qualifications, assessment and recognising achievement in other countries.
What is Curriculum for Excellence?
Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is the national curriculum for Scottish nurseries and schools, and has been in place since 2010.
The purpose of moving to a 3-18 curriculum was to help children and young people gain the knowledge, skills and attributes needed for life in the 21st century. CfE sets out four fundamental ‘capacities’ needed by every young person and which CfE aims to deliver:
- Successful learners
- Confident individuals
- Responsible citizens
- Effective contributors
Under CfE, all children and young people in Scotland are entitled to a curriculum with opportunities to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need in four contexts:
- Curriculum areas and subjects
- Interdisciplinary learning
- Ethos and life of the school
- Opportunities for personal achievement
CfE consists of eight curricular areas delivered through
- a broad general education from early years through to S3.
- a senior phase after S3, which provides opportunities to attain and achieve, including to study for qualifications, awards and other planned activities
There are eight curriculum areas:
- Expressive arts
- Health and wellbeing
- Languages (including English, Gàidhlig, Gaelic learners, modern languages and classical languages)
- Mathematics
- Religious and moral education
- Sciences
- Social studies
- Technologies.
Literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing should be core entitlements for young people across all areas of the curriculum.
You can find more information about Curriculum for Excellence here.