Tag Archive for implementation

What’s in a name?

14/12/2010 cfe, change, MEd, reflection One comment

I’ve finally submitted my most recent MEd assignment, which means I can try to get back up to speed with my blog. Just in case you missed it, the assignment was a proposal for a collaborative professional enquiry which I’ll undertake with some colleagues in my school early next session. I’ve chosen to try to further develop the idea of involving pupils in planning learning in order improve learner engagement, and ultimately their learning.

Obviously, as part of the proposal I had to provide a rationale for the enquiry including a literature review. In my searching I discovered lots of books and journals supporting this approach – much more so than the last time I tried to do this for this area. This is clearly a hot topic just now. I’ve already mentioned the excellent book by Chris Watkins which I came across in the library which is a must read if you’re at all interested in this pedagogy.

However, what has shocked me is that since searching so extensively I’ve come across two amazing blogs in this field which didn’t come up in my searches. The first was Shelley Wright’s blog sharing the fantastic work she has been doing with her biology classes. And then I stumbled upon Darren Mead’s inspiring Sharing Pedagogical Purposes blog. Both of these appeared at random on twitter.

What I’ve been thinking since is that part of the problem for those of us who are interested in these approaches is that we don’t yet have a common language to describe what it is we’re trying to achieve. Is this an extension of AifL, or are we creating “Classrooms as Learning Communities”, or maybe we are “Sharing Pedagogical Purposes”. Some of the other terms floating around here include “involving”, “engaging”, “metacognition”, “learn to learn”, “inquiry”, “personalisation”…

For the purposes of what we’re trying to do in our classrooms it doesn’t really matter what we call it, but now that we’re trying to share our experiences I’m finding the lack of a common language is hindering our ability to network as effectively as we might.

Having said all that though, this is a new, messy and complex business – which is exciting – and I’m sure we’ll get there…

Yeah but…how do we do it?

25/11/2010 cfe, speaking One comment

Yeah but … how do we do it? on Prezi

This Saturday I’m speaking to some Maths PGDE Students on their Curriculum for Excellence day. I’ve been given the title “Yeah but…how do we do it?” which I’ll be doing my very best to live up to using the Prezi above!

How to implement CfE

17/09/2010 assessment, cfe, change, Featured No comments

At the minute, I’m going around and speaking to lots of PTs in East Lothian to see how they’re getting on with CfE. This is resulting in a lot of conversations about how best to approach the Curriculum for Excellence as a department/faculty. I thought I’d try and produce a really simple summary of the sorts of steps some people have taken to implement CfE. This will be an amalgamation of different ideas distilled by me. This list could evolve and change as I continue to visit PTs and departments, and if you input your ideas as comments or on twitter. Hopefully this will be useful to folk who are still unsure of the way forward…

Ok then, here goes…

  • Audit what you currently do against the Experiences & Outcomes. Don’t just think about what you teach already, but how you teach it, making use of the Principles & Practice papers for your curriculum area and subject. This is a necessary first step, but it is only a first step – be careful not to get stuck here.
  • Move the Experiences & Outcomes to be the starting point for your planning for the future. Incorporate the ideas from your previous courses from your audit, and build/adapt these where appropriate. Make sure that you consider the fact that some pupils will need to consolidate their learning from Second Level when they start S1 but that others could be well into Third Level already. Consider speaking to your primary colleagues to find what learning will have already been taking place.
  • Build your ideas for assessment into the planning stage. Visit the National Assessment Resource to see how others have approached this. Examine the effectiveness of your assessment arrangements. Look again at Assessment is for Learning. How evident are all the aspects of AifL in your S1 course really? Are pupils engaged in their assessment? Do you need to consider a greater variety of evidence? Do your current assessments allow learners to demonstrate the acquisition of the full range of skills included in your Experiences & Outcomes? nationalassessmentresource.org.uk
  • Begin to find a shared a standard. Arrange a moderation meeting within your department. Ask your colleagues to bring samples of pupils work and see if you can assess their progress against the Experiences & Outcomes and if you can agree on this. This is the professional dialogue which is outlined in BtC5 repeatedly. Have a look at the new BtC5 reporting document. Can you make use of the terms developing, consolidating and secure to describe progress within a level? ltscotland.org.uk/buildingyourcurriculum/policycontext/btc/btc5.asp
  • Plan for choice within the delivery of your courses – both for the teachers and the learners. Agree the outcomes which will be met, but understand that different classes, and indeed different learners, could get there in different ways.
  • Incorporate Literacy, Numeracy and Health & Well-being Experiences & Outcomes into your courses where appropriate. Make sure that when they’re present that they’re meaningful and that you discuss the learners’ progress within these E&Os as well as the Curricular Area E&Os. Consider speaking to your English, Maths and Guidance colleagues for advice on content and teaching approaches.
  • Look for opportunities for inter-disciplinary learning where appropriate. Again, make sure this is meaningful and that progress is made against E&Os for both Curricular Areas. See the LTS website for the recent report on Interdisciplinary Learning for further advice and ideas. Interdisciplinary Learning
  • Look for ways of building on learning outside of the classroom. What are the pupils learning through extra-curricular activities? Can you make links, i.e. with Community Learning & Development, to develop this?
  • Consider the arrangement of your courses. What is the most appropriate way of delivering the E&Os? Work with your SMT and colleagues to find a way of making best use of time.
  • Use the SQA website to engage with developments in National Qualifications. Sign up for the MyAlerts service for your subject area, share what’s going on as a department and contribute your feedback to the process. sqa.org.uk/curriculumforexcellence

You can download this summary as a word file as well by clicking here.

I acknowledge this could be perceived as quite a crude and incomplete list, but it’s a start and I think some people might find it useful.

The difference between CfE and its implementation

23/08/2010 cfe, change, Featured No comments

CfE is taking a real beating in the press at the moment. The articles range from the superficial & simplistic to downright factually incorrect nonsense. You can judge for yourself which is which:

A controversial overhaul of classroom teaching in Scotland will take effect as secondary pupils begin returning to school after the summer break. BBC

As thousands of children returned to school yesterday for the first time under the Curriculum for Excellence, critics said falling teaching numbers and reductions in assistants and school finances could make it impossible to implement. Scotsman

Teachers across Scotland are facing “burn-out” over the delivery of the controversial new school curriculum because of a lack of time and resources, unions warned yesterday. Herald

What is being done in our schools is a massive act of vandalism, and those first to suffer will be the least academically able. For, in the guise of modernisation, public exams at 16 are being abolished. In place of Standard Grades will be teacher assessments. Scotsman

There are many many bones which I could pick in reference to some of these pieces; but I’m worried that if I attempted to do this, I might well end up throwing something at my nice shiny iMac. I like my iMac. I’m not going to do that. Suffice to say, I disagree.

I did try to respond to the BBC piece when offered the chance by Claire O’Gallagher at BBC Learning Scotland. It was when writing a comment on here that something dawned on me. There is an important difference between CfE and its implementation.

I couldn’t understand how journalists, including some at the BBC, had ended up always putting the word ‘controversial’ before any mention of CfE. How did we get to this point? CfE arose from a National Debate. The Curriculum Review Group which devised it was very well represented, as is the CfE Management Board. CfE has successfully migrated from one Education Secretary to another and has even crossed from the Lib/Lab Coalition to the SNP. The assessment principles of CfE build strongly on Assessment is for Learning, which is very widely supported amongst the teaching profession. In fact, a few years ago a lot of Scottish Teachers would have told you that CfE was going to be a great thing.

So given this, how has CfE acquired the ‘controversial’? I think perhaps this is fuelled by many teachers’ (mainly secondary) uneasiness with the way CfE is being implemented. Many teachers have quite legitimate concerns regarding the timings involved and I would imagine that the vast majority of these teachers are more concerned for the potential impact on their pupils than on themselves. Many of these teachers however are still in favour of the principles of CfE. They would just like more time to make it a success or wish that the process had been handled differently. In these cases, which I find often amongst my colleagues at least, CfE is not controversial. Its implementation is.

Meanwhile, some seem to be taking advantage of this relatively nuanced position to develop a slightly different narrative. This upsets me. Not because of the impact of this on me, but of the impact this could have on Scotland’s young people.

CfE: Why we should be celebrating…

11/08/2010 change No comments

So here we are. August 2010. We’re about to experience what was once inadvisably referred to as ‘full implementation’ of Curriculum for Excellence. It’s been a long time coming, and a lot has happened on the way. So why have we put ourselves through this? And why should we continue to persevere to develop our education system in this strive for ‘excellence’? I’m extremely pleased that we have a curriculum which aims to meet the needs for our learners in the 21st Century. I feel incredibly empowered that I now not only have the freedom to redress the balance of emphasis of learning in my classroom (once I’m back), but I am being actively encouraged to do so. And the qualification system is being redesigned to allow for this.

I was very much in favour of CfE before going on secondment, but I would’ve struggled to give you a very coherent reason why. Over the course of this past session it’s true that I have had many fantastic opportunities to develop my understanding of CfE by observing and discussing with colleagues and attending numerous prestigious events. I would say however, that the reading I’ve been undertaking recently has also had a powerful impact on my thinking. Documents produced by SG/LTS/SQA/HMIe are all well and good for trying to explain how we’re going to proceed in terms of frameworks – but they don’t provide a compelling argument. All of these organisations also carry additional baggage in the eyes of the teaching profession and are therefore not always the best for setting out the case for change. In my opinion the only CfE document which outlines a compelling case for change which would be respected by many in the profession is the 2004 report of the Curriculum Review Group. Reading this document now does make you wonder why it’s taken us six years to get to where we are now. It’s still an excellent publication which makes as much sense today as it did in 2004.

The publications which have been having the greatest influence on my thinking of CfE are not written or published by any of the organisations above and do not in fact mention Curriculum for Excellence at all. Perhaps this where their real power lies? They are books by respected educationists who are making extremely compelling arguments for changes in our education systems. I am struck when reading these books by the enormous overlaps between these arguments and the values and purposes of Curriculum for Excellence. If you’re reading this blog, I’m going to make an assumption that you are at least familiar with CfE already as I don’t wish to labour the point. With this assumption in mind, have a look at the following quotes. Do these resonate at all with CfE?

Robinson, 2001

The dominant ideologies of education are now defeating their most urgent purpose: to develop people who can cope with and contribute to the breathless rate of change in the 21st century – people who are flexible, creative and have found their talents.

Education has many social, personal and community purposes that have to be balanced with broader economic functions.

We need an education that values different modes of intelligence and sees relationships between disciplines.

Hargreaves, 2003

Yet, instead of fostering creativity and ingenuity, more and more school systems have become obsessed with imposing and micromanaging curriculum uniformity.

All in all, teaching in and for the knowledge society is concerned with sophisticated cognitive learning, an expanding and changing repertoire of research informed teaching practices, continuous professional learning and self-monitoring, teamwork, learning partnerships with parents, developing and using collective intelligence, and cultivating a profession that values problem-solving, risk-taking, professional trust, coping with change and committing to continuous improvement.

The gaps between rich and poor are widening. In government, in teaching and in teacher education, there has never been a greater need for social ingenuity and moral integrity.

Claxton, 2008

Even in its own terms, education is hardly a success. Despite government claims, levels of literacy have not changed very much between the 1950s and 2007.

Schools can begin to question the presumption that ‘learning’ is what young people do sitting behind a desk; that what they do elsewhere is not ‘proper’ learning, or not as valuable; and that ‘teaching’ is essentially about explaining things and setting exercises to ensure comprehension.

Education must be full of the kinds of experiences that, at those deep, cumulative, character-forming levels, open young people up to learning, and leaves them, at the end of their schooldays, brimming with capability and confidence.

Gardner, 2008

It is up to the educational system as a whole – the education system in the broadest sense – to ensure that the ensemble of minds is cultivated. In one sense, this is the job of synthesis – making sure that all five kinds of minds are developed. But equally, it is an ethical obligation: in the years ahead, societies will not survive – let alone thrive – unless as citizens we respect and cultivate the quintet of minds valorized here.

As I say, none of these books mention Curriculum for Excellence overtly. And yet in all of them I have seen the values and purposes of Curriculum for Excellence resonating in their pages. It so happens, that these values and purposes resonate strongly with me also.

And so, despite the challenges CfE presents us as professionals, the difficulties with its implementation and the looming financial threats, we must keep in our minds that at the core of it all CfE is trying to do the right thing by Scotland’s young people and we should celebrate its existence and make it a success.