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 21st 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 – 6 . . . . .

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)