Curriculm for Excellence could collapse

[Ali Admin]

TES Connect reports on an EIS survey which suggests the Curriculum for Excellence is in trouble due to a lack of commitment (and money, of course) for continuing professional development for Scottish teachers.

Alarm for Government as teacher poll leads to warning that curriculum reforms could ‘collapse’

According to the EIS,

...many schools risk failing to meet implementation deadlines. And, despite the major reliance on continuing professional development to deliver the reform, the survey shows that the vast majority of teachers have not attended nationally-run CPD events.

The union's general secretary Ronnie Smith finds it “extremely worrying” that important areas remain unfamiliar to teachers.

“Our message is that funding must be made available, CPD must be delivered and there must be meaningful engagement on a regular and continuing basis with every teacher and lecturer if A Curriculum for Excellence is to succeed.”

Some of us don't believe the E stands for excellence and so wouldn't be sorry to see its demise.

[Sheila Struthers]

Missed this - sorry if it has been posted elsewhere...

http://news.scotsman.com/education/T...ite.5342671.jp

TEACHERS have demanded an investigation into the use of an online education website, touted as revolutionising learning in Scottish schools.

John Black, from the union's Aberdeenshire local association, said

"What is Glow supposed to be? It doesn't actually do anything but it's supposed to do everything. It appears Glow let's you do things you weren't needing to do, quicker. And you can connect with people you've never had any connection with before, but now you have to because you can."

37.5 milloin quid this has cost - but it must be worth it because

Star Wars director, George Lucas, who now heads up a computer education foundation in the United States, praised it as leading the world.

[Sheila Struthers]

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/Images/...cm4-552067.pdf

This[shockingly badly written] paper provides a broad outline of the main issues, tasks and implications for the current programme strands of Curriculum for Excellence of extending the reference point to all learners as opposed to the current scope of 3-18.

As if this bit isn't scary enough for home-educators

In considering the scope of Curriculum for Excellence it is important that we continue to recognise the breadth of the current programme in delivering for all
children and young people 3 – 18 wherever learning is taking place.

they really do mean ALL - "lifelong learning" anyone?

In considering the challenges in delivering such a change we need to be clear about what we mean by “all learners”. By all learners are we meaning those involved in some systematic, organised programme or course of study or training involving the public sector? Such a definition would have implications for the relevance of Curriculum for Excellence in the very early years where children are undoubtedly learners but often not through formal programmes and in other contexts such as some elements of learning within the community, or learning delivered by private training providers. A wider definition would enable these sectors to be drawn in, notably the very early years, but does pose the risk that all learning activity could be seen as being within the scope of Curriculum for Excellence. An alternative would be to refer to an aspiration that all young people or indeed all people should be successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens.

Is this about extending the concept of the four capacities so that it can provide a basis for learning across all ages and sectors. The current terminology of the four capacities refers to young people “becoming” successful learners, effective contributors, confident individuals and responsible citizens. Extending the concept to all learners would suggest a greater focus on seeing the four capacities as a driver for continuous improvement. The four capacities already have a wider relevance outwith the education system, given their place in the National Performance Framework, in that all service providers (such as health, social work etc) need to be supporting children and young people to achieve that aspiration and we need to recognise the roles and contributions of other agencies.

[Earthtracer]

I have just ploughed through this. This was in spite of being turned off at the start by the incomprehensible first paragraph. Clearly, no 'cfe,' or even basic English class, impinged on the semi-literate - and anonymous - author of this mess of pottage. I was further turned off by such terms as 'to scope out,' 'outcomes,' 'proactive' and (pet hate, this one!) 'stakeholders.' Personally, I should, proactively, like to tie the people behind this to a stake, scoop out their innards and torch them, to see what the outcomes would be! As John McEnroe would say: "You can't be serious!" Unfortunately it seems that they are.

What is the solution? We seem to have allowed, by default largely, I think, a sub-class of people, of limited intelligence but rather larger ambition, to take over the educational system of this country. In this, we are not that much better off than the English, although as yet our government's plans do not affect home education and home educators in the same way or to the same extent. Personally, I would like to see an advance to the way things once were, before convoluted efforts were constantly made to pin down and analyse everything and then produce an accepted - and always 'new' - solution; in this case the CfE and its associated monster GIRFEC. Whatever happened to teachers teaching and children learning? That is what happened, throughout all the precedeing millenia. Modern schools are a formalised system of teaching and learning that manifestly no longer really works. For the evidence, I simply refer you to Gatto. I hope that the day will come when all schools, colleges and universities operate on an open basis, whereby you can come and go as you wish to and mix and match the courses that you wish to.

No-one can ever hope to know all that is known, as was - surprisingly recently - once possible. Therefore all curricula, whether school or post-school, are somebody's, or some body's, choice. An arbitrary choice too, as we all know.

The immediate probelm for us, however, and for all who really care about true learning, is what can we do, what must we do, to prevent the impending threat to and narrow compartmentalising of, education that, contrary to its title, is contained in the ill-named Curriculum for Excellence.

Sorry for going on a bit! But it is so darned depressing!

[Earthtracer]

See my comments about GLOW under 'Resources.'

[Sheila Struthers]

From this week's TESS.

The educationalists just don't get it

They still think they were engaged as "architects" when in fact all they were engaged to do was window dress

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6021642

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6021611

[Ali Admin]

Originally Posted by Sheila Struthers

The educationalists just don't get it

Sadly, neither do the politicians.

I suppose we could knock out a letter of explanation to TESS, but there seems little point in preaching to the brain dead.

[Sheila Struthers]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/scotlandl...rriculum.shtml

Think I heard part of this at the time....

Educationalists and teachers seem to be pretty ignorant of how CfE fits in with the rest of GIRFEC but maybe this'll change when the much delayed building the curriculum 5 "assessment" comes out

It's time educationalists like Keir woke up to the fact they were employed as window-dressers not architects

That said, I think he may well end up being very useful to us as he doesn't often shy away from controversy