In carrying out recent presentations on education reform across Scotland, it has been interesting talking to practitioners about their reaction to the various (some say too many) reports on reform published by the Scottish government over the past two years.
Teachers state that their own focus has, quite rightly, tended to be on “more immediate issues” such as student behaviour, attendance, health and wellbeing and the incessant drive to close the poverty-related attainment gap, rather than on considering “esoteric reports”, the content of which doesn’t have an impact on day-to-day challenges in classrooms.
However, it is clear that many secondary staff, in particular, have found time to consider the proposals for a Scottish Diploma of Achievement (SDA) recommended in the Hayward report, perhaps in anticipation of the government’s long-awaited response.
Most teachers feel exams are too dominant
Most practitioners feel that exam performance and results are too dominant as drivers in Scottish education; that the metrics of measuring success need to change; and that the achievements of learners (as opposed to their attainment in tests and exams) are insufficiently recognised and valued throughout their learning journey from pre-school through to the end of secondary education.
At the same time, almost everyone I have encountered has had longstanding concerns around assessment and exams, and has wanted real change around: the “two-term dash” to Higher; the focus on passing exams, resulting in the lack of depth of study in the senior phase; the three years of back-to-back exams; lack of articulation between the Broad General Education and senior phase and between National 4 and National 5; the “dominance” of external exams that unhelpfully drive the system; and the heavy focus on knowledge and understanding in exams, to the detriment of skills and competencies.
A closer look shows that Professor Louise Hayward’s proposals, including the three elements making up the proposed SDA - programmes of learning, personal pathway and project learning - are designed to address these very issues about which there has been so much concern.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that the “programmes of learning” aspect appears to have fairly unanimous support. This is, after all, effectively the existing subjects, graded with a continued element of external examination (possibly supplemented by some form of internal assessment).
The personal pathway and project learning elements have generally received fewer positive responses, it seems, for a number of reasons: lack of understanding of their purpose; lack of discussion time to consider what they might mean in practice; perceived workload issues; technology challenges; and the potential, in the case of project learning, for time being taken away from subject teaching.
Many have also said that as long as the culture remains that exam performance alone is the accountability measure used to gauge success, there will never be the kind of cultural reform that many recognise as being necessary.
Hayward proposals need more airplay
All these concerns around the Hayward report are certainly understandable. However, before being rejected, they require greater “airplay” before the Scottish government makes its response to the report.
A good starting point is the Powering Futures (PF) interdisciplinary challenge programme. Around one-third of Scottish secondary schools across most local authorities will take part in this in 2024-25. The SCQF level 6 (that is, equivalent to Higher) programme already addresses some proposals in the Hayward report, Withers and Muir report. For example, integrating knowledge and skills from across subjects and disciplines through project learning, enhancing links with business and industry, developing understanding of the skills needed to deliver Net Zero; and placing the learner more at the centre of decision making.
The 80-hour programme for S5-6 from the Falkirk-based PF involves teams of students preparing for and taking on real-life, Net Zero sustainability challenges set by business and industry. It is designed to foster skills and competencies such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and collaboration through real, project-based, interdisciplinary learning.
These are the very “meta skills” that employers are increasingly looking for, and the programme is opening up opportunities for students through businesses such as Scottish Water, SSE, British Gas, Visit Scotland and Urban Fox.
Such approaches help to realise largely unfulfilled aspirations in Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: firstly, that learning “should be made available in a range of ways, including interdisciplinary learning and a range of opportunities which ensure a broad approach, enabling, for example, a coherent understanding of environmental issues”; secondly, that “well-designed interdisciplinary studies…often provide highly motivating contexts for learning which can help children to see links between and the relevance of different aspects of the experiences and outcomes”.
The PF challenge programme is already in place in Scottish secondary schools and - like the Peter Vardy Foundation’s Gen+ programme - is helping to drive much-needed change to the curriculum from the ground up. Approaches like this are helping young people to make connections between different areas of learning, deepening understanding and make the curriculum more coherent and meaningful to them.
Bold decisions on curricular reform
Such programmes show that headteachers and local authorities are prepared to take the bold leadership decisions to drive curricular reform, rather than waiting for “top-down” decisions to be made for them.
In doing so, they address the pressing need for real change to the curriculum to ensure that young people are as well placed as possible with the knowledge and skills to thrive and survive in an ever-changing and uncertain world, in which they will take their place as global citizens.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh, in its 2023 paper Pillars and Lintels: The What’s, Why’s and How’s of Interdisciplinary Learning, noted: “Skills are the global currency of the 21st century in which working life will become increasingly networked. Work will be increasingly variable and done on a project basis with contributors with complementary skills working in teams. These skills require development through a change of classroom practice and should be developed at all levels throughout education.”
The cultural and mindset changes required to realise this vision are already taking place in some schools through the likes of the programmes above - almost wholly driven from the ground up. Maybe that is how it needs to be.
We owe it to the future citizens in our schools just now to ensure that reform to the curriculum, assessment and qualifications is fully aligned with that future, not simply tweaking the status quo.
If the latter is all that happens, we will have missed a golden opportunity and done a gross disservice to learners now and in the future - and they are meant to be at the centre of all that we do in Scottish education.
Professor Ken Muir was author of the 2022 report Putting Learners at the Centre: Towards a Future Vision for Scottish Education. He was previously chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland and head of inspection at Education Scotland, having started his career as a geography teacher in 1978
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