Scotland’s education secretary, John Swinney, has responded to one secondary pupil’s prize-winning essay about young people’s difficulties within the school system.
Harriet Sweatman, 16, won the Scottish Schools Young Writer of the Year competition, organised by the Scottish Review, with an essay that was widely read and praised online.
She wrote that the curriculum has “a chokehold on the throats of this nation’s children”, that “qualifications matter more than personal qualities” and that she felt like she was being “shoved on to the production line known as the world of work”.
Read Harriet Sweatman’s essay: ‘Children must be freed from the curriculum’s chokehold’
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Speaking to Tes Scotland after his speech at a school leaders’ conference organised by the EIS teaching union in Edinburgh on Friday, Mr Swinney said: “What I would say to Harriet is that Curriculum for Excellence is an open and dynamic curriculum. It should be brought to life by teachers within the profession, and my whole speech today has been about empowering teachers to be able to fulfil the potential of Curriculum for Excellence.
Curriculum ‘allows pupils to be creative’
“And out of that, I’ve seen tremendous joy within the education system as that curriculum has been delivered and deployed.
“So I would say to Harriet that I think there’s every scope within our curriculum to be exciting, energetic, creative and bold in its contents, and she has an opportunity to shape that by the way in which she takes forward her own education within Scotland.”
Among the many comments on social media about Ms Sweatman’s essay, one read: “Sums up my teenage children’s fears completely. Amazing writing.”
Another said: “As a parent of S4 and S2 students, this is resounding all too loudly. I have two thoughtful, intelligent, imaginative and creative teenagers who are struggling with the ‘production line’ of our current education system. They work hard - they have great senses of responsibility and of being directors of their own futures, but pffffft, the ‘Curriculum of Excellence’ is one massively stifling, statistically-driven conflict.”
Another comment read: “l feel for Harriet and her perception of school life but it’s just one version of a pivotal, essential part of life. By the same token, tens of thousands of children are having a positive experience and outcome.”
