A SENIOR inspector has admitted that HMI has contributed to the 5-14 overload which has left little time for the skills and abilities pushed to the political forefront this week by the First Minister.
In his first major education speech for a year, Jack McConnell appealed for greater curriculum flexibility and a focus on a broad spread of talents only days after Roddy Duncan, the inspectorate’s primary specialist, told headteachers in St Andrews that HMI had helped to stifle the primary curriculum, driving out creativity and thinking skills.
A week after the retirement of Douglas Osler, senior chief inspector, Dr Duncan questioned much of the 5-14 programme, which has been in place for some 12 years. Curriculum flexibility was hotly debated among secondary heads, he said, but it applied equally to primary schools.
He wanted to “plant some seeds” among heads who have struggled to implement the heavily criticised programme. Last week it was condemned as an “unmitigated disaster” by geographers.
Dr Duncan said that the 5-14 programme began in 1989 and was based on best practice of the 1970s and 1980s. “As we move forward to 2010 and beyond, do we still have the right framework to ensure we are meeting the needs of children? Can we organise a curriculum that focuses on developing children’s thinking skills and their creativity? Have we somewhere lost that?
“The inspectorate would take some of the responsibility for that loss; we do not deny that at all and I would not pretend to.”
He also suggested that teachers may be misinterpreting guidelines on time allocations by insisting they do every aspect almost every day.
David Cameron, head of education in East Lothian, told heads the “curriculum must be on steroids by now” because of the developments which had pumped it up. It was not the curriculum that delivered improvement but the experience children gained through it.
Kay Hall, president of the Association of Head Teachers in Scotland and a North Ayrshire primary head, welcomed any shift that recognised new priorities such as working together, creative thinking, problem-solving and critical thinking. Mrs Hall said the 5-14 guidelines appeared to have been produced with a single subject focus and had now become “the definitive curriculum” against which inspectors assessed schools.
Alana Ross, president of the Educational Institute of Scotland and a Glasgow primary teacher, said teachers would welcome a review of the overcrowded curriculum, provided teachers were involved and recommendations were sustainable over a longer period.
“Target-setting seems to be everyone’s priority which tends to make some subjects less highly regarded,” Ms Ross said.
Conference report, page 4
