The Scottish curriculum has been criticised for being too vague - but also too cluttered - with pupils lacking a common knowledge base that becomes apparent when they progress to secondary, where teachers often complain of having to “start again”.
Today a paper from Education Scotland proposes a way forward; it is the second of three promised by the body as it continues to progress the “curriculum improvement cycle” (CIC).
The paper suggests that the technical framework in Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) - used by teachers to plan lessons and including CfE “experiences and outcomes” (often referred to as Es and Os) and benchmarks - should be replaced with a “know-do-understand model” that uses a “big ideas” approach.
Proposed change to CfE
This would help to “identify the conceptual knowledge that we would expect learners to develop at key points as they move through the 3-18 curriculum”, Education Scotland says.
So what does it all mean?
Ollie Bray, Education Scotland’s strategic director for curriculum, pedagogy and innovation, explained that “big ideas” approaches to curriculum design involve capturing “the core understanding children and young people will develop throughout their curricular journey from early years onward”.
Big ideas, the paper says, “outline the essence of a curriculum area or disciplinary area”.
A “know-do-understand” model then “provides an opportunity to explicitly identify and clarify what learners should know and be able to do at key points in their learning”.
It is hoped that this would help to address concerns raised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, in its 2021 review of Curriculum for Excellence, that “the role of knowledge appears somewhat fragmented and left to interpretation at the school level”.
Education Scotland has also found - through its curriculum review pilots, run between February 2023 and April 2024 - that teachers want “greater clarity through the technical framework on what knowledge learners should have at each stage”.
The paper says that the Es and Os, and their focus on “I can” statements, have placed “an emphasis on ‘doing’” that has “contributed to wider concerns or perceptions about the downgrading of knowledge and the consequences of that for developing sound conceptual understanding”.
The paper says a big-ideas approach could: help improve “coherence”, lead to explicit cross-curricular links and make clear the “overarching concepts and essential learning that define a curriculum area”.
Crucially, it recommends the approach “should be used across the BGE [broad general education] and senior phase” in a bid to address another problem for teachers: the “disconnect and lack of clarity on progression between the BGE and senior phase”.
The current framework only spans the broad general education which runs from the early years to the end of S3.
Big-ideas models, says the paper, are already in use in other countries and jurisdictions, including British Columbia, New Zealand, South Korea and Singapore - although there are variations in the form it takes.
In Education Scotland’s paper, Curriculum Improvement Cycle (CIC): Towards an Evolved Technical Framework, the proposed approach in Scotland is summed up as:
- Establishing what learners should understand (the “big ideas”).
- From this, establishing what learners should know and be able to do to develop this understanding.
- Setting out more on expected knowledge and skills at different educational milestones, to “clarify what progression looks like as learners move through a level and between levels”. This could then “support the establishment of a common base of knowledge”.
The paper also states: “By seeking to provide greater clarity on progression there is a risk this becomes a checklist of content that promotes rote learning, due to accountability and performability pressures.”
But it adds that “without such clarity there is a risk of failing to resolve an issue identified in the pilot reviews (Education Scotland, 2023) of ‘vague and woolly statements’”.
The paper therefore talks about giving teachers greater clarity over what learners should know and be able to do at key milestones to “support the development of a common base of knowledge”.
But this should largely “focus on conceptual knowledge and avoid indicating content and contexts: the choices of these should be left to practitioners”. In other words, it should be for teachers to determine the experiences by which learners develop knowledge and understanding.
The paper states: “The technical framework concentrates on the ‘what’ of the curriculum and, as such, does not prescribe ‘how’. Decisions on how best to design and organise learning experiences should be left to the professional judgement of the practitioner.”
‘More user-friendly’ approach for schools
Professor Mark Priestley, a curriculum expert and University of Stirling academic, said the paper’s proposals represented “a more user-friendly approach for schools and teachers”, while staying true to the core ideas of Curriculum for Excellence.
“Workability is at the heart of the report - a practical approach that clearly articulates purposes, sets out the core concepts and enables decisions about method and organisation,” he said.
Professor Priestley believes the approach has the potential to address many issues identified with CfE, from “tick-box approaches to developing the curriculum” to “poorly articulated progression in learning” and the “downgrading of knowledge”.
He said: “The proposed ‘big ideas’ framing has considerable potential to set out core conceptual knowledge, while enabling schools to select content with local relevance to develop these concepts.”
However, Professor Priestley cautioned against “innovation overload in an already overstretched and under-resourced system”.
He said: “We will need to take our time in any reforms, involving teachers and other practitioners at every stage of the process. The early signs here - the current CIC process - are good.”
Mr Bray stressed that the paper was setting out how the technical framework for Scotland’s curriculum could evolve and did not represent a finalised picture.
“While we feel comfortable with the general sense of direction and we have received positive feedback from early testing, one of the purposes of Towards an Evolved Technical Framework is to support dialogue and gauge how others in the system feel about the proposed direction,” he said.
A third CIC paper, Working Together to Make Change Happen, is expected to be published in March 2025.
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