The Curriculum Improvement Cycle (CIC) must address the “vagueness” of Curriculum for Excellence’s (CfE’s) experiences and outcomes (Es&Os) and “the disconnect” between upper and lower secondary school, finds a paper from Education Scotland.
The paper also says the CIC must “declutter the curriculum, and clarify the position of knowledge”, calling for “greater clarity…on what knowledge learners should have, at each stage” and “an understanding of what is meant by knowledge and its purpose in the context of CfE”.
It recommends the Es&Os be replaced - or “evolved” - after teachers rejected the idea that simplifying or refining current guidance would be enough “to address questions around the role of knowledge”.
‘Big ideas’ approach recommended
An alternative approach highlighted in the paper is “a ‘big ideas’ model to support curriculum coherence”. Big ideas, says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), are “broad, interdisciplinary concepts that transcend specific subject areas and address deeper understanding”.
Today’s paper states: “The [broad general education] in secondary could be restructured and organised into broader learning areas, possibly based on the ‘big ideas’ or cross-curricular knowledge and skills. This would then allow learners to consolidate their learning and address the concerns participants had previously expressed around the lack of depth in learning with current structures, where learners can be potentially engaging with 18 different subjects.”
The findings stem from the curriculum review pilots carried out by Education Scotland between February 2023 and April 2024.
The pilots - which involved over 450 participants, most of them practising teachers and headteachers - were designed to test the best approaches to curriculum review after the OECD recommended in its 2021 report that Scotland develop “a systematic curriculum review cycle”. However, the pilots also explored some of the other issues raised in the OECD report.
Secondary students redoing work covered in primary schools
One consequence of the lack of clarity over knowledge in CfE, participants report, is that important topics are not being studied in enough depth. Also, students may have to “redo work covered during their primary education” when they transition to secondary, alongside peers covering these topics for the first time.
There is also a push to get through “too much content” in CfE. The upshot is “a rush through the curriculum to cover content at the expense of sound conceptual understanding and deeper learning” which the report notes are “two features often associated with high-performing systems”.
The report - published today and entitled Curriculum Improvement Cycle (CIC): Background and a Case for Change - highlights that “since the introduction of CfE, numerous additional layers have been added to the curriculum without consideration being given to what should be removed or reduced”.
It says: “Presently, as well as the five Building the Curriculum guidance documents, there are 1,850 statements of learning within the Es&Os, 1,000 benchmarks, a series of cross-curricular themes and initiatives, four capacities, four contexts for learning, 16 principles and practice papers and eight curricular areas.”
The paper calls for this “technical framework” - which is what teachers use to plan what children will learn - to be “evolved”.
Teachers’ perspectives differ by subject
However, today’s paper explains teachers’ perspectives on how much clarity or prescription is required moving forward differs by subject.
The research finds teachers of subjects such as maths - described as “hierarchical” subjects - are keen for greater prescription but teachers of “horizontal” subjects, such as expressive arts, wanted “autonomy to plan a curriculum that fits their context and school community”.
Those involved in the modern languages pilots, meanwhile, “indicated opposition to a highly prescribed framework”, but suggested that more prescription might be useful in primaries where teachers are not languages specialists.
The paper concludes: “Any evolved technical framework for the curriculum must address the tensions between autonomy and prescription, with sufficient nuance to appreciate the differences between particular subjects.”
Pilots to allow educators ‘to be actively involved’
The paper is the first promised by Education Scotland as it takes forward the CIC. A second paper, expected in December, will look at what a new technical framework might look like. A third, due in early 2025, will look at how change will happen.
Ollie Bray - the strategic director at Education Scotland responsible for curriculum, pedagogy and innovation - says the pilots were about figuring out how best to go about reviewing the curriculum.
The approach being taken to curriculum review - which he set out in a recent interview with Tes Scotland - represents a change of tack for Education Scotland. This is also reflected in today’s paper, which says the pilots allowed educators “to be actively involved in discussions and make contributions which shaped [Education Scotland’s] work, rather than being subjected to a ‘top-down’ approach as described by the OECD”.
It is expected that curriculum review cycles will span 10 years, starting and ending with an exercise similar to the “national discussion” on Scottish education, which reported in May 2023. Reviews are already underway in: maths, English and literacy; Gaelic and literacy; science; and health and wellbeing.
Education Scotland plans to begin reviewing all curricular areas this school year.
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