Too many pupils in Scotland are not experiencing the full range of subjects and experiences they are entitled to under Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), an Education Scotland report has found.
The thematic inspection report on the design of the curriculum - based on visits to 50 schools and nurseries in 2022-23 as well as broader inspection evidence - pinpoints concerns around:
- staff recruitment and retention
- budget constraints
- lack of specialism in subjects
It also finds that in primary schools, the drive to address gaps in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing since the Covid pandemic has led to a narrowing of the curriculum.
Shifting focus to ensure learning across breadth of subjects
While primary staff are now “shifting their focus to ensure children are learning across the breadth of curricular areas and subjects”, there is “a pressing need to accelerate this”.
In secondary, students “can still experience constraints on how fully they can access specific subjects and pathways”.
The report blames “recruitment challenges”, which are “particularly challenging in business, drama, Gaelic language, home economics, mathematics and the technologies”.
The curriculum is also narrowing in early secondary because students - particularly in S3 - are “required to specialise in specific curriculum areas too early” in order “to avoid the ‘two-term dash’ for national qualifications”.
The report states: “Senior-phase examinations continue to overly influence the [broad general education, or BGE] curriculum. There remains a pressing need for work to take place to better align the BGE and the senior phase to ensure smoother progression for young people.”
Transition is flagged as an issue: at times, “young people repeat assessments or learning in S1 which they already covered when they were in primary” and this “impacts on their motivation, engagement and progression”.
The senior phase also comes in for criticism.
Schools are beginning to use a wider range of qualifications, but the report says: “Senior leaders and staff do not always ensure that young people in the senior phase receive their full entitlement to curriculum choice. Senior leaders frequently find that balancing timetables and matching staff availability with pupil choice present challenges.”
Online learning “is helping to ensure that young people can access curriculum areas and continue their learning”, but the report also points to problems in this area.
Digital learning access ‘still a challenge’
Access to digital learning is “still a challenge across the country” and students’ experiences “vary significantly”.
Barriers include “intermittent or poor connectivity which disrupts online work” and “websites and applications which are blocked by individual local authority systems”.
The report also flags recruitment as a key barrier to curriculum design and development, but makes no recommendations in this regard.
It calls for “clear, concise, accessible and easy to locate” guidance on curriculum design from the Scottish government, national bodies and councils, as well as “succinct and subject-specific guidance to support curriculum design”.
It finds that “senior leaders and staff need to navigate a wide range of guidance and resources”.
‘Specific advice’ needed for special schools
In particular, staff in special schools need “specific advice on developing a curriculum which meets the needs of children and young people with complex needs”; they are having to “adapt guidance, advice and resources” designed for the mainstream sector.
Poor guidance for schools - or too much guidance - has long been a criticism of CfE. One response was a 2019 “refreshed narrative” of the curriculum amid concerns about the complexity of CfE identified in a 2015 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report.
The Education Scotland review, published on 8 May, finds that schools “could do more to use the refreshed narrative when reviewing their curriculum offer”.
It concludes: “Whilst there is a lot of positive work taking place, there are still a number of barriers to ensure the curriculum is designed to help children and young people to achieve the best possible outcomes.
“It is clear that there are significant challenges for senior leaders and staff in designing and developing the curriculum: barriers exist in relation to recruiting and retaining staff, access to digital technology and balancing time for collaborative professional learning.”
It adds that schools use “creative approaches to overcome these challenges” but “need to do more to ensure that they are delivering a curriculum that has breadth, depth and progression” for all.
For the latest Scottish education news, analysis and features delivered directly to your inbox, sign up to Tes magazine’s The Week in Scotland newsletter
