Major new research into how Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is taking shape in the secondary sector has found that exam-related pressure on schools is leading to “counter-educational” practices, including “abolishing low-performing subjects”, “teaching to the test” and “channelling students into courses to benefit school attainment statistics”.
The research - funded by the Nuffield Foundation and carried out by a team of researchers at the University of Stirling - finds that subjects are being cut from the curriculum in Scottish schools if results are poor. Meanwhile, parents report that students considered unlikely to pass a qualification are, in some instances, being withdrawn “to improve the school’s attainment statistics”.
The researchers - Dr Marina Shapira, Professor Mark Priestley, Tracey Peace-Hughes, Dr Camilla Barnett and Michelle Ritchie - say there are “significant tensions between pressures from the government, the school inspectorate (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education), and local authorities to raise attainment on the one hand, and teachers’ professional values and the core values of CfE on the other”.
The University of Stirling research team says that “many key actors” - including education directors and headteachers - “dislike current practices associated with the attainment agenda” and that they see these as “acting counter to the philosophy of CfE” and “their professionalism”. Even so, innovation is deemed risky because schools “continue to be judged according to their ‘5 at’ attainment statistics” (that is, the number of students attaining five National 5s and five Highers).
However, it is not just in the senior phase of secondary education that the CfE is not being delivered: the researchers found that the broad general education from S1-3 was “shaped to a large extent by a backwash effect” from S4-6, with the range of subjects tending to mirror senior-phase choices.
In S1, in particular, they found there was “fragmentation of provision” and that students being taught by 15 or more teachers in a week was “commonplace”.
This, the researchers say, is leading to “incoherent provision with significant gaps in knowledge” instead of schools having a “broad and balanced foundational curriculum”, as envisaged by CfE.
The researchers conclude that their findings paint “a rather gloomy picture” of a secondary system that is more focused “on producing particular kinds of performance data” and “meeting external demands” than on creating “a coherent and purposeful experience” for students.
Other key findings include:
- In 2013 over two-thirds of S4 students studied between seven and eight subjects, whereas in 2014 - when new qualifications were introduced - less than half of the students studied that many.
- Between 2013 and 2014 there was also “a large reduction in the number of qualifications that students entered in S4”.
- For social subjects, expressive arts and modern languages qualification, entries continued to fall after 2014 and through the period of 2015-2019; this suggests “a hierarchy of subjects” in Scottish schools “with those deemed least important...suffering greater declines”.
- Curriculum narrowing and reduction of subject choice in S4 was found to be “disproportionally affecting students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds”.
- Schools in more socioeconomically disadvantaged areas also experienced “a steeper decline in [qualification] entries” in S4.
- A narrower curriculum in S4 had “a detrimental effect on attainment, contrary to the commonly held belief that studying fewer subjects will improve results”.
- There is conflict between budget savings and providing a curriculum for all learners; “some young people are being ‘left behind’ because their needs are not being met” - especially those working below SCQF level 5 as school’s “limited resources were prioritised for National 5 level or above”.
- Shortages of teachers (especially in science, technology, engineering and maths subjects) and a lack of teacher non-contact time are limiting “subjects offered and teachers’ capacity for curriculum making”.
Writing for Tes Scotland today, the University of Stirling researchers say that the findings “paint a stark picture of a curriculum reform that has diverged considerably from its original aims with significant unintended consequences for young people, teachers and schools, and serious equity concerns”.
The researchers make 23 recommendations for policy and practice, including an independent review of data usage for accountability purposes and reform of national qualifications, so that assessment is embedded in learning “and less likely to promote teaching-to-the-test methodologies”.
They also call for an increase in teacher-class non-contact time to support “curriculum making”, as well as further investment in closing the attainment gap.
Analysis
For a long time now there have been concerns about the narrowing of the curriculum in S4 in Scottish secondaries. Worries such as these led to the review of CfE, which concluded in 2021.
That review highlighted the “misalignment between CfE’s aspirations and the qualification system” in the senior phase of secondary; it also cautioned that a high number of different classes was being taken in S1-3 - up to 17 in some schools.
The CfE review said that might result in “fragmentation and superficiality” or a “‘mile-wide, inch-deep’ curriculum happening in S1-S3”.
Now, with the independent review of assessment and qualifications, led by Professor Louise Hayward, due to report at the end of this month, it might be hoped that some of the issues with the senior phase flagged in this most recent research into the secondary curriculum - and the 2021 CfE review by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development before it - will begin to be addressed.
The recommendation in today’s report that there should be more of a focus on “more continuous coursework assessment” may soon be taken forward - the Hayward qualifications review could reverse the narrowing of the curriculum in S4.
It is less clear, however, when the problems with fragmentation in early secondary will begin to be addressed, or how course options - especially for those studying levels below SCQF level 5 - are going to be improved amid drastic cuts to local education budgets.
One headteacher featured in the Nuffield Foundation research said the broad general education (BGE) in her school was very traditional because its development had been a low priority in comparison with the senior phase.
With more changes to senior phase assessment in the pipeline, it is likely to continue to steal the limelight.
However, the researchers did find “some use of more innovative provision evident in the data” that meant the BGE was less fragmented, citing subject rotations, hybrid subjects such as social studies, and “one teacher/three subjects” approaches to science and social subjects.
But the clear message is that Scottish secondary schools remain a long way from realising all the aspirations of CfE - whether in the BGE or the senior phase - as the system is obstructing their efforts at every turn.
