Curriculum for Excellence

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 10:32 am on 11 November 2010.

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Photo of Alasdair Allan Alasdair Allan Scottish National Party 10:32, 11 November 2010

As a Parliament, our greatest single responsibility is, arguably, to do everything in our power to ensure—to put it rather grandly—that tomorrow is better than today and to ensure that Scotland's children have the most dynamic, memorable and mind-broadening education possible, and not just that they pass some exams. A dynamic education does far more than provide a better future for individuals: it provides an enhanced future for all Scotland. The strength of our education system impacts directly on our future prosperity, and it is essential that we do everything in our power both to maintain and to improve Scotland's education system.

Strangely enough, at least three current members of this Parliament were taught by one fine teacher at Selkirk high school who managed to include in his lessons welcome digressions into fields as varied as linguistics, literature, history, etymology, modern languages, science, the guitar, English grammar, art, current affairs and the satirical songs of Tom Lehrer, including his notable 1960s hit "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". Somehow, amid all that, he managed to find the time to get us through higher Latin and O grade Greek.

That was certainly immensely memorable, but it was deliberately not in any obvious isolated silo of educational experience. I wonder how easy it would have been to teach in that way latterly in the overexamined, overmeasured and overfragmented system that many have argued Scottish education became to some extent in recent years. If we are to correct that tendency and allow teachers scope again to teach in a more natural cross-disciplinary way, we have to embrace the curriculum for excellence.

The curriculum for excellence breaks down barriers in education. As it does so, it seeks to provide the children of Scotland with a better-rounded education and to help them to grow both academically and personally. The curriculum for excellence also seeks to adapt the education system to provide more meaningful academic growth to its students. By breaking down barriers between academic disciplines, the initiative creates a better-rounded, multidisciplinary approach to education, especially at primary school level. It gives teachers greater freedom to create experiences for their pupils that make lessons more interesting and effective. Such reforms create a curricular structure that allows for flexibility and adaption at classroom level. By providing that flexibility, we grant our teachers the freedom that they need.

The curriculum for excellence will also provide a better environment in which the children of Scotland can experience growth on a personal level. The curriculum ensures that students are provided with the tools and opportunities that they need to develop and grow as citizens and it seeks to provide a system that encourages that. Indeed, there is evidence that the new curriculum is having an effect in surprising ways, such as in new Edinburgh school buildings that are now physically being designed around the new curriculum.

Before we descend further into party camps on the issue, I point out that the curriculum for excellence is neither the brainchild nor the burden of any single party. All parties acknowledge—or should acknowledge—that the process that led to its creation began under a Lib Dem-Labour Administration, seven years ago, and that it has fallen to an SNP Government to implement it. Nobody disputes the considerable work that implementing the new curriculum has meant for teachers; however, we have heard relentless negativity in some speeches. In fact, if it were a temperature, it would have plummeted beyond mere negativity during Mr McNulty's speech and reached absolute zero.

The Government has responded to teachers' demand for a recognition that they must be allowed to teach and that the days of top-down direction on every aspect of their teaching lives must be brought to an end. The Scottish Government has also sought to address issues that the teaching unions have raised around the implementation of the new curriculum, which is reflected in the unparalleled involvement of the teaching profession in that task. That has included the funding of the implementation partnership and the creation of four new in-service days with targeted support through HMIE. Most substantially, there has been an additional implementation year: despite the siren calls, the time for implementation is now upon us.

Nobody pretends that implementation is a simple task, but the wisdom of going ahead is testified to in the comments of Irene Matier, of the Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland, in The Times Educational Supplement Scotland on 4 June:

"We are hearing more and more accounts of the really positive impact Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is having on schools, teachers and pupils. In particular, many teachers report that they are actually enjoying the job much more than before."

Liz Cameron, of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said in the June 2010 issue of "Business Scotland" magazine:

"Curriculum for excellence's approach in nurturing successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors offers great potential for developing the kind of young people we need—both as entrepreneurs and as employees."

It is now essential that we move forward and that Scotland acknowledges that we possess a dynamic cutting-edge education system that incorporates new reforms and targets for both academic and personal growth. We live in a rapidly changing world in which we must regularly adapt our approach to education. Only through a willingness to change constantly in that way and to improve our education system can we properly prepare the children of Scotland to live and work within that ever-changing world. Unless someone in the chamber has a better idea, the curriculum for excellence presents overwhelmingly our best prospect of achieving those goals and deserves all of our support.