1. Curriculum Cohesion Design, Development and Delivery

4. Scottish Education Department • “It is quite impossible to treat subjects of the curriculum in isolation from one another if education is to be meaningful to the child”. • 1965! • “A Curriculum for Excellence”?

5. The Intelligent School • “The curriculum needs to be planned in a way that achieves richer learning experiences for pupils. Such planning needs to ensure that there are different types of experience to enable learning across the curriculum.” • MacGilchrist, Myers & Reed

6. The Intelligent School • “In our experience, in spite of the best efforts of their teachers, many pupils are bored with the curriculum and find school an irrelevant experience.” • “We know that some pupils are motivated to continue with their studies even if they are not engaged with the work.”

7. The Intelligent School “For a significant number, when faced with a record of failure through the assessment system and a curriculum that appears to have no relevance to their lives, they are more likely to “switch off”, truant or be disruptive.”

8. Improving Scottish Education 2006 • “recent and continuing societal and technological changes now present new needs and challenges”. • “The curriculum must evolve to meet learners’ and society’s needs in the less certain world of the 21st Century”.

9. Improving Scottish Education • “Recently, awareness in schools of the need for the curriculum to be appropriate for individual learners has become more acute”. • Links disengagement to “weaknesses in learning and teaching” in some schools.

11. Considerations . . . . . . • What we teach • What is learned • How it is organised • How it is taught • How it is learned

12. Impact on schools. . . • “The document has profound implications for what is learned, how it is taught and what is assessed.” Peter Peacock, Foreword to “A Curriculum for Excellence”

13. Curriculum Principles • Challenge and enjoyment • Breadth • Progression • Depth • Personalisation and choice • Coherence • Relevance

14. Implications for S3 – 6 . . . . . • Subject based courses and exams likely to remain the main provision for most pupils • Increased emphasis on vocational education • Enrichment activities

15. Implications for S1 - 2 • HMIE views of S1 – 2 • Lack of pace and challenge • Fragmented curriculum • Building on prior learning

16. Health and Wellbeing Languages Maths Sciences Social Studies RME Technologies Expressive Arts Health English Modern Languages Maths Science Humanities Business and ICT Technological Education Creative Arts Curriculum Groupings and Faculty Structures

18. Organising the S1 Curriculum • Use ACfE organisers / Faculties • Faculty structure geared towards promoting cohesion and effective learning and teaching • Start from where we are • Build capacity over time • Build in “cross-cutting” themes

19. Organising the S1 Curriculum • Easier to link with P7 Curriculum • Easier to build on prior learning? • Flexible – can be replicated in S2 or not as a school and its stakeholders decide • Greater possibility of a P7 – S1 coherent curriculum

20. Practical examples . . . . • Collaborative approaches to Assessment (and AIFL) in Social Subjects • Creative Arts showcase • Thinking skills / Philosophy in S1 • Delivery of problem solving and ICT through Technological Education • Health Promoting events involving HE / PE / Active Schools / PSE / partner agencies • Tracking of pupil attainment across P6 – S2

21. Link . . . . Curriculum S1 model (See Word Document on Web Site)