Curriculum for Excellence - Excellence Groups

Seventeen Excellence Groups, made up of experts from education and other backgrounds, were set up last year by Education Secretary Michael Russell as part of his blueprint to improve Curriculum for Excellence. They have now presented their reports.

Scottish Book Trust CEO Marc Lambert was the chair of the English Excellence Group, and, blogging on the Engage for Education website, said this of the experience: 

"The essential question we were asked to consider was: what characterises excellence in the teaching and learning of English? And thus – what part might Local Authorities and communities, statutory bodies, arts organisations, parents, and schools and teachers themselves, have to play in ensuring that excellence is achieved?

You’ll have to read the report to find out how we began to answer those questions. But what became abundantly clear, throughout the five months of the group’s investigations, is that while the new curriculum does present some challenges to educators, these are far outweighed by the opportunity for innovative and effective teaching that it offers, supports and licences."

You can read the full English Excellence Group report, as well as the findings of the 16 other Excellence Groups, here on the Scottish Government website.

Elizabeth Buie, writing in the TESS, summed up the key findings of the English Excellence Group as:

• Pupils’ choice of reading, based around “heritage” texts, should include a representation of Scottish literature, especially contemporary work.
•  All teachers of English in Scotland should be encouraged to study at least one course in Scottish literature in their degree.
•  At national level there should be a Scots Makar for children, to lead development of a network of writers and teachers, able to deliver high- quality Scots language CPD training and author visits. Scots language should feature in teacher-training programmes for all stages.
• Schools must give pupils a solid grounding in basic grammar, spelling and punctuation.
• To support pupils’ engagement with a wide range of texts, schools should un-filter access to social media sites such as Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and blogging sites.

Anyone who’s seen Ken Robinson’s fantastic "Changing Education Paradigms" speech would also do well to read the Excellence Report for Higher Order Skills - the report  looks at an area that cuts across all areas of the curriculum.

In the past Higher Order Skills have been seen as advanced skills, acquired later in the education process; this is potentially misleading as complex learning tasks (ie acquisition of language) are encountered very early and deployed intuitively as children interpet and develop their understanding of phenomena they encounter.

A key component of Curriculum for Excellence is the acknowledged need to relate skills to knowledge and understanding, as the introduction says “education should equip young people to understand and to do as well as to know is important at every stage”. 

There are interesting sections looking at the changing world around us and the need for ambition and the urgent need to offer guidance on how to integrate skills development across the curriculum. The report is a provocative and persuasive examination of the need for patience, ambition and persistence in implementing the Curriculum for Excellence.