THE curriculum doesn’t reflect the way people learn and think and doesn’t respond to pupils’ aspirations, according to Fraser Sanderson, the education directors’ president (page seven). Like it or not, the entire curriculum is up for grabs after the national debate, and ministers have signalled as much in their “flexibility” drive.
Teachers, too, want change, as the science lobby emphasised last week (page six). It is struggling to sell itself to young people who want more sexy, relevant science taught in more exciting ways. Call it curriculum change.
Primary and English teachers are still digesting last week’s report on less than satisfactory literacy standards between P5 and S2 and many want to rewrite what they believe are botched language reforms. Call that curriculum change and the list goes on. Modern language teachers were again in the news after their failure to persuade young people to vote for them.
On top of that, physical education teachers in Aberdeen prove that we have the most unfit generation ever (page three). Their subject is in equal flux. It shows that as young people change, so must the formal and informal curriculum and with it teachers’ pedagogy. Brace yourselves.
