News: CfE delayed
Posted by gnulinux
New exam system held back due to experts’ fears - this statement was buried in the middle pages of the press at the weekend.
Since when did you need to be an “expert” to know that A Curriculum for Excellence is a potential disaster in the making?
Article in press says: “Pilot programmes ... have been running in classrooms for months”. Not many months, though. In my subject area there is only one school in Scotland that I know of “piloting” - “flying by the seat of the pants” is another way of putting it. This is shambolic beyond belief.
Piloting: one teacher muddling around with one class, the results of which will never be made public. This is total madness. If CfE is worth piloting, why aren’t we all doing it? How can one person with limited knowledge inform the whole process? Anyway piloting should have been done before any timescale for implementation was set - a proof of concept. It may be the case that CfE will not work when implemented for a variety of reasons.
CfE has developed its own bandwagon of course, full of CfE zealots who really don’t know what they are doing - but will say yes to anything. Sadly it will no doubt in the end be down to people like me, highly experienced and logical (but never consulted), to rescue the thing when it goes belly-up.
The CfE documents that have emerged so far are little more than wish-lists and waffle, that is, no good when it comes to implementation. We need detailed specifications and designs. Without these it will become difficult at a later stage to evaluate meaningfully any reform.
Posted by Dominie
I worry a little about the EIS response ...
“We welcome the Government’s willingness to respond to concerns about the tightness of the previous implementation schedule and look forward to continued partnership work on delivering A Curriculum for Excellence.”
I hope this means that they will work with the SSTA and other organisations to press for much greater detail about how CfE is to be delivered in the secondary sector, which is where the BIG changes will happen.
Posted by buffvasant
Post 1 is the most sensible post I have ever read on TES Scotland, thank you.
To follow this and other hot topics: www.tes.co.ukcommunity, click on TES Scotland, then opinion.
