You report last week that heads of primaries and special schools have been told that the review of the curriculum affords them and their teaching staff a chance to “act creatively and shape the curriculum”.
Meanwhile, on the front page, we have detailed reportage of how much will be cut and from where in education budgets up and down the country.
If those who teach, as well as those who manage those who teach, are to have a real say in how the curriculum is to be reviewed, where are the time and the resources to do the job to come from? Is teacher involvement in the review of the curriculum central to the process and therefore part of our working week, or is teacher involvement in the review of the curriculum an extra-curricular activity?
How is a return to the culture of cutting budgets going to help teachers think and act creatively in their own workplace? How is a return to the culture of cutting budgets going to enable pledges on smaller class sizes to be realised? How is a return to the culture of cutting budgets able to deliver reduced class contact time in August as promised in the teachers’
agreement?
Chris McIlroy of HMIE, as well as letting slip that the inspectorate knew that the 5-14 assessment regime was unrealistic a decade before they admitted it publicly, declared: “One of the things we have been good at in education is asking people to do things that can’t be done.”
Your reports on the curriculum review and on budget cuts lead me to conclude that “we” (whoever they are) are still good at asking people to do things that can’t be done.
Leader 22
Bill Ramsay
Albert Avenue, Glasgow
