Scottish teachers, please talk to me about the so-called "Curriculum for Excellence" and why I shoud allow my DS to be a guinea pig?

[gaelicsheep]

I am struggling to find information about the following things:

1. What is DS actually going to learn during his time at school? As in knowledge and facts? (And I don't mean how to use the internet to teach himself). Where is the actual syllabus?
   
   
2. Where is the hard research (preferably non-Scottish) upon which this new approach is based?
   
   
3. Where is the proof that it works and that children will actually be any better off? Will my child leave primary school actually knowing anything at all?
   
   I have looked in depth at the official CfE stuff and it does not answer my questions. The "parents' toolkit" is worse than useless. I will be eternally grateful to anyone who can help answer these questions, or direct me to where I can find answers. Because right now, for DS's sake, I am seriously regretting moving north of the border.

[AitchTwoOhOneOh]

oooh, good, yes, and can you also answer my question about deferment please. dd is a december baby and yyy i KNOW she'd be okay at school but i do think she'd be BETTER after a year more of nursery. am i being a wank? at least as much of a wank as the sheep, who is seriously regretting moving north of the border...

is ds in nursery yet, sheep? the nursery teachers and head add's place seem quite pleased with the cfore, i think.

[gaelicsheep]

Only because of this CfE crap Aitch. It's lovely otherwise, honest!!

He's in a private nursery Aitch that has just fallen out with the Council over the CfE who claim that they're approach is too adult-led (it's perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned). We went to look at the local school nursery with a view to sending him there next year (mostly because it's much more convenient while I'm on mat leave) and they seem quite relaxed about it. But then the whole learning through play thing is quite natural in a nursery setting. It seems to be when they get to big school that it's quite a change from before, and a huge change from what I was used to down south.

I realise I have quite an old-fashioned approach to education, having gone to a school where the methods probably harked back to the 50s. But I am very disturbed at the lack of firm information - there is no syllabus like for the National Curriculum in England that gives me any inkling about what will be expected of DS in the years to come. I get the feeling that DH and I might end up doing most of DS's education at home...

[gaelicsheep]

Sorry there was a bit of a weirdy overuse of your name there. And I meant "their" obviously, not "they're".

[AitchTwoOhOneOh]

yeah, you'll want to get that right if you're opting for home schooling.

bump!

[seb1]

Is this any help or what you have already seen CfE

[Caz10]

A few thoughts!...

Good teachers will remain good teachers, and will carry on teaching well regardless of the (lack of) curriculum guidance.

However these good teachers are also feeling worn down and baffled atm because of CFE and might struggle to be as effective as they were before.

New teachers/less confident teachers will - IMO only - struggle. There is a huge lack of guidance at the moment.

Teachers are being given less and less time to prepare/research/mark as their time is being taken up with trying to navigate their way through CFE stuff, make up new planning documents etc. The effects of this of course depends on how well SMTs are managing their staff and their workload.

however if your ds is just in nursery that does give things a few years to settle down a bit.

TBH I think it is a concern at the moment, and I am glad my dd is only ! But that might be a reflection of how things are in my school/LA atm, maybe someone will come along soon with more positive thoughts!

[nickytwotimes]

Dh is a teacher and answers as follows;

1. It will very from subject to subject. There is no nationally set syllabus - there are curriculum guidelines as there have always been in Scotland and the teacher builds the syllabus around these.

1. Good question! There is a long standing argument in education that politicians are more intersted in feathering their own nests by coming up with new ideas rather than concerning themselves with the real needs of youngsters. HOWEVER current educational theory is based around a social constructivism model and if you Google this or have access to a uni library you will find countless papers arguing both for and against this. More for in recent years as this is currently considered the best approach.

1. There are many papers that the approaches contained within CfE are beneficial to children but as with any theory you will also find arguments to the contrary.

Many teacher swould tell you that CfE only matches what any good teacher would be doing anyway which is to offer a pupil breadth, choice, pace and challenge. This can only result in depth of understanding rather than merely churning out exam fodder whch knows all the answers but understands none of the concepts.

[expatinscotland]

'dd is a december baby and yyy i KNOW she'd be okay at school but i do think she'd be BETTER after a year more of nursery. am i being a wank? at least as much of a wank as the sheep, who is seriously regretting moving north of the border... '

We are deferring Roisin, also a Dec. baby.

Not wanky at all, just ask anyone who's been teaching for any length of time, weegiemum, for example .

My sister. She teaches secondary level and that made a believer out of her wrt to deferring late Autumn born.

[gaelicsheep]

Caz10 - thanks. I did read though that CfE starts officially in August 2010 which is when DS starts his pre-school year, so there's not that long for it to settle down really.

seb1 - yeah, that's what I've already seen thanks. It's very woolly, like everything else I've seen.

nickytwotimes - thanks for asking your DH! It's a good point that there's never been a formal curriculum in Scotland, so I suppose I'd have had to get my head around that one in any case. I am sure that good teachers will get the best out of CfE, but it sounds like poor teachers or NQTs might really flounder. I wonder if they'll even have the time to plan their lessons any more.

As I said, I know I'm probably being old-fashioned, but I find the whole child-centric approach very alien. The CfE seems to take this to extremes, even to the point of the teachers discussing appropriate assessment methods with the children.

If there is no actual curriculum, do schools themselves prepare anything to let parents know what their children will be learning that term/year? Ironically we were thinking about Gaelic medium at one point, but now we're definitely not going that route. If I can't even understand DS's homework then I really won't have a clue what's going on!

[AitchTwoOhOneOh]

expat... they are making it awkward to defer her, we'd have to pay for any continued nursery and it's just a pita, totally. gah. did they just let you do it, no problem?

[expatinscotland]

the law says you have the right to defer in Scotland and not pay for children born in Dec., Jan. and Feb.

it's automatic if you desire it, you don't have to make a case for it (the way we had to with DD1 because of her delays and her ed psych had to make a case to the council to fund her an extra year).

no problems at all for DD2 with deferring.

just all the other parents seem to think it's the most horrible thing you can do.

[Caz10]

"I wonder if they'll even have the time to plan their lessons any more." - for us, at the moment, the answer sadly is NO! Hours and hours spent deciphering CFE, creating planners from scratch with no "expert" input (5-14 docs were at least written by people at a higher level than class teachers).

I would be much more worried if your DS was in P7 this year - then he would be moving to secondary, will NOT be sitting Standard Grades, but what he will be sitting has not yet been invented!!

Most primary schools will send you out a newsletter type thingy re what each class will be doing that term, or post it on their website or whatever.

[Eglu]

CfE I think is just going back to the way they used to teach in Primary schools years ago.

My problem is how they are going to work it in High Schools. Fortunately DS is a few years away from High School.

[2andcounting]

im a primary school teacher - don't panic! yes rhings are a bit woolly with CfE at the moment- but that doesn't mean children r getting taught any less- just that we're figuring out better ways to teach it. child centered means that insteadd of just trying to get children to pass national tests (worthless, total waste of time, teaching to the test) we can use time properly to make sure all children r receiving a wide deep breadth of knowledge, making topics relevant to their lives, cross- curricular ALL GOOD THINGS! i for one am delighted that my children will be educated under this system and not the extremely boring 5-14. and also ur ds is young enough that the secondaries will have sorted themselves out in terms of exams etc (as i think there r issues with this that i wouldn't be happy with). don't worry about CfE- just make sure its a good school.

[AitchTwoOhOneOh]

are you sure that's the law or a local thing? it's jan and feb round here for not paying, nov and dec you got to pay, they tell me.

[Bleatblurt]

Aitch, I deferred my DS1 (he's a Nov baby) and was told that the deferring is no problem it's just if they will pay or not. And that there is a 99.9% chance they WILL pay. We got a funded place no problem (though not using it after all as decided to HE ).

[gaelicsheep]

That's a good point about being glad DS isn't going into secondary school. I had this idea somehow that the CfE would be phased in as this age group passes through school - clearly that's not the case, duh. Yes you're right, it will have hopefully had time to bed down before he gets into the serious part of his education.

I wish I could guarantee DS was going to a good school. We have a choice of one - the small local school which is the only one in the strath. It's pretty difficult to tell from the HMIE report (also very woolly) if it's any good or not. I don't think it's bad, but the teaching seems to be a bit variable.

I think I might turn into one of those pain in the rear end parents!

Oh I should say, I am eternally glad that DS won't have to endure the horror of SATS (which I would have refused permission for in any case).

[Bleatblurt]

Oh and if it's the nursery saying you will have to pay then just ignore them - ours was rubbish and insisted we wouldn't even be allowed to defer DS1. Which was bollocks.

[gaelicsheep]

Oh God yes, ignore the nursery. Our one didn't even have a clue that we could get 4 funded sessions for DS's two full days.

[Caz10]

2andcounting is right - and clearly in a happier school than mine atm! . What do you feel though about mapping the outcomes to the actual nitty gritty of lang and maths especially? I worry that core things could be overlooked.

Eglu CFE shouldn't be going back to what was here before 5-14, but should definitely bring back some of the professional freedom, opportunities to explore things more deeply etc

[AitchTwoOhOneOh]

the nursery is cool, i just think they're fucked by the funding paper, which is very clear. butterball, was this in glasgow, your situation?

we've been very unlucky with the timings, the cooncil put the prices up 400% and now we'd get funding pulled for dd, by the looks of things.

Q. - If parent chooses to defer entry are they entitled to 15hrs statutory allocation?
By the time a child reaches 4 or 5, there are already differences in each child?s learning, development and levels of independence. Some parents are keen to defer their child?s entry to primary school because they feel that their child is not yet mature enough to cope with primary school. There is no link between this and the appraisal of additional support needs.
Children whose birth dates fall within January or February and whose parents wish to defer entry are entitled to an additional year within a Council or Partnership Establishment. The Scottish Government provides continued funding to support these places.
For children whose birth dates fall between August and December and whose parents wish to defer entry, continued places may be offered at the discretion of Glasgow City Council. There is no automatic entitlement to this and no funding is made available by Scottish Government for these places. Parents must also be aware that there is no automatic entitlement for their child to continue at nursery. A place may be offered, subject to availability and admissions criteria. However, the full cost of all nursery provision would be charged in line with Glasgow City Council, Early Childhood and Childcare Services Charging Guidance.

[2andcounting]

small local school probably great- again as a teacher i wouldn't base too much (any) importance on hmie reports primary school- i want headteacher/staff to be normal and interested in best interests of my child! scottish education system is v. good, ur ds will do well. Through CfE yes ur ds will get to set more of his own learning targets etc, but he'll still be getting taught all the basics- but now teachers will actually have imho more time to do this well. CfE is already in schools- not being rolled in stage by stage, more subject by subject, and school by school adapting their planning, assessments, outcomes and experiences in a more natural way.

[Bleatblurt]

No, I'm in Edinburgh I'm afraid. The stuff I read said pretty much what you've posted there but it also had something about it being very rare for a paid nursery place not to be offered if deferment was accepted.

You're going to have to move.

[gaelicsheep]

Well I'm feeling a little better hearing this talked about by people at the coal face. The Scottish Government documentation I find badly written, repetitive and patronising, and it had the immediate effect of turning me off the whole idea.

Having spent a little more time this evening comparing the English and Scottish documents for primary age - with the intention of gleefully posting a damning comparison! - I actually find that they are pretty much saying the same things in different ways. I suppose I just find the "your child will learn the following" kind of approach more familiar and comfortable than this "I can do this and that" language that's used in the CfE.

Now you just need to reassure me that the drive towards getting kids to find things out themselves, making increasing use of computers, will not mean education by Wikipedia!

[Eglu]

Caz10, I meant the way I was taught at primary school, in England in the 80's. Wasn't terribly clear sorry.

I meant back to learning all subjects through topic work etc.