Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning
Scottish Learning Festival
September 23, 2009 at SECC Glasgow
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Welcome to the Scottish Learning Festival. I am delighted to see so many teachers, frontline practitioners and education specialists here today - as we enter a critical phase in the delivery of our reforms to Scotland's education system.
My vision for the future is that just as we have a national health service, we should have a national education service. A truly cradle to grave education system, from the earliest years, through to lifelong learning. A universal service, providing Scots with the knowledge and skills they need to perform in a future world constantly changing. To secure jobs yet to be invented and harness knowledge yet to be discovered.
To bring about this future, my Government has acted to deliver our ambitious plans for every part of the education system. From the Early Years Framework, helping children get the best possible start in life, through to investment in training and skills for economic recovery.
For children and young people, Curriculum for Excellence is helping them to prepare for the challenges of life in a 21st Century society and global economy. And this generation of parents - my generation of parents - want more for our children from the Scottish education system than the education establishment has prescribed over the last few decades.
Transformation through Curriculum for Excellence
Curriculum for Excellence is about building on the best of Scottish education - the firm foundations of hard work and dedication of our education profession. Curriculum for Excellence is about improving standards in teaching and learning. Teachers need to stretch themselves so they can stretch their pupils. In doing so they can provide a rounded education, provide breadth and depth in education, and stretch and challenge for all young people.
We need through this process to help develop young people's capacities:
- to be Successful learners. With enthusiasm and motivation to learn, openness to new ideas and determination to achieve.
- to be Confident individuals. With physical, mental and emotional well-being, self respect and ambition.
- to be Responsible citizens. With respect for others and a commitment to participate responsibly in political, economic, social and cultural life.
- to be Effective contributors. With resilience and self-reliance, who can communicate, work with others, apply critical thinking, solve problems and be enterprising and creative.
Much has been achieved to date to bring us closer to achieving our ambitions.
Experiences and Outcomes
The Experiences and Outcomes, which I launched in April, provide you with the framework to provide a broad general education for all learners. They bring the four capacities to life for each curriculum area. Taken together they will help you to support a coherent set of outcomes tailored to the needs of all learners. To develop skills, to signpost progression in learning and set challenging standards. To enable teachers to adopt flexibility in planning learning and teaching.
The Experiences and Outcomes have themselves developed out of unparalleled involvement of the education profession - involving hundreds of schools, centres, colleges and teachers. To add to this, a wealth of material on which you can draw on to plan the curriculum has also been published and more will appear over the course of this school year.
There are many examples that show how Curriculum for Excellence is a transformation that is actively happening as we speak in classrooms and learning establishments across Scotland. Demonstrating that Curriculum for Excellence is about learning in context and developing capacity, depth and rigour. One of the tools to support this is interdisciplinary learning but make no mistake that subject understanding, knowledge and content is a key output of what will be expected for whatever tool is used.
Some of the examples of what is already happening in schools shows how better engagement can deliver improved knowledge, understanding and achievement.
- S2 pupils at John Ogilvie High School, South Lanarkshire, participated in a citizenship week focused on key themes of team work, global awareness and community. Activities involved every faculty in the school, where pupils explored identity, community, enterprise education, peace and human rights, active and global citizenship and even incorporated technical Bridge Building as the technical department's contribution to the concept of connection.
- Callander Youth Project helped young people from McLaren High School, in the Stirling local authority area to grow and develop through programmes involving Duke of Edinburgh Awards, literacy and numeracy skills and Get Ready for Work programmes. The project - which included Youth Services, the local Leisure Centre, Forestry Commission, Community Council and local employers - is a good illustration of how a partnership that extends beyond the school gates can help young people to learn, gain confidence and take on life's challenges.
Three strands to CfE - Curriculum, Qualifications, Assessment
The Curriculum guidance, set out in the Experiences and Outcomes together with Building the Curriculum 3, a Framework for Learning and Teaching, make up one of three key strands of work involved in implementing Curriculum for Excellence. The other areas are National Qualifications and Assessment Policy.
National Qualifications
In June, I announced the way forward for our system of National Qualifications. This aims to simplify the current system and ensure that the next generation of National Qualifications reflects and supports Curriculum for Excellence - helping Scotland's young people to lay the foundations for the next stage of learning and life.
The main changes will be:
- the introduction of a new National 4 and National 5 qualifications, available from 2013/14, to replace Standard Grade and Intermediate qualifications at levels 4 and 5 on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework;
- new qualifications in literacy and numeracy available from 2012/13 - to promote the improvement of these critical skills for the benefit of both individuals and Scotland's wider economy; and
- a review of National Qualifications at Access, Higher and Advanced Higher - to ensure that they fully reflect Curriculum for Excellence - with revised qualifications available from 2013/14 onwards.
Assessment
The third area and one of the most important strands of work in the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence, is Assessment.
An effective assessment system is essential to ensuring that Curriculum for Excellence delivers high quality learning and teaching. It also helps to ensure that national standards and expectations are firmly established, understood and met. An effective assessment system is Scottish education's guarantee to wider society of the quality and strength of the education that our children and young people receive. Scottish society will therefore rightly expect that Curriculum for Excellence has an assessment system that is rigorous, robust, fair and inclusive.
In developing that system, we need to build upon the strengths of the current arrangements and address the weaknesses. Strengths include the skills that teachers across Scotland have developed through Assessment is for Learning. The weaknesses that we need to address include concerns that assessment within the current 5-14 system focuses on too narrow a range of skills. There are also concerns about the quality and reliability of the performance information that 5-14 provides particularly at key transition points such as that between primary and secondary. These concerns have been expressed by teachers themselves over many years.
I can announce to the Festival today the publication of the new Assessment Strategy to support Curriculum for Excellence. The strategy has been developed in partnership with key stakeholders and practitioners from the 3 to 18 sector including the main teaching unions. I am particularly grateful to the Curriculum for Excellence Management Board for their role in its production.
The Assessment Strategy sets out that assessment practices will be specifically designed to support the new curriculum to encourage high quality learning and teaching and to give more autonomy and professional responsibility to teachers.
National standards and expectations will clearly reflect the principles of Curriculum for Excellence. Learners will be able to demonstrate their achievements across a wider and more challenging range of learning than at present through the experiences and outcomes. This will promote greater breadth and application of learning and raise standards. There will also be more focus upon skills development.
We will also develop a national system of quality assurance and moderation. This will support teachers in achieving confidence and consistency in their professional judgements. To help with this, we are working with our partners to develop a National Assessment Resource and CPD provision to ensure that teachers develop the skills and understanding required to deliver the new system.
There will be better, more reliable information on our children and young people's progress and achievements. This will be particularly important at key transition points such as moving between primary and secondary school.
These measures will help to ensure greater credibility in the system and increase confidence in teachers' judgements. It will also ensure that there is better quality information available at national level to monitor how our education system is performing.
As part of this, I would like to announce my intentions for the Scottish Survey of Achievement in 2010 and beyond. To reflect the importance of the development of literacy and numeracy skills as part of Curriculum for Excellence, the Scottish Survey of Achievement will be re-focused to survey these skills, in alternate years from 2011.
I have decided that the Scottish Survey of Achievement will not take place next year. Instead we will work with teachers and partner organisations to undertake a small pilot project for a revised Survey. This will ensure that the refocused Survey in 2011 is aligned fully with Curriculum for Excellence and provides an overview of attainment in the key areas of literacy and numeracy.
The overall vision and key principles of the Assessment Strategy are published today. Copies are available as you leave the auditorium today and at the Scottish Government stand.
This will be followed later this year by a Framework for Assessment, to provide more detailed guidance.
Overall, the new assessment system will provide a broader and more challenging measure of attainment and a more rigorous approach to quality assurance. It will be based upon "how much" and "how well" learners have achieved.
Success will depend upon all sectors of education working closely together to share standards and expectations. This will require a cultural shift from the existing system. However, that shift is necessary. Some of the harshest criticism that I have heard of the current 5-14 assessment system has come from teachers themselves. We cannot continue with a system where teachers feel a lack of confidence in each others - and in some cases - their own judgement of how pupils are performing.
The new system will boost confidence and promote professional skills. It will ensure that assessment and learning are closely integrated and mutually beneficial. This will help teachers to improve pupils' learning and give greater recognition to their achievements. It will also help teachers to develop their own skills and gain greater confidence in those of their colleagues. Overall, we will have a better, more robust system that promotes quality of achievement throughout education.
Further support to the profession to deliver CfE
There are many other areas where the profession is being supported to develop their practice in implementing Curriculum for Excellence.
Glow is coming into its own as a tool that enables sharing practice, collaboration, unique learning opportunities and innovation in teaching, supporting Curriculum for Excellence in action. Only last week, I participated in a nationwide Glow Meet involving over 700 pupils and teachers from 25 schools across Scotland.
To help practitioners and planners to move forward their thinking and discussion on the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence locally we are launching the first two "Curriculum for Excellence Management Board Discussion Papers" - on the Senior Phase and on Professional Development.
Support material for the early years sector will also be launched next week by my colleague Adam Ingram.
Additionally, next month, I plan to launch new online resources to support and broaden the scope of the teaching and learning of Scottish History in the new curriculum.
We will shortly also be publishing the fourth document in the "Building the Curriculum " series on "Skills". This will provide further support for all those working with young people, in whatever setting, in developing their skills for learning, life and work. Taken together with the Experiences and Outcomes, this will ensure that the development of skills is integrated and clearly embedded across all aspects of the curriculum and at all levels.
Budget, student teacher intake and class sizes
I am sure you will all be aware of there being many recently qualified teachers unable to secure employment as during the recession, Councils have not replaced retiring teachers in the numbers originally expected despite being funded to do so. In order to ensure a better match of supply and demand I established the Teacher Employment Working Group and Government and local government have accepted all the recommendations. This year I am going to bring forward the teacher data information for planning to address the disconnected system I inherited.
To create more opportunities for post-probationers to secure posts, I have also decided to cut back on the number of student teachers taken into our teacher education universities next autumn, on top of the 500 reduction this year. I and my officials will be discussing the likely extent of the reductions with the universities and others over the next few weeks to manage this.
I am confident that seeking to re-establish a better balance between the supply of and demand for teachers is the right thing to do. Of course, we need to keep an eye on the future requirement for new teachers as retirals increase over the coming few years.
I am also confident, however, that a temporary reduction in student teacher intakes will not jeopardise the progress that local authorities are continuing to make in reducing class sizes in the early years.
To support local authorities to continue to reduce class sizes, I am pleased to announce today that it is my intention to make regulations to set a maximum class size of 25 for P1 from August 2010. Reinforcing 25 in this way is a significant milestone on the way to our target of 18. The last administration did not provide local authorities legal support to ensure the benefits of smaller class sizes were not compromised by placing requests. We will consult on these draft regulations shortly.
I can also announce to the Festival today a Review of the current unsatisfactory arrangements governing class sizes across all school years. There are a mixture of class size control mechanisms, including regulations, circulars and teachers terms and conditions of employment which make rational management of class size very difficult. I would like to see more consistency and coherence of approach and the class size review will help determine what new arrangements and possible legislation may be needed in the longer term.
Moving forward - focus on implementation
Over the months to come, our priority is of course is to make sure that every part of our education and learning system is focused on adoption of Curriculum for Excellence this school year. We all have a part to play in rising to the challenge to realise the success of these reforms.
Curriculum for Excellence is about you, the professionals, having the freedom to do your jobs with creativity and autonomy to meet the needs of young people. To do this, we need you to be reflective, with the capacity to develop your own thinking and approaches to learning and teaching.
We need you to see yourselves as members of a professional community, taking responsibility for your own learning and engaging constructively with other professionals to ensure children and young people are fully supported. You need to stretch yourselves so you can stretch your pupils.
For the Head Teachers, your leadership is key to the successful implementation of our shared vision. To develop a culture of empowerment and creating the right conditions to create opportunities for young people. It is essential that we build a leadership culture in Scottish education which encourages initiative, tackles difficult problems directly and is genuinely aspirational for all our pupils.
In March, over 250 secondary Head Teachers from a total of 440 invited attended the Curriculum for Excellence event I hosted - the first time in memory, such a gathering of secondary school leaders, drawn from across Scotland engaged directly with Government.
To follow on from this landmark event, 5 National Head Teacher events for Primary and early years sectors start next week. These events will be hosted by myself and my Ministerial colleagues to discuss the successes you are achieving and the challenges you face in implementing Curriculum for Excellence.
For Local Authorities, your role is to create space and time to support schools and ensure that there is the professional development time to support creativity and build teachers' confidence. Over the last few months Adam Ingram, Keith Brown and I have visited each and every council, meeting leaders and Chief Executives to discuss Curriculum for Excellence.
Extra help is being provided. There are the additional in-service development days for implementation on top of the regular in-service and CPD time which should be for supporting Curriculum for Excellence. The Scottish Government are funding 100 extra teachers who are now working in local authorities across Scotland to support implementation. Additionally, there is also the continuing work of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland led implementation partnership.
Pupils and parents
The education establishments themselves cannot on their own deliver these reforms - pupils and parents will have a crucial role to play. The children and young people, at the heart of these reforms, share a responsibility for making the most of Curriculum for Excellence, to engage with the opportunities available and develop the 4 capacities. Parents have a key role to play in their child's learning and development and it is important that schools and parents work together to develop a shared understanding of what both can offer.
Colleges, Universities, wider community, business and third sector
No matter where the learning happens, giving young people the opportunity to better prepare for their future through stimulating and realistic experiences is vital. To allow this to happen we need the support of the colleges, universities, wider community, business, and third sector providers who have a central role to play in helping to make learning work-relevant, practical and engaging. We need all of these staff to continue to work with schools and work together in partnership to help deliver opportunities for young people to develop the skills they need to take on life's challenges.
Conclusion
We have made real progress to date in realising our ambitions. I want to acknowledge the hard work of the profession to date and the input of so many people in classrooms across Scotland who have shaped and are actively shaping these reforms.
This is a time of exciting opportunities for learners and teachers. We can and must work together to achieve an education system which is firmly focused on meeting the needs and aspirations of each and every child and young person in Scotland.
The nation is built on the talents of its people and teachers are responsible for drawing out the talents of our young people. In this room are the people charged with the responsibility for nurturing and building that nation - I know you have what it takes to do this.
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