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The child's journey through the curriculum

Progression

Children and young people enjoy making progress and find satisfaction in meeting the challenges posed by a curriculum that engages and motivates them. Teachers need staging posts for charting progress, for reporting to parents and to assist planning. We also need clear national expectations of progress and attainment. To reflect the broader definition and purposes of the curriculum we are proposing a different way of describing progression. The following are key features of the approach:

• It recognises that children and young people will progress at different rates.
• Expectations will be described in terms of experiences as well as broad, significant outcomes.
• Experiences and outcomes will be described from the learner's point of view, using terms like 'I have …' for experiences and 'I can …' for outcomes.
• Experiences and outcomes will be designed to reflect the four capacities and to promote the development of literacy, numeracy and other skills.
• There should be fewer levels, more widely spaced, to allow teachers to plan for greater depth, enrichment and consolidation of learning.
• The framework should support teachers in planning for both lateral (broadening and enriching) and vertical (becoming more challenging) progression. This means enhancing experiences within levels as well as providing for progression to the next level.
• The framework should not create artificial ceilings which might limit expectations of what children can achieve. When children are secure in their learning at a particular level and have experienced sufficient breadth of activity, they should move on towards the next level.
• The framework should provide a good basis for reporting to parents about their children's progress, making use of the 'I can …' and 'I have ...' approach to describe achievement within levels as well as between them.

This approach has implications for the way we view rates of progress through levels. The levels are not there as hurdles to get over as quickly as possible, but rather as staging posts on a journey which offers opportunities for challenge and depth.

We have considered a range of options for describing progress in a simple framework and we recommend the following as a best fit with these key features. Our proposal also reflects the commitment to reduce 'clutter' and assessment loading.

Curriculum for excellence achievement framework

In developing the expectations for each level, review groups will be taking account of evidence of what children can achieve with appropriate pace and challenge, setting higher expectations where there is evidence to support this.

It is important to stress that the levels do not imply that there will be testing at specific stages (such as at the end of P1). Teachers will constantly be observing and judging progress using a broad repertoire of approaches. As part of this overall approach to assessment they will need to take stock through broad summative judgements when they believe that a child has a secure grasp of a significant body of learning.

There is an important relationship between these curriculum levels and the Scottish Credit Qualifications Framework ( SCQF). The two need to be linked, to enable young people to progress smoothly into the appropriate level of qualification (for most young people, this move into qualifications will take place in S4 and beyond). They are not equivalent, however. SCQF levels relate to qualifications and not to expectations for the curriculum and associated assessment pre-14.

Reflective question 2

What are the implications of the proposed approach to progression for:

• planning
• assessing
• reporting

If progression of different kinds represents one dimension of the curriculum, a second dimension is the breadth of activity.

How learning is organised: curriculum areas

If young people are to play a full, informed part in society they need to develop their understanding and their skills in different contexts. To provide a device for ensuring that learning takes place across this range of contexts we need to group the range of experiences and outcomes into recognisable components. We are proposing the following groupings for structuring experiences and outcomes:

• health and wellbeing
• languages
• mathematics
• sciences
• social studies
• expressive arts
• technologies
• religious and moral education

In the next stage of engagement we will develop this approach further. In the meantime, we are proposing that health and wellbeing would be likely to include components such as personal and social development, understanding of health, physical education and physical activity, and contributions from home economics. Languages and mathematics would include specific components of literacy and numeracy respectively. In addition, languages would include English, Gaelic, modern languages and classics. Sciences would include learning in biological, physical, chemical and environmental contexts, and the social studies would include learning in historical, geographical, social, political, economic and business contexts. Drama, dance, music and visual arts would be included in the expressive arts. The technologies might include craft, design technology, graphics, computing and home economics. Philosophy might be included with religious and moral education.

In some cases this would represent a change from existing curriculum structures such as, in S3/4, the modal structure. Home economics, for example, would make important contributions to at least two of these curriculum areas, including practical food preparation as an important aspect of health and wellbeing for all young people.

The curriculum areas should provide the basis for learning and the development of skills across a broad range of contexts. They offer opportunities for citizenship, sustainable development, enterprise, creativity and cultural aspects. Taken together, their outcomes and experiences should represent our expectations for general education for all young people in Scotland before they embark on greater specialisation - in most cases by the end of S3.

It will be open to schools to organise the outcomes and experiences differently (for example, designing challenging interdisciplinary projects), taking account of local circumstances, to plan for progression, breadth and depth of learning. Outcomes and experiences might also be grouped differently for different stages of learning, such as early learning, or for young people with additional support needs.

The overall framework needs to provide a coherent approach to progression for skills which are developed through the various curriculum areas. As part of the review we will consider how to best achieve more coherent approaches to the development of literacy, numeracy and other skills across the curriculum.

Reflective question 3

What opportunities would this approach present in your school?
What are the implications for your future planning?

Making choices in learning

The proposed changes to the structure of the curriculum give us an opportunity to look differently at choices in learning at all stages. As with other aspects of the curriculum, different factors apply to choices at different stages.

As part of the engagement process we would like to work with schools to explore possibilities for different approaches to personalisation and choice. We wish to consider, for example, whether it would be desirable and possible for choices to take place over a more extended period across S1 to S3, rather than the S2 course choice model. We would like to consider approaches to subject choice which are not based on the current modal structure but still address the needs and interests of young people. We then propose to develop a toolkit to support schools' approaches to offering choices of different kinds.

Reflective question 4

Where do opportunities for personalisation and choice lie at present in your class or school?
What principles should underpin 'personalisation and choice'?
What are the implications of extending personalisation and choice for your future planning?

Learning and teaching

A goal of the curriculum review is to give teachers more freedom to teach in innovative and creative ways. The quality of learning and teaching in every classroom - and the inspiration, challenge and enjoyment which can come from teachers' enthusiasm and commitment - will be critical to achieving our aspirations for all young people.

If we consider the four capacities and the attributes and capabilities we wish children and young people to develop, it is very clear that teachers will need to deploy a very broad range of approaches to learning and teaching.

Reflective question 5

To what extent do your current teaching styles contribute to the development of the four capacities?
What changes to your teaching would lead to further development of these four capacities?
What are the implications for your future planning?

Assessment, achievement and qualifications

The purposes of learning are being redefined, so it follows that there are implications for assessment. Assessment needs to fit the purposes of the learning, using techniques which are well chosen to support learning, inform planning of next steps and give a good basis for reporting on progress.

Assessment is an integral part of learning and teaching. Assessment is for Learning supports the purposes of A Curriculum for Excellence and is developing teachers' skills and understanding about using assessment to support learning. Teachers using assessment practices which involve high-quality interactions based on thoughtful questions, careful listening and reflective responses help children to achieve their aims and to develop their learning and thinking skills. Effective use of summative assessment and processes where teachers 'share the standard' complement good formative assessment. These good practices can support and enhance the benefits of an improved curriculum.

From a child's very first day in nursery, recognising achievement is an important part of learning and development. The recognition takes different forms and serves different purposes at different stages, from a child's pride at having a picture displayed on the wall in the nursery, to the SQA certificate when a young person leaves school. This implies a progression in the ways we acknowledge achievements at different stages.

One of the most important aspects of A Curriculum for Excellence is the need to be able, for each child and young person, to give recognition to a broader range of their achievements than we do at present. We need to develop straightforward and simple ways of doing this, especially so that processes of assessment do not distort the intrinsic value and satisfaction of achievement.

S3 offers an opportunity to recognise achievements of different kinds across the whole range of experiences and learning, across all of the components of the curriculum and beyond. Taking stock of achievements at this stage can give recognition to all that has gone before in readiness for young people to make decisions about future pathways and specialisms. It can support the young person's curriculum choices. This stage can be used to ensure that firm foundations - including in literacy and numeracy - have been laid for the next stage of learning and for life.

The process of recognising broad achievements should be able to continue cumulatively up to the point when a young person leaves school with achievements captured in a way that is valued by young people, their parents, employers and colleges and universities.

Reflective question 6

In what ways are the achievements of children and young people recognised in your class and school?

Qualifications represent a very important, but not exclusive, aspect of achievement. By the end of S3, learners should have established a solid basis of learning on which they can build as they move into a framework of qualifications. This has implications for the structure of qualifications and the outcomes which are assessed within them. Addressing these implications will be an important area for future work by relevant partners.

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