SCHOOL OF EDUCATION28 June 2012

School-based curriculum development

Mark Priestley

The seminars

• 19th February - Prof Mark Priestley - School-based curriculum development

• 19th March - Dr Valerie Drew - Pedagogy for CfE: Fitness for purpose and teaching methods

• 30th April - Prof Mark Priestley -Teacher agency: creating the conditions for curriculum development

• 28th May - Dr Alison Fox - Leadership and CfE

Today

• Different starting points for SBCD• CfE as a process curriculum

– The big ideas– Fitness for purpose – content and methods– Barriers and Drivers

A caveat Change is not necessarily a good thing. Engagement with innovation may mean no change at all. What is important is that practitioners engage meaningfully with innovation, taking into account available evidence and research findings, and weighing up the pros and cons of the innovation. This stands in marked contrast to processes where innovation is rejected through ignorance or prejudice, where it is adopted superficially and uncritically to ‘tick boxes’ .

Another caveat

Curriculum development is a process not a product•The substantive work needs to be carried at in school by professional and empowered teachers –the local experts.•It is ongoing, building on existing practices, and requiring continual evaluation.

Curriculum for Excellence: the big picture

CfE – a framework for learning

Content

Provision, e.g. timetabling

Pedagogy

Assessment

PURPOSES

The implementation gap

The rhetoric of CfE

??????

CfE in many schools

Policy

Reinterpreted policy

Reinterpreted reinterpretations

Curriculum practices

RECONTEXTUALISATION

Questions we should be asking…

• Where do we start?• What are the big ideas in this new policy?• What knowledge do young people need to

develop the big ideas?• What are the appropriate methods for

achieving this? • What are the barriers to (and catalysts for)

change in our school?

Which curriculum model?

• 3 starting points for curriculum development (Stenhouse 1975)– A content curriculum? Specification of

content to be taught as a starting point.– An outcomes curriculum? Specification of

outcomes to be achieved as a starting point.– A process curriculum? Specification of long

term goals and educational purposes as a starting point? Content and methods are then selected which are ‘fit for purpose’.

CfE – what sort of curriculum?• A content-based curriculum?

– Development work done by working groups based upon traditional classifications: e.g. Maths; Science; Social Studies; Expressive Arts; Technology.

– Within curricular areas, subjects kept as discrete entities (e.g. in Social Studies, 3 strands: People, Past Events and Societies; People, Place and Environment; People in Society, Economy and Business).

But...

• Little specification of the knowledge that a successful learner, responsible citizen, effective contributor and confident individual might have:– E&Os quite vague in terms of content – leading to some

interesting decisions about content• The easy answer

– To fall back on existing practices and resources– But this does not provide an adequate rationale for the sorts

of knowledge needed for the 21st century in a ‘knowledge society’

• Knowledge not a suitable starting point for curriculum development in any case – encourages a content-driven approach to teaching

CfE – what sort of curriculum?• An outcomes-based curriculum?

– Typically, a subject articulated as 100+ E&Os.– Tendency for such curricula to:

• Become atomised and fragmented• View learning as a linear process• Become assessment driven – encourage audit approaches

• Outcomes were expressly not for assessment – they ‘are not designed as assessment criteria in their own right’ (CfE overarching cover paper, 2007).

But…

• BTC5 - “In Curriculum for Excellence, the standards expected for progression are indicated within the experiences and outcomes at each level” (p13) and “…assessment tasks and activities provide learners with fair and valid opportunities to meet the standards.” (p36…)

• A standard - “something against which we measure performance” (p11).

• Difficult to see how these are different to the 5-14 attainment targets, which came to be used primarily for assessment purposes.

CfE – what sort of curriculum?

• A process curriculum?

‘The starting point for educational planning is not a consideration of the nature of knowledge and/or the culture to be transmitted or a statement of the ends to be achieved, whether these be economic or behavioural, but from a concern with the nature of the child and with his or her development as a human being’ (Kelly, 1999).

CfE: A process curriculum?

• make learning active, challenging and enjoyable• not be too fragmented or over-crowded with content• connect the various stages of learning from 3 to 18• encourage the development of high levels of

accomplishment and intellectual skill• include a wide range of experiences and achieve a

suitable blend of what has traditionally been seen as ‘academic’ and ‘vocational’

• give opportunities for children to make appropriate choices to meet their individual interests and needs, while ensuring that these choices lead to successful outcomes

• ensure that assessment supports learning(extract from A Curriculum for Excellence, 2004)

Pros and Cons

• Pros– Allows content and method to be selected to meet

clearly defined educational goals– An emphasis on the appropriate processes for getting

there– Makes links– Flexible– Allows teachers to build on what the pupils bring

• Cons– Complex– Requires a high level of teacher skill and engagement

Any questions?

Think, pair, share

Does it matter?

• Yes!• The starting point for school-based curriculum

development (SBCD) will impact upon the form that programmes in schools will take

• CfE is problematic in its structure in that it creates multiple starting points for SBCD (Amnesia and déjà vu - see Priestley & Humes, 2010)

• But it is sufficiently flexible that schools can choose where to start

Starting with the E&Os

• Audit of E&Os against existing practice• Minimal change to meet new requirements

(often minor changes to content and changed terminology)

• Incremental change, with intensifacation of workload

• Piecemeal box ticking, not transformational change

• Re-run of 5-14?

An alternative foundation...

• From the big ideas?– Four Capacities

• a better starting point if real change is desired. Allows us to start from broad questions of purpose and value, thus deriving content and method

• But also problematic: vague – require substantive sense-making in schools; instrumental and narrow – the ‘responsible citizen’ (Biesta 2008)

– Educational values• A concern for individual growth: qualification;

socialisation; subjectification (Biesta 2010)• A concern for social values (e.g. social justice)

– The teacher’s responsibility to consider the long term effects of their teaching

Selection of content• Select content that is:

– Interesting – stimulating student motivation– Relevant – i.e. meets the purposes of education (e.g.

work skills, life skills, ‘essential’ culture such as knowledge of political system)

– Promotes higher order thinking – e.g. conceptual development, enquiry skills

– Powerful knowledge (Young, 2007)

• In other words – content that is fit for purpose and addresses the big ideas of the curriculum

Age and stage

• Early years/lower primary– Fully integrated approach to reflect children’s need to

explore and make sense of their environment

• Upper primary– Increasing specialisation in Science, MFL etc

• Lower secondary – the BGE– Amalgamated subjects (integ. science, SS etc).

Emphasis on foundational skills and knowledge whilst making links across the curriculum

• Upper secondary– Exam subjects rooted in academic disciplines

An up-to-date curriculum?

One of the chief intellectual purposes of the school is to develop understanding of the institutions, problems, and

issues of contemporary life. Historically, whenever a rapid transformation of the conditions of living has taken place, the tendency has been for the curriculum to lag behind. Because of the great changes in modern life,

there is at present a real need in certain fields for a new synthesis of knowledge and, correspondingly, for a new

grouping of the materials of the school (Harold Rugg, 1926)

A meaningful curriculum?

Custom and convention conceal from most of us the extreme poverty of the traditional course of study, as well as its lack of intellectual organisation. It still consists, in large measure of a number of disconnected subjects

made up of more or less independent items. An experienced adult may supply connections and see the different studies and lessons in perspective in logical

relationships to one another and the world. To the pupil, they are likely to be curiously mysterious things which exist in school for some unknown purpose, and only in

school (John Dewey, 1936)

A defragmented curriculum?

'There is no occupation . . in which the workers must change jobs every fifty minutes, move to another location, and work under the direction of another supervisor. Yet this is precisely what we ask of

adolescents, hoping, at the same time, to provide them with a coherent educational program‘ (Elliot Eisner,

1992)

Selection of methods

• Fit for purpose methods– Thinking skills – e.g. analysis– Social decision making– Dialogue and debate– Enquiry– Presentation– Traditional methods, including worksheets– Worksheets– Making links – cross curricular learning, IDL– Experiential learning

• Powerful methods– How we learn shapes the development of our

intellectual capacity

Tension between the old and the new

Barriers to ‘transformational change’

• Physical – classrooms, dept location

• Structural – e.g. timetabling, lack of spaces for dialogue

• Attitudinal – e.g. subject imperialism, conservatism

• Cultural – e.g. teacher professional learning, language, tradition

In summary

• Start with questions of purpose:– What is CfE trying to achieve?– What are our purposes/goals?

• Next think about ‘how’ questions:– What knowledge/skills?– What methods (e.g. formative assessment, coop learning)

• Then address operational issues – a contextual audit:– Catalysts/inhibitors?– Systems (eg timetabling)?– Mapping the outcomes and experiences?

• Professional Enquiry cycle

Discussion

• What are likely consequences (pros and cons) of treating CfE as:– An outcomes curriculum?– A process curriculum?

• How will these outcomes differ?

• Which approach is more constructive for developing a good education in your school?