Curriculum farce
Comments on the Curriculum for Excellence by Professor Lindsay Paterson of Edinburgh University (BBC interview, Sunday, 3 September) are a model of objective analysis and restraint.
His condemnation of the effects of CFE – lowering standards overall and widening the gap between the more and the less advantaged in society – is totally justified. For teachers at the chalkface, who observe on a daily basis the fall in standards and witness the lunacy of an ill-defined curriculum combined with ineffective methods, it is difficult to maintain objectivity and restraint.
John Swinney’s response that CFE has received international acclaim and widespread support from teachers is disingenuous. Observers and teachers approved of the principles; it is the SNP implementation which is fundamentally flawed and has been since they came to power.
Their blind insistence on continuing with CFE has damaged Scottish education and caused thousands of youngsters to underachieve in a manner which will have a negative impact on their future prospects for life. The international and national statistics have proved beyond doubt that CFE is a disaster.
How far are we now from a solid, professional, credible education system? As part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge, supposedly the route to closing the gap for disadvantaged youngsters, Education Scotland has created a pseudo-scientific menu of approaches which schools or teachers might adopt.
The menu looks pretty much like Tripadvisor, with strategies given ratings on three aspects. No need to read any of the words, just scan the icons and pick your next project.
For example, Collaborative Learning looks like a good bet. It is cheap, has four stars for effective research and takes only five months to take effect. Words almost fail me at this point but I will continue. Sadly, there is no mention of the fact that North Lanarkshire spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money training every single one of its teachers in collaborative learning several years ago.
Yet North Lanarkshire proudly boasts to have received more attainment challenge money than any other authority, precisely because of its abysmal literacy and numeracy standards. They have been using this approach for a lot longer than five months. Strangely, it seems not to be working.
Like every other teacher in Scotland I received an email from the Chief Inspector of Schools last month. He claimed to have three key messages for me and, quite frankly, it was exactly the same messages we have been getting for the last ten years. If the phrase “flogging a dead horse” has no meaning for him perhaps he could indulge in a little collaborative learning with his political masters and Google it?
CAROLE FORD former president, School Leaders Scotland, Terregles Avenue,
Glasgow