Curriculum for Exc......?

It now looks like it's going to be something that happens every generation: there will be a huge rumbling noise and Scottish education will chuck everything it's been doing up in the air. Then we'll look for something to replace it all, pick on things that are the exact opposite to what we were doing, spend years studying the new system and bedding it in and, as soon as it's in working shape, we'll chuck that out too.

Last time, we introduced 5-14 and Standard Grades. Every child had to be tested in Maths and Language in primary and the first two years of secondary and then go on to study 7 or 8 S Grades. Suddenly, no subject could be done for fun - like PE or Art - but had to have an academic element, usually involving sitting a test or writing an essay, thus taking the enjoyment out of school for a lot of kids.

The aim was inclusion, obviously. Did it work? Afraid not. But I would say a lot of that had to do with school inspectors and the cult of the statistic. No sooner had schools got hold of a way to 'measure' kids' progress (levels A to F in 5-14 and Credit/General/Foundation in S Grade) than the whole of education got caught up in trying to decide what to do with the information it was gathering.

The broad answer was to hit headteachers over the head with it: only 10% of children passing writing in P1 in your school? Time you did something about that! Never mind that writing always lags behind reading and maths. Pass your concerns on to your teachers and make them test early and often. Is the conversion rate from S Grade to Higher weak in this secondary? Get the pressure on the teachers. They have to teach to the exam, cutting out most of what made your subject enjoyable. You may get everybody up a grade by pushing and pushing but do you get happy kids? Ask the teachers - and the parents. Don't bother asking the kids - nobody ever asks them, poor sods.

Or as my former boss used to say: You don't fatten a pig by measuring it.

Now we've got a new initiative: Curriculum for Excellence, although I like what teachers call it much better: Curriculum for Excrement. There are so many things wrong with this it's hard to know where to start. Here are a few ideas from Carole Ford, ex heidie of Kilmarnock Academy:

http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/opinion/comment/carole-ford-scottish-students-will-fail-in-a-flawed-system-1-2610840

And here are few remarks from a relative of mine who is a teacher:

<<Some kids will NEVER be tested externally in this system. Those not deemed 'ready' to sit N5 or above will never have to do an external exam and the unit tests can be done over an indiscriminate length of time - there are no time limits on the new NARs (like NABs now). One of our N4 unit tests is to design a leaflet - with no specific time allowed. I could make my kids do it in 2 periods and another school in 20. Therefore, there are no set agreed standards. This will also serve to create a huge division in educational attainment - some kids will be confined to obscurity and fewer life chances with only N3s and N4s to their name with all the stigma that comes with being 'too thick to sit an exam' and others will be fast-tracked to N5, Higher and beyond.

It is a disgrace. N3 and N4 will not be worth the paper they are printed on. Or will they be virtual...???>>

And my own view? I'm not involved in education any more but I feel for teachers who have had little by way of guidance as far as I can see. And I pity thse students who - again - will be regarded as 'non-academic' and left to do what we once called 'O Grade colouring in.' Whereas those of us who worked with these kids know just how much they are capable of. But they will stay where they've been for most of the last 200 years: bottom of the heap.