Curriculum For Excellence
A CURRICULUM FOR EXCELLENCE:
A QUESTION OF VALUES
DONALD GILLIES
ABSTRACT
A Curriculum for Excellence outlines a curriculum for young people in Scotland from age 3 to 18. In the report, endorsed wholly by Scottish ministers, much is made of the underpinning values of the proposed curriculum. However, the absence of any consultation period has meant that such values and the report itself have not been subject to systematic debate by parliament, public, or the educational community values outlined in A Curriculum for Excellence. It suggests that the absence of an overarching rationale in the Report has left the stated curriculum values, although worthy, lacking coherence and force. It further questions the concept of ‘national …show more content…
The Group was asked to take account of views expressed during the National Debate, account of current research and of international comparisons. As well as educational factors, the Group considered global factors coming decades, including changing patterns of work, increased knowledge of how children learn and the potential of new technologies to enrich learning. In addition, the Group was asked to take a broad view of children’s development, within the wider framework of Integrated Children’s Services, bearing in mind the wide range of adults directly involved in the education of children and young people, in early years centres, schools, colleges and out of school learning. (Scottish Executive,
2004a: 6–7)
The Curriculum Review Group reported in November 2004 with the document
A Curriculum for Excellence. The foreword, signed by both the Education Minister and his Deputy, states that the document ‘establishes clear values, purposes and principles for education from 3 to 18 in Scotland’ (Scottish Executive, 2004a: 3).
However, the Review Group’s report, endorsed in its entirety by the …show more content…
The value statements, themselves, are acceptable from a democratic perspective and tolerance, and citizenship. In addition, they address issues of schooling such as the concern with socio-economic well-being, and epistemological claims on the curriculum. In this respect, an interesting phrase is ‘…enable young people to build
33
up a strong foundation of knowledge’ which suggests a different epistemological and pedagogical outlook from that suggested earlier in the document: ‘The curriculum… is designed to convey knowledge which is considered to be important’ (p.9). The former hints at the learner as active, the latter as passive.
Some of the value-statements can be seen as having intrinsic, and others supported by reasoned argument and, as such, it means that the curriculum is based on what could be seen as a rather arbitrary, albeit non-controversial, set of values. Far from being rooted in democratic ideology, or on any clear, sense of national values
— were any such to exist — they are instead a mixture of values which relate to a
(limited) number of personal, social, democratic, and economic concerns. That is not to say that they are inappropriate but rather that the absence of an
A QUESTION OF VALUES
DONALD GILLIES
ABSTRACT
A Curriculum for Excellence outlines a curriculum for young people in Scotland from age 3 to 18. In the report, endorsed wholly by Scottish ministers, much is made of the underpinning values of the proposed curriculum. However, the absence of any consultation period has meant that such values and the report itself have not been subject to systematic debate by parliament, public, or the educational community values outlined in A Curriculum for Excellence. It suggests that the absence of an overarching rationale in the Report has left the stated curriculum values, although worthy, lacking coherence and force. It further questions the concept of ‘national …show more content…
The Group was asked to take account of views expressed during the National Debate, account of current research and of international comparisons. As well as educational factors, the Group considered global factors coming decades, including changing patterns of work, increased knowledge of how children learn and the potential of new technologies to enrich learning. In addition, the Group was asked to take a broad view of children’s development, within the wider framework of Integrated Children’s Services, bearing in mind the wide range of adults directly involved in the education of children and young people, in early years centres, schools, colleges and out of school learning. (Scottish Executive,
2004a: 6–7)
The Curriculum Review Group reported in November 2004 with the document
A Curriculum for Excellence. The foreword, signed by both the Education Minister and his Deputy, states that the document ‘establishes clear values, purposes and principles for education from 3 to 18 in Scotland’ (Scottish Executive, 2004a: 3).
However, the Review Group’s report, endorsed in its entirety by the …show more content…
The value statements, themselves, are acceptable from a democratic perspective and tolerance, and citizenship. In addition, they address issues of schooling such as the concern with socio-economic well-being, and epistemological claims on the curriculum. In this respect, an interesting phrase is ‘…enable young people to build
33
up a strong foundation of knowledge’ which suggests a different epistemological and pedagogical outlook from that suggested earlier in the document: ‘The curriculum… is designed to convey knowledge which is considered to be important’ (p.9). The former hints at the learner as active, the latter as passive.
Some of the value-statements can be seen as having intrinsic, and others supported by reasoned argument and, as such, it means that the curriculum is based on what could be seen as a rather arbitrary, albeit non-controversial, set of values. Far from being rooted in democratic ideology, or on any clear, sense of national values
— were any such to exist — they are instead a mixture of values which relate to a
(limited) number of personal, social, democratic, and economic concerns. That is not to say that they are inappropriate but rather that the absence of an