Cf E Management Board – 21 Januar y 2013 – paper 3.1
Paper for Curriculum for Excellence Management Board Meeting –
January 2013
Update from the Curriculum for Excellence Implementation Group
The Curriculum for Excellence Implementation Group has met twice since the
last meeting of the Curriculum for Excellence Management Board, on the 18th
September 2012 and 20th November 2012. The next meeting is scheduled for
17 January 2013. Key points discussed at the group are as follows.
Programme Plan - progress
1. A new Programme Milestone Report has been developed to better
illustrate and track the progress of the programme’s milestones, this will allow
the Curriculum for Excellence Implementation Group to track the progress of
key programme milestones on a project-by-project basis. Milestones are RAG
rated. The Curriculum for Excellence Implementation Group members have
found the new report very helpful in giving a succinct overview of progress
across the whole programme. Copies will be circulated to members of the
Curriculum for Excellence Management Board once some further refinements
have been made and it is anticipated that this high level overview will be
provided to the Management Board in updated form, for each of its meetings.
2.
The programme is on track to deliver against plan with no significant
exceptions. Production and dissemination of SQA materials relating to the new
NQs has proceeded to schedule. Some other key resources to support CfE
implementation produced since the last Management Board meeting are as
follows:
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Exemplars of EA approaches to performance reporting at a local level
were finalised. Three exemplars were also published in late September.
Education Scotland published the first tranche of a planned suite of
Professional Focus Papers in late November. These brief papers set out
the main differences for learning and teaching between Standard Grade
and Intermediate courses and the new National 4 and National 5
courses.
Early exemplars of S3 profiles have also been published online.
Risks and Issues
3. The Group has kept the programme risk register under review. At its last
meeting the main focus was on the risk of inconsistent or inappropriate
implementation of Curriculum for Excellence, and associated new qualifications
across local authorities, which had been assessed as ‘amber’ but was raised to
‘red’ in light of the degree of uncertainty about the appropriateness of some of
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Cf E Management Board – 21 Januar y 2013 – paper 3.1
the curriculum models being developed, including concerns being expressed by
some parents. As a result additional mitigating actions are being taken to
prevent this risk from materialising, including utilising ADES to disseminate
good practice in this area. It was agreed that the extent of variability in the
types of senior phase curriculum models being adopted across local authorities
should also be added to the Issues Log and closely monitored.
Communications and Engagement
4.
The Curriculum for Excellence communications group are about to carry
out an evaluation exercise to assess the effectiveness of their communication
activities. The Implementation group will consider the findings of that exercise
as soon as it is available.
5.
The communications group are seeking to increase their visibility through
their representation on a number of groups for example SPION and the
Curriculum and Assessment Qualifications group. There will also be a focus on
Curriculum for Excellence in the next GTCS magazine which is delivered to
every registered teacher in Scotland.
6.
One of the main focus areas of comms and engagement activity is a
parents’ campaign. A wide range of support material is now available and
priority is now being placed on engagement with key groups to ensure that they
are using the information available to its best effect.
7.
More generally the Curriculum for Excellence comms group is working
closely with Scottish Government comms on identifying and disseminating
positive case studies of Curriculum for Excellence implementation in action.
Increasingly strong and effective links are in place between the Curriculum for
Excellence comms group and Scottish Government comms.
Professional Focus Papers
8.
Production of the full set of professional focus papers (over 80 in all),
which provide teaching staff with an ‘easy guide’ to advice and resources which
will help them prepare teaching programmes for any of the new NQ 4 and 5
courses, is well underway. All of the papers have been drafted and will be
published by early January. These complement the production of resources
and support from SQA for the new NQs.
Dr Bill Maxwell
Chair, Curriculum for Excellence Implementation Group
9th January 2013
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