CfE Management Board
– 26 March 2014 – Paper 3.1
Curriculum for Excellence Implementation Group
Chair’s update for Management Board: March 2014
Since the last meeting of the Management Board, the Curriculum for Excellence
Implementation Group has met twice - on 28 January and 14 March.
Programme Report
Overall, the programme remains on track for delivery according to plan. To reflect the importance of planning for the transition from the Broad General Education
(BGE) to the Senior Phase, a new project has been developed and added to the
Implementation Programme, specifically on this issue. This new project is being led by Education Scotland working closely with SQA.
Early Years and Broad General Education
The vast majority of the guidance on Assessing Progress and Achievement has now been published: the outstanding resources (HWB and Maths) will be published by the end of March. Tigtag, an award winning digital resource to help children and young people learn about the scientific world, was launched on Glow in January.
Professional dialogue visits to primary and secondary schools to support developments in the BGE have taken place.
Senior Phase
Professional dialogue visits to secondary schools have taken place over the period.
The aim of this series of visits has been to take stock of the change process, learn about approaches which are proving successful and potentially worthy of wider dissemination, and to provide support where appropriate. The visits have focussed on implementing Curriculum for Excellence in the Senior phase. The information gathered from them will be used to inform planning for CfE support for 2014-15.
Three of the four Leadership of CfE in Secondary conferences have taken place and the series will be complete by the time Management Board meets. The conferences have been well attended and initial feedback is generally very positive.
Parents and Carers
Partner organisations have continued to support the National Parent Forum of
Scotland in improving communication with parents. The national bodies have provided a Curriculum for Excellence update for the NPFS e-newsletter to the parent community. Close collaboration with NPFS is being maintained to ensure that key messages are attuned to parent interests. Work is continuing to develop and improve the Parentzone website.
Qualifications
The qualifications project continues to be assessed as Amber, due to implementation related issues in some SQA projects. Mitigating actions have, however, been taken and these projects are being carefully managed and monitored by SQA. There has been no impact on delivery of external milestones.
SQA announced a modification of its Quality Assurance approach based on experience of verification to date. The third round, due to start in April, will now

CfE Management Board
– 26 March 2014 – Paper 3.1 focus on verifying the Added Value Unit assessment and the internally assessed components of Course assessment, with a greater emphasis on subjects where there has been most change. In 2014/15 there will be more work with teachers on consolidating their understanding of standards. Round 1 of the Quality Assurance system will focus on delivery of understanding standards events. There will also be more targeted Quality Assurance, with round 2 focusing on course assessment and added value unit.
In addition, Education Scotland have published new Route Maps through
Assessment – resources which provide practitioners with an easily accessible and comprehensive route in to the key guidelines, advice and support for qualifications at
N4 and N5. They include important information about assessment, learning and teaching.
College Development Network (CDN)
The CDN has been engaging increasingly strongly with the Implementation Group.
At our last meeting CDN provided the Implementation Group with an overview of current and future activities. They have been keen for their activities to be more fully integrated into the CfE programme of work and are now working with the CfE
Programme Manager to ensure this happens.
Risk Register and Issues
The Implementation Group continue to carefully monitor the programme risks and issues.
To ensure that the focus on risk continues to be relevant and appropriate, a risk workshop, attended by members of the Senior Accountable Officers Group and representatives from the College Development Network and ADES will take place in the next few weeks. The outcomes from this workshop will be recorded onto a revised risk template and will improve how risks are recorded, monitored, controlled and reported, drawing on best practice in Scottish Government.
Action: The Curriculum for Excellence Management Board are asked to note the intention to refresh the risk register and develop a new approach to risk management.
Annual progress report and the 2014-15 Implementation plan
As noted at the last meeting of the Curriculum for Excellence Management Board, the Implementation Group has been taking forward development of a revised format annual progress report on the implementation programme.
To support education authorities and schools in planning for the new academic session, it is proposed that the publication of the 2014/15 Curriculum for Excellence
Implementation Plan is brought forward (relative to previous years) and is published, together with the Annual Progress Report, towards the end of April.
To achieve this, the 2014-15 implementation plan would require to be signed off by correspondence by both the Curriculum for Excellence Implementation Group and the Management Board.

CfE Management Board
– 26 March 2014 – Paper 3.1
Action: The Curriculum for Excellence Management Board are asked to approve this proposal.
Dr Bill Maxwell
Chair, Curriculum for Excellence Implementation Group
20 March 2014