Kersland School
Meeting the needs of learners through the 7 Principles of Curriculum Design:
Personalisation and Choice:
Offering all pupils in Kersland School choice and allowing their voices to be heard is of major
importance to all staff. Pupils at all stages are presented with a range of choices throughout their
school day. This was particularly evident during the whole school CSI theme.
 Problem solving was at the forefront of many lessons and there were activities where
choices and decisions had to be made.

Pupils were involved in their learning throughout and determined their next steps where
appropriate.
 All work displayed throughout the school was highly personalised and pupils could identify
their own work immediately.
Depth:
Through interdisciplinary learning staff were able to plan for and facilitate overlearning. Children and
young people were able to revisit skills and concepts in a number of different contexts.
The involvement of two teachers in the National Assessment Resource project proved to be very
beneficial when it came to exploring the Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes in
greater depth. For example:

Pupils from one class looked in detail at one Mathematics and Numeracy outcome linked to
a Science outcome.

They were able to explore matching and sorting items in a scientific context in great detail
before presenting their findings to their teachers.
The teacher evaluation of this learning experience was very positive.
‘I believe that being able to break down each Experience and Outcome and explore it in greater
detail allowed me to offer a richer learning experience for the children. We explored mathematics
and numeracy concepts through our science based topic in depth. This allowed me to get a better
idea of where the children were in their learning and what the next steps for them would be. The
children amazed me with how confident they were when presenting their findings to their peers and
other adults and continue to remind me to have high expectations of them all’.
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Challenge and Enjoyment:
In order for the pupils to learn, they have to be fully involved in their lessons. Teaching staff make
children and young people aware of their learning intentions and success criteria and give regular
quality feedback about how each young person is doing throughout every task.
Evaluations highlighted:

All tasks were designed to provide challenge and support in equal measure, offering pupils
every opportunity for success.

The more responsible the children were for their learning, the more they seemed to enjoy the
tasks and became very determined to succeed.

The pupils thoroughly enjoyed this topic and were engaged and motivated to learn
throughout
Breadth:
It is not only the ‘mastery’ of a particular Experience or Outcome that is important but the ability to
utilise a variety of skills across the curriculum and make the connections between them. This was
achieved through:

Pupils became detectives for a day during ‘science week’ This provided an opportunity to the
children and young people to consider their theme from a different perspective.

Children and young people were given the opportunity to explore different curricular areas at
once. They used non standard measurement techniques such as footprints and arm widths
to measure how tall a cardboard cut out of one of the ‘Kersland culprit’s’ was. They used the
pattern from the sole of somebody’s shoe left behind at a crime scene to identify another
suspect!

Language was key focus of other activities for example when pupils had to identify criminals
using visual and verbal clues.

Later in the week the children used ICT to present a science experiment completed in class
to the rest of the school using Power Point, digital camera and video footage.
The pupils were all actively engaged in their learning throughout this process and were able to make
connections between different curricular areas.
Coherence:
All staff strive to offer the pupils in Kersland School a coherent approach to their learning from 5 –
18. Every child and young person has an Individualised Education Programme where annual and
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termly targets are devised to enable the pupils every opportunity to develop their Language,
Mathematics and Health and Wellbeing skills.
Planning at the early stages of this topic ensured that:

all lessons would be delivered in a coherent cross curricular way

Learning provided opportunities for skill development at each stage.

During the topic, the pupils were offered a range of experiences to help them make the
connections between all curricular areas.

Drama, Music and P.E. specialists were all involved in the class topics and planned lessons
alongside teaching staff to ensure that a strong link between each curricular area was
maintained.
At the end of the topic all class staff met to discuss whether pupil’s skills were just emerging or
whether they could transfer skills to another context. This information was recorded and used to
decide what the next steps in learning would be.
Relevance:
One of the underpinning features of Kersland School is the importance placed on all learning
experiences being delivered in a context that is relevant to the pupils.

Staff planned interdisciplinary activities that were relevant to the individual pupil based on
their current knowledge and understanding of the world.

Baseline assessments of the knowledge and understanding that each pupil had of a
particular concept were conducted

Activities were then differentiated to suit each pupil’s level of ability.
Progression:
Despite choronological age children and young people are likely to be functioning within the early
and first level of Curriculum for Excellence. This proved to be a challenging issue for all teaching
staff
A working party, set up in 2009, designed ‘Derived’ E’s & O’s to break down each experience and
outcome into smaller learning steps, suitable for the pupils’ stage of development.
These were developed to ensure that pupils were not constantly revisiting the same experiences
and outcomes throughout their time in school and to ensure progression and continuity.
In addition termly and yearly Experiences and Outcomes that teaching staff would incorporate into
their planning were decided upon to prevent particular experiences being taught year after year or
for other E’s & O’s not to be addressed.
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An electronic tracking system to follow the experiences and outcomes that pupils have covered
during their school lives is also currently under development.
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