Emerging Approaches to Profiling 3-18
Midlothian Council
1 Scene Setting/Context
Background
As a key element of Curriculum for Excellence, all secondary school pupils are
expected to generate a personal profile by the end of their third year of secondary
education (S3). This profile is intended to:
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provide a reflective summary of a pupil’s achievements;
recognise progress in learning and achievement;
build learners’ skills and ability to reflect on their learning;
support and inform transition.
National guidance on profiling further states that a learner’s personal profile will form ‘a
reliable and full account of their cumulative progress and achievements, including a
focus on what they feel are their latest and best successes.’
Midlothian’s approach
Following discussion with our schools, Midlothian Council decided that each of its
secondary schools would adopt the same approach to S3 personal profiling
underpinned by some key principles.
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Profiling should be a process that enables pupils to reflect on their progress,
learning, skills and achievements at this stage in their education. This reflection may
be directly related to their curricular experiences, but can also be developed in wider
areas of life and learning.
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Profiling should help young people to develop the ‘language of learning,’ so that they
are able to evaluate their progress and achievements and engage in an ongoing
dialogue with teachers, peers and parents.
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Pupils should have ownership of their Profile. Teachers should support pupils in
identifying and recording their achievements but it is pupils who identify their best,
most significant achievements within or beyond school.
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High quality dialogue focused on skills, learning and effective questioning by
teachers and other supporters is important in profiling. Pupils should have frequent
opportunities to discuss how the skills they have learned can be applied and
transferred into new situations and contexts.
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We see profiling as an ongoing process. It was an agreed as an early part of this
process that S3 would use a format identical to the P7 profiles in order to build on
existing practice and support transition. Equally we see developments of profiling
into senior phase as an important component of support for young people as they
prepare for transitions beyond school.
Rationale
From consultation with school staff and learners, a number of potential concerns were
identified related to the introduction of S3 profiling.
1 There was a risk of there being too great an emphasis on the Profile, ie the
summative document produced at the end of the profiling process. Many of the early
discussions centred on the platform for production of the Profile (ie, paper-based, MS
Word, PowerPoint, e-portfolio) and largely ignored the processes underpinning personal
profiling.
2 The introduction of profiling was likely to increase teacher workload. This reflected a
common perception that teachers in all subject areas would be spending a considerable
amount of time directing learners in how to populate their profiles. There was an
assumption that most pupils would be unable to create profiles independently or in a
self-directed way.
3 There was a risk that too great an emphasis would be placed on subjects/curriculum
coverage and, by contrast, not enough on skills development and achievements.
In order to address these concerns, and also to ensure that the Midlothian approach to
profiling reflected the key principles stated earlier in this document, the authority
embarked on a research-based project involving all 7 secondary schools and over 100
students.
The aims were:
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to provide schools with a standard template for the creation of the S3 profile;
to provide students with a high level of peer-to-peer support in the creation of
profiles;
to make SKILLS the major focus of personal profiling.
The planned outcomes were:
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to ensure a standard approach to S3 profiling across the authority;
to ensure high quality support for teachers and students;
to ensure that pupils were empowered in the production of their profiles;
to increase levels of metacognition and dialogue about learning.
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Profiling Practice
(a) Establishing a Standard Template for profiling
We began in October 2012 by working closely with the Council’s Assessment &
Reporting Group to develop a common template and methodology for profiling. It was
agreed that secondary schools would use a format identical to the Primary 7 profiles
introduced a year earlier, in order to build on existing practice and to promote effective
transition.
The S3 profiles would, therefore, contain details of each learner’s best achievements
and progress in relation to 6 key areas:
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English and Literacy
Maths and Numeracy
Learning across the curriculum
Health and Wellbeing
Learning Skills
Achievements and Awards
Throughout the session, schools would support learners in gathering evidence relating
to the above areas and allocate time for pupils to reflect on progress before determining
the final content for each section of the profile.
It was agreed that a skills-based focus was the approach most likely approach to help
students create vibrant, relevant and reflective profiles, which actively encouraged
processes of metacognition.
What this meant was that for each of the 6 areas above, students would be encouraged
to identify and reflect on the skills that they had acquired or developed and how these
had been applied.
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In English and Literacy, for example, rather than focus on test scores and describe
curricular experiences, students would be encouraged to assess the skills they had
developed or applied in this area. This might be for example, communication skills,
presentation skills, team-working skills or research skills within the context of English
and Literacy.
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Similarly in Learning across the Curriculum, students would review the skills they
had developed or applied in the areas of science, expressive arts, technologies,
social subjects and RME.
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In Health and Wellbeing, students would be expected to focus on skills associated
with planning for choices and changes, physical education and relationships.
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In the area of Learning Skills, students would be encouraged to reflect on
metacognitive aspects such as target setting, overcoming barriers, independent
learning, collaborative learning, note taking, revision and the use of technology.
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In Achievements and Awards, students would be expected to describe their wider
achievements and evaluate these in terms of personal skills and attributes.
(b) Providing Peer-to-Peer Support
The second part of the project involved providing S3 pupils with peer-to-peer support
and it was decided that the best way to do this was through video-based
exemplification.
In January 2013 we worked closely with our secondary schools to design a format for
capturing and presenting profiling advice for all S3 pupils across the authority. Depute
Head Teachers and guidance staff in each school identified 20 students and helped
them to identify the skills that they had developed and applied in different subject areas
and also in their wider achievements.
This meant that in February 2013 we were able to film 120 students talking about their
skills and achievements and this gave us an extensive source from which to build a
profiling resource.
From this filming we created a DVD that schools could use as the basis for delivering
advice and guidance to all third year pupils. For every curricular area of the Broad
General Education, as well as for wider achievements, students would use this peer-topeer support to help them:
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identify and describe achievements
explain why these achievements were important
assess the skills and personal attributes that they had acquired or developed
This modelling of profiling approaches created a generic approach which was used by
all schools in the creation of personal profiles by June 2013. Empowering young people
in the creation of their profiles reduced the burden on teachers and resulted in
increased dialogue about students’ learning.
A teacher in say, Art and Design, could select from as many as 8 videos containing
pupils talking about their progress, skills and achievements in Art and Design and use
these as the basis for discussion about profiling. All subject areas were similarly able to
draw upon video-based pupil exemplifications and use them to promote discussion and
reflection.
Capturing the views of learners in this way and using them as the basis for guidance on
profiling has helped to make the introduction of personal profiling more manageable for
schools. It is also a sustainable approach, given that these materials are stored in
digital format and can be reused from year to year.
3 Impact of Project
Although the project has been running for less than one academic session, it has
impacted in a number of clearly identifiable ways.
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Education authority reviews, HMI inspection reports and school standard and quality
reports provide evidence that Midlothian pupils are developing a ‘language of learning,’
which is helping them to evaluate their progress and achievements and engage in an
ongoing dialogue with teachers, peers and parents.
There is evidence that profiling is promoting high quality dialogue focused on skills,
progress in learning, and wider achievements. Students have frequent opportunities to
discuss how the skills they have learned can be applied and transferred into new
situations and contexts. It is also helping students in identifying next steps in learning
and setting learning goals.
Learners have ownership of their Profiles. Teachers support them in identifying and
recording their achievements, but it is learners who identify their best, most significant
achievements within or beyond school. In this respect, it is also possible to say that
students place greater value on the profile than would be the case where profiling is
teacher-directed and administered.
For teachers, the Midlothian approach to profiling has provided an effective resource
and methodology upon which to build in future years. It has provided an innovative way
of promoting discussion with students about their learning.
For the learning communities within Midlothian, the adoption of identical profiling
methodology between primary and secondary schools is helping to ensure more
effective transition. There is now reduced focus on standardised test scores, CfE levels
and curriculum coverage and more on transition in learning and skills.
For the education authority, the skills-based focus on profiling adopted by all schools is
helping to address the national recommendations and aspirations of Building the
Curriculum 4 – Skills for Learning, Life and Work, as well as the core skills recently
published by the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
Finally, Midlothian Council does not perform well in terms of achieving positive
destinations for school leavers. We see profiling, particularly extending into the senior
phase, as being an important component in helping young people prepare for higher
and further education, employment and training.
4 Review and Reflect
(a) What is going well?
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We have achieved a standardised approach to profiling that is understood and
valued by staff and pupils in all of our schools.
Profiling is now regarded as a process, rather than a product, and builds on the skills
developed in earlier years (including primary education).
There is evidence that profiling is generating better dialogue about learning in our
schools.
The profiling process is manageable for teachers and other staff involved.
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(b) What are the challenges and how will we overcome them?
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We need to ensure that we maintain momentum with profiling. With the introduction
of the new national qualifications and exams this session, there is a danger that the
focus of secondary teachers will change from Broad General Education to the senior
phase. The authority will ensure through its annual programme of Council reviews
and CPD opportunities that S3 profiling remains a high priority for development and
support. We will also look at extending this approach to profiling into the senior
phase to support our work on improving positive destinations for our school leavers.
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The ongoing development issues with Glow have created some problems with
migration of the e-portfolio profiles. We will work closely with our Midlothian
Education IT staff and with Education Scotland to ensure that the e-portfolio online
platform is optimised for personal profiling.
(c) What would you do differently and why?
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The profiling work described in this document takes place largely in the last few
months of the third year of secondary education. This is because it is a requirement
of schools and local authorities to ensure that young people have such profiles at the
end of their broad general education. We need to do more to bridge the gap
between P7 and S3 when there is no formal profiling taking place and to ensure that
learners have the opportunity to develop the skills associated with identifying,
assessing and recording their achievements and their progress. We aim to do this
through a cross-authority project which focuses on the development of skills
frameworks.
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The same principle applies to transition between S3 and the senior phase. It is
important that learners are able to continue to develop the skills associated with
identifying, assessing and recording their achievements as they progress through
the senior phase of secondary education. Our plans for doing this are set out in (d)
below.
(d) Next Steps?
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We would aim to continue the work that we have done by extending the approach
taken into the senior phase. Broadly, we would work with our schools to create
video-based resources featuring older pupils reviewing their skills, achievements
and progress as they prepare for transition to higher/further education, or to
employment/training.
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As mentioned previously Midlothian Council performs poorly in terms of achieving
positive destinations for school leavers and this is now a major Council priority for
improvement. We see profiling, particularly extending into the senior phase, as
being an important component in helping young people prepare for higher and
further education, employment and training.
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We would also offer our current video-based profiling materials to other education
authorities for wider dissemination.
* Please note that this report is accompanied by a video which shows the introductory
video from the Midlothian profiling resource.
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