Curriculum for Excellence: the end of Integrated Science?
Love it or hate it, change to the Scottish curriculum is coming. One aspect of the change is the new pre-certificate level curriculum for pupils from Primary through to S3 – called “a Curriculum for Excellence”. It is defined, following some hard work by a small number of educators and some consultation, as a collection of outcomes and experiences. There’s a lot of information on the LTS Website and every teacher has been given their own personal copy of the 
outcomes – all of them – in a lovely green folder.
There are a number of issues with what is expected to happen as a result of this expensive distribution: there seems to be an expectation that a brand new curriculum will magically appear because we have all been given this resource. Extra days of CPD have been funded by the Government but the two this writer has had have vanished into the ordinary business of delivering the existing curriculum. The green folder in the picture has yet to be opened in the context of sitting down and developing the curriculum.
It, or rather the more convenient online version, has, however, been studied as it has evolved. The intentions of the new curriculum seem to be to provide a highly rich, unique and valuable learning experience, matched to the individual needs of each pupil. About time. Increasing time pressures on educators have been undermining the quality of what can be done in school and I am surprised I don’t hear more people repeating Churchill’s complaint that, “my education was interrupted only by my schooling”.
From the outcomes and the Introductory Statements, it is clear that teachers in Scotland are going to have to use every bit of the freedom we enjoy to use all of our skills, expertise and experience in the classroom. Not only that, but to provide these experiences in the flexible, challenging and engaging manner now demanded, we will need a level of subject knowledge significantly above the one we are teaching at. This is excellent: with all due respect to my colleagues, biologists can rarely teach resistance well, although they can often meet the outcomes. I know that as a physicist, my teaching of classification lacks the sparkle of the same outcome taught by a biology graduate who knows the importance of it in the later development of the subject.
I also know that in my classroom, the students benefit most when I am charged up myself about the topic we are discussing: especially where I am doing the learning too. This is most likely to occur in my case when I am considering some (off-topic) aspect of that which we are studying, such as the human story of triumph and disaster exemplified by John Logie Baird’s so-called invention of television (he didn’t) or the gut-wrenching injustice of the theft of the idea by RCA from Philo Farnsworth (he did) and his subsequent death from alcohol abuse, described in video by his sisters. When the students recall the outcome “describe picture build-up in a TV”, they do so by thinking of the 14-year old Farnsworth being struck with inspiration on his tractor, plowing the fields in Utah. This kind of learning and engagement is what I believe aCfE to be all about and can only come from the depth of knowledge and engagement in the subject that the graduate teacher of that subject has.
The new curriculum is strong on the development of “cross-curricular” links. In science, of course, this becomes awkward and difficult outside of one’s subject area because the cross-curricular links for biology (physical education, home economics, eco-schools, health and wellbeing, and so on) are substantially different to those for physics (technical studies, mathematics, geology, geography, music, and so on) and similarly for chemistry.
To meet the expectations that Curriculum for Excellence has to offer, the three discrete sciences must be taught by their respective specialists. If the difficulties of timetabling and staffing can be overcome, this will deepen and consolidate the knowledge and confidence of those lucky pupils exposed to this from the earliest stage, and the yield will be in their attainment at Higher and Advanced Higher, with the onward benefit to the prosperity of Scotland.
Science is dead. Long live the sciences!
Tags: ACFE, cross-curricular, science, Scotland
September 6th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I wholeheartedly disagree.
As a science (biology) teacher myself. I think CfE is the dawn of truly integrated science. I have taught both integrated and discrete sciences in the lower years and have found the latter falls well short of the vision provided by CfE. The pupils receive far too little time in your subject and appear much too infrequently in your classroom to develop the relationships and explore the subject in the breadth and depth they should.
I have taught physics and chemistry to pupils up to the age of 14 and have found they can be incredibly fascinating subjects to learn, and therefore teach. I also feel that by being honest about my own learning with the pupils, they could appreciate that I am not a fountain of all knowledge (which I’m not in any subject) and we could explore the subject together.
The sciences in the lower years are dead. Long live science!
September 6th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
A great post Nick and a welcome distraction from my current planning ploughing through my green folder I wonder though, are there any secondary school teachers currently spending many hours writing all their plans in line with CfE? or has the teaching and learning remained the same?
September 6th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Nice post Nick.
I think that the Sciences should be taught separately and by a subject specialist. I think that the CfE is an excellent model- however, if subjects are not to be taught discreetly, what is the point in Secondary schools?
September 6th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Lynne, the hours are not being spent across the country, although there are many schools really grasping the nettle and producing exciting new material. At Glenwood, we’re focusing on the differences as this is seen as most beneficial but I for one am worried that there’s not enough time available to do it well. As I was told once, “there’s never enough time to do it properly, but there’s always enough time to half do it twice”!
Is this the case across the country?
September 6th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
remember that there is also a pressure to reduce the number of class teachers so i cannot foresee the brave new world of cfe having science taught by up to 3 specialists, even if this was an advantage.
September 6th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Great post Nick, plenty of food for thought as ever. At my school we’re ‘really grasping the nettle’, or at least will be when there’s time.
Prior to launching into this massive development task the whole department got together to thrash out our plans. Some of us really had to fight to keep teaching ’science’ in S1-S2 before specialising in the three disciplines in S3. We felt this would give pupils the best balance of ‘a broad curriculum’ in S1 – 3 whilst allowing some experience of subjects taught by specialists prior to choices in S4.
Those of us who have taught the same three units on term by term rotations (doing the same topics NINE times each one year!) must surely have experienced some drop in their level of enthusiasm and can’t have had much of a challenge within those topics after the second or third time around.
I find I often have a greater interest and enthusiasm for some of the non-physics topics I teach, if anything because I find myself learning as I go and am keen to pass on my new knowledge.
I’m really excited by the prospect of cross-curricular working too, the scope is massive, but as you mentioned the real challenge to all of CfE is time. Your 12 second video “This doesn’t go into this…” sums it up perfectly.
Its got to come form somewhere, so what do we NOT do in order to get CfE done well? Or at least half done?
September 6th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
I think I’d be worried if many secondary teachers were spending hours rewriting stuff. My view of ACfE is not necessarily to write new courses, but revamp the way we teach. To be more imaginative and creative in pedagogy, to get away from rigid lesson forms but think out of the box from time to time. I think what ought to be an exciting, yet scary time in education in Scotland riskd being transformed into a pathetic reflection of what could be because teachers haven’t been given the time and opportunity (been trusted enough) to get it right.
September 6th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
The model we are adopting is a common S1 course followed by discrete Sciences in S2 and S3. I think this will work and it is a push for the better. I totally agree with your sentiments and feel that pupils and teachers will benefit from subject specialists teaching them lower down the school. To be honest we could do with Primary schools teaching them the basics in terms of literacy and numeracy and give us a decent chance to develop that!
With regards to planning in line with CfE. It is difficult to replan S1 – S3 when there are still pupils preparing to sit Highers and Standard Grades (who are priority, in my opinion). How can we appropriately plan for S1 – S3 when we STILL do not know what these pupils will come up against in S4-S6. There are whispers and rumours but nothing concrete.
Afterall, what will Universities and employers say to pupils if they do not have a good set of qualifications but have “experienced the wonder of looking at the vastness of the sky, and can recognise the sun, moon and stars and link them to daily patterns of life. ” Answers on a postcard please……………
September 6th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Ha ha, thanks for that, Sean. I quoted that same outcome at a Physics QIN meeting: illustrating delivering the experience by way of an uppercut…
September 7th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Fearghal has written an eloquent counter to the argument I set out here. For balance, you should go read it: http://edubuzz.org/blogs/fkelly/2009/09/07/curriculum-for-excellence-the-end-of-separate-sciences/
September 7th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Thanks Nick. I really do appreciate you kicking off this debate – it’s very much needed.
It’s also very lovely, and quite rare, to be able to have a civilized differing of opinion online
September 7th, 2009 at 10:58 am
A very interesting posting. I’d given very little thought to the formation of the sciences under CfE. You managed to make me think, in your second last paragraph, that the sciences should be connected to the other “non-science” subjects rather than bound together into a super-science triumvirate.
Regardless of the subject being taught, my opinion is that, the teacher must know about what is being taught in depth, bredth and balance (to use a 5-14 phrase). For me the question is, where’s the tipping point from general knowledge to specialist knowledge? If you can find it that’s when you need specialist teachers.
September 7th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I aggree wholeheartedly with and subject specialism is what energises kids on a daily basis.
I teach SCIENCE in S1 and S2 and would love a move to just teach Physics, the Biology side has some great gory pictures and good material but the energy and long term vision comes from the Biologists.
ACfE: some changes to be made, not too many I think, but its the style and manner we do it, the focus on the “Science Experience”, inna lab, taught by an enthusiastic specialist!
Its scary to think that this time next year, we could have a time table with S1 pupils seeing only 8 teachers per week, So if we do English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology I’m not sure where theres room for the rest of the curriculum…
Zombie Science may come back, long live the Sciences
September 7th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Learning Curve, Nick Hood, Tess Watson, Tess Watson and others. Learning Curve said: RT @tjmwatson: RT @cullaloe : Curriculum for Excellence: the death of Integrated Science? Please comment. http://tinyurl.com/ntoxxr [...]
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 am
[...] Mr Hood’s recent blog post on the impact of CfE on science teaching has genuinely taken me by surprise. He argues that CfE spells the end for integrated science lessons in the lower school. It seems so obvious to me that CfE means quite the opposite to this that it had not even occurred to me that it would be possible to see it any other way. What has surprised me even more is that some teachers seem to agree with this in their comments. This has provoked me to write this post outlining my reasons for seeing CfE as a major opportunity to develop interdisciplinary learning in secondary science lessons. [...]