This is a guest post from the ‘Curriculum for Excellence – Moving Forward Together’ event in Aberdeen
The Minister for Schools and Skills, Keith Brown MSP, delivered a speech to the delegates at the event this morning. He began by saying that is was quite clear that there has been a real embracing of the change that CfE brings by teachers. He reiterated that the aim of CfE is to give a more rounded education, breadth of education, and for all children to achieve the four capacities.
The minister told delegates that CfE, together with the Early Years Framework, places unprecedented focus on supporting our youngest learners, and that the curriculum can help ensure continuity of learning, ease transition and ensure smooth progression.
Mr Brown assured the audience that assessment practices will follow and support CfE, and allow more autonomy for teachers, providing a wider and more challenging range of learning across which learners can demonstrate their achievements.
There will be further support for assessment in CfE, including the National Assessment Resource and the updated National Qualifications. The current P7 will be the first of the new cohort to sit the new qualifications.
Mr Brown finished by acknowledging the input of people in classrooms across Scotland. He said “As we move forward through implementation, the shape of things becomes clearer,” and reassured the audience that the Scottish Government and the educational profession are working on creating an educational system that meets the needs and the aspirations of every child in Scotland.
While attending the Orkney Learning Festival last week, Margaret Alcorn and I were fortunate enough to meet Lorena Murúa. Lorena, a teacher from Chile, has not only funded her way through additional training needed to top-up her Chilean qualifications, she also travelled from Aberdeen to Kirkwall to take advantage of the great CPD available with our colleagues in Orkney Islands Council. This is her story.
Hi, I am Lorena Murúa. I am from the Atacama Desert in the north of Chile, so you can imagine the differences in landscape and life style. I arrived in this country over 2 years ago. I was a teacher in my country so I did the PGDE in Aberdeen University in order to learn the system and to be able to work here. I found about the Orkney Learning Festival on CPDFind and I thought that was a fantastic opportunity to discover more about the Scottish culture and how education meets the needs of the children in a different context. I am currently on the supply list in Aberdeen City and I am looking forward to get a more extended spell working in Scottish schools.
To support Lorena and others, and as a result of the CPD Team work on the particular CPD needs of colleagues on the supply list, we have decided to set up an online community called CPDSupply. Watch this space for more details!
Once again education leaders from all over Scotland gathered in Stirling for the annual Selmas conference.
As in previous years conference was addressed by the Cabinet Secretary. Fiona Hyslop MSP who spoke of the increase in spending on education by the current administration, and the somewhat disappointing decline in the rate of improvement within the system. She invited school leaders to develop a culture that is genuinely aspirational, and that is built on a commitment to innovation and change. Curriculum for Excellence offers us all the opportunity to engage pupils in learning that has breadth and depth and that raises standards for everyone. She spoke of her optimism for the changes and of her view that schools were now engaged in working on the CfE agenda for change.
Margaret Alcorn followed with a brief input on the need for an aligned system, with confident and cheerful leaders all focused on the “main thing”. She spoke of the need to continue to consider the values and principles of CfE.
We then heard from a panel of 5 educational leaders. David Cameron spoke of the challenge for local authorities to provide consistency and cohesion; Christine Forde spoke of developing leadership to make an impact in the classroom; Neal McGowan asked whether we had the right climate for leadership within Scotland, and suggested too many headteachers were compliant and lacked freedom to act creatively; Alex Wood summarised some of his learning from the International Summer School and Jenny Campbell suggested that some heads were overly involved in the detail, perhaps because this was a comfort zone, and that it was important to develop a high performance mindset. The delegates then engaged in a lively discussion on the points raised by the panel.
After lunch, we watched the “My big idea for Scottish education” DVD, then listened to a description of Learning Rounds from Graham Thomson. The headteacherof Irvive Royal, Stirling Mackie, and a teacher of technical, Alan Hume, from the school then described their experience of Learning Rounds in a school setting.
We finished the day with Karen Prophet of Edinburgh who spoke about models for change in the context of Curriculum for Excellence. She said that in order to interpret the complexity of curricular reform, we require leaders not managers, and returned to one of the recurring themes that had characterised the day, that is the role of headteachers to be “Leaders of Learning”.
The feedback from delegates suggests that once again, SELMAS managed to offer a challenging and stimulating day, packed with opinions, information and opportunities to network.
The Scottish Chartered Teacher has been in the news recently, not least in Vienna. The Revised Standard for Chartered Teachers, 2009 was launched by Scottish Government on 29th September. Coincidentally this was the very day that Rosa Murray, Professional Officer, GTCS, Margery McMahon, University of Glasgow, and myself, Sheila Smith, representing the National CPD Team, were presenting at the European Conference of Educational Research (ECER) (http://www.eera-ecer.eu/ecer/ecer-2009-vienna) in Vienna, on the subject of Developing the Chartered Teacher in Scotland and what it means to be an accomplished teacher.
The process of revising the Standard itself is considered to be an example of excellent collaborative practice, involving as it did, a working party made up of stakeholders including; local authority staff, professional associations, representatives of Scottish Government, GTCS Professional Officers, university providers, representation from the National CPD Team and certainly not least, a Chartered Teacher. The working party agreed the principles and parameters of the process of revising the Standard and charged a smaller group to prepare a draft for consultation. There then followed an extensive consultation directly with the profession and through focus groups in various locations around Scotland. The revised Standard was then ratified by GTCS Council.
We believe that we now have a Standard which emphasises the educational and social values which are key to our understanding of accomplished teaching, continues to foreground the strong focus on pedagogy and the leadership qualities and skills which Chartered Teacher demonstrate through their enhanced professional actions. Our international colleagues including Lawrence Ingvarsson and Peter Gronn who have both worked extensively in Scotland were keen to engage with us again and to hear how Chartered Teacher is developing as a concept and as a lived reality for an increasing number of teachers.
The Revised Standard for Chartered Teacher can be found here
Thank you very much to the seventeen local authorities who responded to a request for information about how they managed CPD for supply teachers. Some points to emerge:
There is a wide variation in practice across the country. Almost all responding LAs offer places on locally organised courses to those teachers on the supply list. There are no instances of teachers being paid to attend these other than those employed in schools on mid to long term contracts
All of the Councils who responded were continuing to administer supply from within the Council
Seven of the 17 respondents – about 45% – offer tailored CPD for their supply teachers. In a few cases these are extensive and include network meetings, established Glow Groups etc.
A small number of the authorities expressed their concern that this was a group whose development needs were not being well met
One problem seems to be a discrepancy between the number of teachers on the supply list and the number who are “active” – eg available for work. Many respondents suggested that they had a large number of inactive teachers, or those who had very limiting conditions for accepting supply work. In one authority more than 750 secondary teachers were on the supply list but the “core” was about 50.
The issue of PRD for supply teachers is largely unresolved except for those on long term contracts. This means that there are some issues around their readiness to deliver curricular reform.
The 2006 CPD Team paper CPD for Supply Teachers is still largely relevant and could be updated easily if the network felt that was helpful. There are currently no CPD opportunties for supply teachers on CPDFind. If you have a good programme for returning or supply teachers this might be a good place to find new participants.
The team would be happy to put you in touch with each other if CPD for Supply Teachers is an issue that you want to move forward on, or indeed we would happily convene a working party if you felt that would be helpful.
I am very grateful to colleagues in Stirling who are willing to share a copy of their current comprehensive and high-quality “Temporary Teachers’ Staff Development Programme”, and their LNCT agreement on Supply Teachers. Let us know if you’d like a copy.
This is a guest post from Jane Stirling and the Early Years Team at LTScotland
The Minister explained the new national qualifications and how they aim to simplify the current system and ensure it reflects and supports CfE -helping Scotland’s children and young people to lay the foundations for the next stage of learning and life. Our current P7 children will be first to experience the new national qualifications. He also mentioned the new Assessment strategy to follow and how it promotes the new curriculum. Standards will be defined in such a way that assessments will reflect CfE and ensure it promotes confidence within the profession.
The Minister launched the new CfE Early Level DVD Resource this morning at Fox Covet Nursery and also mentioned the fact that the resource is due to be converted into Gaelic. The Minister then talked about the Early Years Framework and how the programme is set out to give all children the very best start in life. He then mentioned the links with GIRFEC and the fact that it is the underlying philosophy for the Early Years Framework and how it challenges those working with children to work in partnership to ensure that every child has the best start in life. The Minister reinforced the fact that local authorities need to create space and time to ensure that staff in pre-school settings and primary schools are able to make the very best use of CPD time. In summary it is essential that we build a leadership culture in Scotland which is genuinely inspirational and aspirational.
Today the National CPD Network met in Edinburgh. Margaret Alcorn introduced the event. The first part of the day was led by Jim Keegans and Con Morris of the CPD Team in a spirited discussion on the future of CPD nationally.
Jim then summarised the main points from a discussion at the National CPD Team awayday a few weeks ago.
Con then asked colleagues to discuss this two-part question:
Discussion points:
What objectives should the CPD Network be concentrating on?
How do we best achieve these objectives?
To help focus more clearly on the top 3 areas, Con led an ‘Engine Room’ discussion but with a twist. Each of the final groups had to come into the ‘Dragon’s Den’ and justify their choices!
You can see the full Prezi here and zoom in on the points made!
The next stage of this important discussion is a survey of each member of the National CPD Network. This will be done by email in the next few days.
In the afternoon, there was an update on Learning Rounds from Margaret Alcorn, Jim Keegans and Margaret Orr. There was also a plea to tell all colleagues about CPDLead and the national CPD survey!
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Thank you very much to the seventeen local authorities who responded to a request for information about how they managed CPD for supply teachers. Some points to emerge: