Education Committee, 29 Sep 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Official Report 196KB pdf

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Curriculum Inquiry

Agenda item 4 is to agree the remit for the inquiry into the school curriculum. Members have a paper on the matter, which suggests a possible approach; paragraph 2 lays out the remit. Do members have any comments on the paper or the remit, which has been drawn up following discussion to try to make it useful and workable?

This is a lot more reflective of our approach than was the initial suggestion. I am a bit concerned about the use of the word "innovative" in the terms of reference for the inquiry, which are:

"To explore innovative approaches to ensuring that all pupils are motivated by the school curriculum".

By including the word innovative, we are implying that we are interested only in new developments. Later on, the document talks about establishing best practice and I think that it might be helpful if we included that in the terms of reference. Perhaps the remit could be: "To establish best practice, including exploring innovative approaches to ensuring that all pupils are motivated by the school curriculum."

The key word is "effective", is it not?

Yes. We need to find out what works. I do not mind including innovative approaches; my problem is that we are concerned more with what is effective than with what is innovative.

My point is about from whom we are asking for evidence.

I am sorry, but I am having a little difficulty in hearing you. I do not know whether it is my fault or the fact that people are drilling outside this room. Could you speak up, please?

Part of what we want to consider is how vocational training and alternative curriculum experience are recognised, but we do not seem to be asking for written evidence from any of the employers organisations. To an extent, it would be useful to get their views on qualifications and training in the school setting.

That point struck me as well. We want to find out what is happening in the schools, but we also need to relate that to what happens after people leave school.

I am uncomfortable about phase 1 of the inquiry being entirely focused on the producers' interests in education rather than on the interests of the users and consumers of education. It is suggested that we have discussions with pupils, teachers and education authorities in phase 2.

I wonder whether we should start not only with current pupils, but with people who have recently been users of the education service, such as students and so on.

If, in phase 1, we write to more than 20 organisations, of which only one is a consumer interest, we have shaped the inquiry in a way that favours the producers of education, who have a vested interest in how education is delivered. I am not sure that that will achieve the innovation that we want. Similarly, I wonder whether having two thirds of the facilitated discussions in phase 2 with producer interests and only one third with consumers is the balance that we want. Perhaps we should be starting with the current and recent users and consumers of education before we hear from the producers.

We should reflect on our approach. The Executive has had an expert commission studying the curriculum for the past year and I thought that Keir Bloomer and his colleagues were incredibly persuasive about the issues that they addressed. Focusing on what the commission had discovered by the end of their 18 months might—given the constraints on our time—be more productive than inviting the same 20 organisations, who have already given evidence to the Executive, to offer their evidence to us. Doing that would give those organisations a second bite at the cherry without our finding out what Keir Bloomer and his colleagues thought of that evidence. We need to find a way, early on, to consider the conclusions of the expert commission and decide whether we share them or not.

Those are the two issues that I would like to raise. First, I think that the proposals show an imbalance between producers and consumers and, secondly, I think that we should start by examining the output of the Executive rather than by asking for input from all the organisations that have already contributed to the study.

I understand what Wendy Alexander is getting at. However, I am bound to say that I do not like the words "producer" and "consumer" being used in this context, because it produces a slightly artificial distinction.

I want to get a feel for the committee's views. The essential point is that we need Executive input early on to find out where it has reached and what it has produced. Given that the first phase is only a call for evidence, we are not really committing our time as such, but simply getting in written submissions to highlight the various issues that will inform phase 2. I think that that was the intention.

With respect, the Executive is not producing the report; it has simply commissioned an independent report. We should hear directly from the group that is producing it rather than from the Executive. I think that it is an odd omission not to include that group in the list of 20 interests from whom we should hear.

I accept that. Nevertheless, I think that it will be helpful to have background information and other material before we move to phase 2—if that is what the committee decides—to inform the discussion and to find out the questions that we want to ask. In that respect, we might find it helpful to start with some input from the expert group on its findings. Indeed, it might be reasonable to have an initial briefing session on the matter. Is that what you are getting at, Wendy?

I agree that we should hear from the expert group and the Executive early on. However, I feel that it is wrong to have a 20:1 ratio between the producers and consumers of education.

What other people would you want to ask evidence from? This is an open call for evidence, but we need suggestions for additional names and contacts.

We might decide that, in our evidence sessions, we should try to hear equally from those involved in producing education and those involved in consuming education—by which I mean that we should ask pupils and recent users of the system about the skill sets that they found most useful or did not find useful at all. We can correct this imbalance towards professional organisations in our call for evidence by balancing our oral evidence sessions between those who use the service and those who contribute to its provision.

I very much agree with Wendy Alexander. Although parents are hugely important to this issue, they are completely missing from the equation. Moreover, given that much of the evidence will have already been submitted to and considered by the group led by Keir Bloomer, I agree with Wendy Alexander's suggestion that it would be useful to find out that group's thoughts and receive its distillation of the evidence.

There is a case for requesting evidence from parents organisations, the Scottish School Board Association, the Scottish Council of Independent Schools and the International Baccalaureate Organisation.

I do not think that we want to balance this list with another imbalance.

I agree with Wendy Alexander that we should talk to the expert group first, because its findings should set the scene for us. I am disappointed to see a lack of input from parents in the call for evidence. After all, school boards and parents organisations would be able to provide very good evidence about the curriculum's impact on their groups and on the children with whom they have contact. It is also important that we hear from teachers organisations, because those people are at the chalkface. That said, I agree that we could probably cut the list down a bit and balance it a bit better.

On Ken Macintosh's point about the phrase "innovative approaches", I think that we should also discuss the elaborated curriculum, which is being developed in many schools at the moment. If we are going to examine making changes to the curriculum that are more significant than changes that have been made before, we should explore how we can put the elaborated curriculum and the school curriculum together in some form. If we use the word "innovative", it sounds as if we are looking for something that is startlingly outstanding or very new. After all, the approach might be something that is not all that new, but is part of the elaborated curriculum.

I accept what Ken Macintosh said about broadening the inquiry's terms of reference. The last time we discussed the matter, we spoke about the importance of young people's experience in the broader school curriculum, which goes beyond the hours of 9 to 4 or 9 to 3. Our inquiry needs to consider best practice in what a school offers a young person. There are many examples of excellent schools that offer wide experience outwith the conventional hours of 9 to 4. We need to ensure that pupils are motivated by their school experiences—such an idea needs to be included in the inquiry's terms of reference.

Because Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education covers schools throughout Scotland, it is an invaluable source of information on where good practice is happening, so its written evidence—which may have been submitted already—is key. A body such as sportscotland will be able to give us information but, again, it could well have submitted evidence already. Scottish Screen would be another useful organisation to contact, because there are examples of innovative practice in young people's work with television and video.

To sum up, it is fair to say that the central issue that we are trying to get at is motivation—what motivates, or what fails to motivate, young people in school.

I was struck by evidence that I received from Careers Scotland, which said that young people who have clearer objectives in life for what they want to do and where they want to go tend to perform better academically and to be more switched on at school. The paperwork for that interesting and useful evidence is available. Careers Scotland is working to dig down into that issue, to identify what makes some people more motivated and more focused on where they want to go. To some extent, that links in with vocational training and the opportunities that it provides.

I think that members of the committee are reasonably content with the remit of the inquiry, apart from the use of the word "innovative", which does not give quite the right balance. The remit needs to be rephrased slightly.

I want to expand on that. It is important that people get the right impression of what we are concentrating on when they read the top line of the remit, but I would like to add a bullet point to the rest of the remit. It is right that the first two bullet points concentrate on disaffected pupils, but we need to offer a positive slant as well. I suggest that we insert the wording, "establishing what works in engaging pupils with the school curriculum and what factors demotivate young people". That would make the remit much broader.

I do not want to make the inquiry all-encompassing, but I want us to have an opportunity to get a grasp on the factors that demotivate young people that are not just to do with the school curriculum. There is a difference between focusing on disaffection and identifying the demotivating factors, which are not all school related; many of them will be to do with home backgrounds and all sorts of other factors. We need to get an idea of that, because it would be wrong to delude ourselves that, by changing the school curriculum, we will be able to motivate every pupil. We need to get an understanding of how much is dependent on the school curriculum and how much is dependent on factors such as young people's home backgrounds.

That is right. We could end up with an inquiry in which the tail was wagging the dog and forgetting that large numbers of young people who go through school are motivated by the experience and come out okay at the other end.

Exactly. By adding my suggested wording, we will refer to what works in engaging pupils. We must not lose sight of the fact that for many pupils, the curriculum works. We must understand the essence of why it works.

Are people happy with Ken Macintosh's addition?

I will read my suggestion again. It is to add the words "establishing what works in engaging pupils with the school curriculum and what factors demotivate young people".

With school, rather than—

Yes, with school.

That should be the first bullet point, rather than a middle one. That sets the scene.

In our last discussion of the subject, we talked about learning styles, of which I see no mention. Recognising that young people have different learning styles is key. Having done that, we should examine different learning styles. Those differences can be one reason why young people are disillusioned or disaffected.

Does the second bullet point cover that?

Teaching approaches are not the same as learning styles.

No, but they include learning styles.

Teaching approaches concern a teacher's presentation. A learning style is how a young person learns and picks up information from teaching. Some young people are active learners and some like to learn through mind mapping. Many different styles exist.

I see what you mean. We could refer to teaching approaches and learning styles.

Are those two points agreed?

Rhona Brankin and I discussed another issue. Am I right in thinking that our emphasis will be slightly more on the secondary curriculum than on the primary curriculum?

That is inevitable.

Do we need to spell that out? We do not want to ignore the primary curriculum, but we will examine the difficulties in secondary schools more than those in primary schools. Perhaps we just want to reflect on that.

In fairness, we are not focusing entirely on the secondary curriculum. The point was made that demotivation can start earlier in school than it once did and that it sometimes appears in primary school, so we should not exclude that. Perhaps the phraseology is all right.

All right. Perhaps it is not helpful to mention that.

Do we propose to rewrite the terms of reference?

That is what we are talking about.

I thought that we were talking about the scoping points.

No, I will come to those in a second. I said that we would deal with the terms of reference first, because they are the primary matter.

Are we not talking about the bullet points?

Yes.

The bullet points are part of the terms of reference.

The headline statement in bold needs to be changed.

I see what you mean.

The sentence in bold and in quotes giving the inquiry's terms of reference needs to be changed.

We will have to finalise the wording by e-mail after the meeting.

The wording currently does not reflect our discussions.

We know where we are going, unless anybody adds more complications.

I will add another complication. Our remit needs to be broader than just teaching approaches. We need to consider matters such as school ethos and how schools link into the home. Much more than just teaching approaches is involved.

I accept that the point is valid, but do we need to spell it out? We are not discussing the report. The terms of reference set out the issues.

My suggestion may be more to do with examples of effective schools. The scope is much broader than teaching approaches.

You are talking about the values base and other such issues.

Absolutely.

The impact of changes in practical stuff such as school discipline and school uniforms is also relevant.

How wide do we want to go? We can end up being too wide, exploring everything in sight and rewriting education legislation. Are we beginning to get away from the central issues?

I will make two points about the terms of reference. I return to the producer-versus-consumer issue. The definition that pupils are motivated by the school curriculum has been suggested, but the school curriculum is what the producer produces. Our focus should be on what the pupil learns. The focus should be on personalised learning, not teaching approaches. Similarly, the focus should be not on the school curriculum, but on equipping young people for life. We should think about the danger of being driven by what schools produce rather than by what we want our young people to learn. My instinct is that the terms of reference should not include the words

"are motivated by the school curriculum".

The school curriculum is a tool for equipping pupils for life.

Should the term "school experience", or something of that sort, be used?

That would certainly be preferable. Similarly, the bullet points mention "examples of innovative teaching". We seem to have heard that the key to the curriculum is that, in future, the product should not be uniform. As long as we continue to use the word "curriculum", there will be the implication that there is a one-size-fits-all solution for pupils, but all the evidence that we have heard is about personalised learning—that is, about differentiation in learning style approaches, which Rosemary Byrne mentioned, and in content variation. I wonder whether we are really talking about how personalised learning can be accommodated in the school experience rather than "innovative teaching approaches". At least that would let us explore the idea that there is no one-size-fits-all solution if we want to motivate pupils.

We must be careful. Elaine Murray mentioned the top sentence in bold, which is the remit. The other part of the paragraph is a kind of commentary on the remit. We have had a useful discussion, but we are, in a sense, beginning to write the report rather than define the remit. All the points that have been raised have been noted and nothing in the remit would stop us considering them, but must we get into what members are particularly interested in and defining that to the nth degree, as we seem to be doing?

I get the impression that we are beginning to have second thoughts about the remit. I am not sure, but I think that we are considering the curriculum basically because the Executive is considering it and as part of our role of scrutinising the Executive. However, there is also the feeling that perhaps we do not want to repeat that inquiry, and that we want to have something rather broader about how young people learn and develop skills. We need to reflect on what we intend to do with the inquiry.

As we are talking about broadening things out a lot, we must be certain about the questions that we will ask people in calling for evidence. We do not want to ask people to write to us to tell us all about the curriculum—we want to ask fairly defined questions in order to pull out people's views on, and experiences of, matters that we want to know about.

Yes. You are absolutely right to say that we are reaching the point at which things are beginning to move. We are not yet under total pressure of time, so we could have another go at the matter.

Given the work that has been done by Keir Bloomer at the Executive and that a report is going to come out, would it not be sensible to consider the conclusions and pointers in that report? I am sure that some of the issues that we are discussing, such as innovative learning and teaching and examples of good practice, will be dealt with in the report. It would seem to be sensible not to reinvent the wheel, but to consider the report and perhaps take our focus from it.

Do we know when the report is due?

It was meant to be due in September or October. It would be great if there was a report for the next committee meeting.

The next committee meeting will not be until after the recess. There is a slight delay this year. That would still be within our time, but there would have to be the understanding that we will finalise the remit at that point. We can clear matters to some extent by e-mail exchanges before then so that at least points can be narrowed down for finalisation. I suggest that we return to the remit, because we are not facing a deadly timetable. We will reconsider it in that context. If the report comes out in the meantime, we can take it on board and try to readjust accordingly.

Your remarks imply that there is a time constraint.

No, I am saying that there is no time constraint, apart from the diary one of fitting in the inquiry at an appropriate point.

I appreciate that given the bill and other items that will come up, our slots for inquiries are limited, but it is more important to ensure that we agree to an inquiry that is worth while. If it takes us a bit longer because we have to reflect on the results of the Executive's work and its report, I would rather we took longer, and did something that added value to what the Executive has done, rather than rush in without being sure what has come out of that review.

That is right. When I said that there was no time constraint, I meant that as it will be early 2005 before we begin work on our inquiry, we have two or three months to firm up matters. However, if we are going to advertise for evidence, we will need to do so a little in advance of Christmas in order to give people an opportunity to respond within a reasonable timescale.

That was a helpful discussion. The clerks will have the Official Report of what has been said. We can have another go at the issue, probably at our meeting on 27 October, but we can seek comments on it before then, so that we do not reinvent the discussion. Is that all right?

Members indicated agreement.

I am told that there is a problem with the sound system and that people at the back cannot hear. I commented earlier that I could not hear people at the sides. I am not sure what the difficulty is, but we will have it examined later, because it is important that people can hear what is being said. All we can do this morning is to direct our comments clearly into the microphone. As we have room at the table, I invite the members of the public to join us. We are having an inclusive meeting.

This situation sometimes happened when I used to appear in court. There would be a mumble in front of the sheriff, and people at the back would not hear what was going on.