JDMcDsblog

Photo Credit:  OllieBray (shows the SAGT poster for Curriculum for Excellence)

ACfE seems to be taking some flak from major players in the educational world. Chris Woodhead, writing under the headline, Curriculum for Ignorance, in today’s Sunday Times lambasts what he sees as its lack of rigour and content, and attacks the emphasis on process as opposed to knowledge.

Lindsay Paterson, professor of educational policy at Edinburgh University has warned that, unless teachers’ subject knowledge improved, it would be difficult to deliver the new curriculum effectively or raise the attainment of Scottish pupils.

The “fashionable orthodoxy” of ACfE ignored the need for direct teaching, he argued, and focused instead on “the kind of applied inter-disciplinary project work which is supposed to displace the need for expertise”. While inter-disciplinary work had its place, it made no sense unless the disciplines had been grasped first. Pupils could not grasp these fundamentals if the “didacticism of the expert” was not available, and that depended on the teacher having the necessary disciplinary grasp, he said at a Directors Conference.

Is his, and Chris Woodhead’s, analysis wrong? Is there a ring of truth in what they are saying, or are they creating an Aunt Sally, a fictional travesty of ACfE which they can then knock down with impunity? Is there indeed a lack of subject knowledge, and a lack of passion?

Reading their articles, though, I find myself asking some questions on ACfE-and better experts than me are asking plenty, too.

I am less interestd in the global philosophy of ACfE than in how it works in individual schools. We need to look at certain types of pupils and ask how ACfE will work for them. For example what type of curriculum is best suited for a pupil who aims to study for a top course (say Law, Medicine, etc) and is likely to do five Highers and say 3 AHs over S5 and S6. What exams will he or she sit in the near future, and in what way will they be different from exams sat this year? What is the best way to design a curriculum and make up a timetable that supports ACfE?

And wider points arise: What is the SQA doing about ACfE? (We get an idea from their website-   http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/34714.html and the report http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/02/23130007/0 What do universities think? How can there be “excellence” when schools can’t, because of funding cuts, offer a full range of AH courses? Which schools will become centres of excellence for the Scot Bac, and which will not be able to offer it?

Indeed, can there be excellence when so many pupils leave with poor qualifications, literacy rates and numeracy rates? What are those countries in Europe who are ahead of us in such league tables doing differently? do they have similar models?

Using Scribd, I have uploaded a quick revision test, mostly multiple choice. It is called 3+3, the idea being that you should complete it in 3 minutes and then use the next 3 minutes to self or peer assess.

Three and Three 1

3 Are you a dyslexic

Photo credit: Flickr; David Flisher

I want to look at my provision for pupils with dyslexia. Geography is a multi sensory kind of subject, with a strong emphasis on the visual. I rely a lot on the digital projector to depict images and to show power points. I try to avoid using the board too much, but I feel I could use it more effectively when I do; I admire the neat layout and handwriting of certain colleagues. There is a lot of good advice for teaching geography to dyslexic pupils, and I am particularly keen on exploring how this blog can help. For example, I have set up a word bank for each topic, and have started to embed PowerPoints using slide share. I think this is something that could be developed. I also want to consider how we could use podcasts as a way of helping revise topics. I also think I need to take each page of text book and each worksheet and produce an alternative, dyslexia-friendly version. Among the key works of reference is the HMIe’s latest report, Education for Learners with Dyslexia. This contains some excellent, practical examples of best practice for dealing with dyslexia in the classroom.

Photo Credit-Flickr:  Oberazzi

Have been reading “Formative Assessment in the Secondary Classroom” by Shirley Clarke. I like her use of practical examples, and was particularly interested in the section on questioning. She reproduces a page by science teacher Dave Tuffin, who presents a series of “before” and “after” questions, designed to show how, with practice, we can reframe many questions to elicit a better response, and to encourage pupils to think more deeply. Mostly the questions go from the recall type (eg give a list, provide a word) to ones which require some thought. Among the strategies Tuffin uses are:

• Provide supporting vocabulary
  ask a question to be answered from the opposite standpoint;
  set up an hypothesis to be debated/challenged.

index cards

Originally uploaded by kparra

I have been encouraging my pupils to practise condensing notes on to index cards, as a way of helping them to revise. I am prticularly keen to get them thinking visually, and spatially, So, I got my second years to try drawing a simple sketch map of South America on to an index card, set up in portrait layout. They had to add in some key points-major cities, the Andes, the Amazon, Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, etc-all from memory. They had several minutes first to look over their atlas first. The standard was very wide ranging-some were very accurate and detailed, others naive and barely recognisable as South America, with little sense of scale or relative position. That’s not a criticsm of the pupils, but an indication of how different children process and retain spatial data. I shall upload some images of their maps over the weekend. One thing I wanted to find out was, whether there was a significant difference in the mental maps of boys and girls-my first impression is that there was… but I need to check each pupil’s index card carefully first. To be continued…………

We received a letter to say that our younger son, Fraser, will be part of the random sample to take part in the SSA for Maths and Core Skills. The survey studies what pupils across Scotland know and can do in certain subjects at important stages of their education. As the accompanying information sheet sets out, the SSA aims to collect accurate, up to date information that will allow the Government to plan and deliver policies to benefit all pupils, understand some of the factors which influence attainment and achievement and to target resources.

SSA was introduced in 2005 as part of Assessment for Learning, since when it has surveyed:

English language (2005)

Social subjects (enquiry skills) (2006), and

Science, science literacy and core skills (2007).

Full details can be found here.

class work 001

Originally uploaded by jmmcdgll

I have started a gallery of classwork on Flickr. I ‘ll put up a selection of pupil work, ranging from drafts to fair copies which can be annotated to highlight useful comments. This fits with the aim of formative assessment, which is to use feedback effectively to encourage further learning. By showing examples of good practice, this can also help provide pupils with models they can adopt.