Panic over Curriculum Reform
The Scottish government stands accused of papering over the cracks over their mismanagement of Curriculum for Excellence after it was announced that all secondary school inspections were to be suspended later this year to allow school inspectors to work on the reforms.
The CfE is due to commence in August this year. Labour’s education spokesman Des McNulty said:
This is a panic measure – teacher’s survey responses show they have lost confidence in the ability of the Scottish government or the management board to implement Curriculum for Excellence successfully. In desperation, Mike Russell has taken the unprecedented step of redeploying the inspectorate to force through the reform. But this is too little too late – it simply underlines the scale of the government in Edinburgh’s mismanagement of the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence.
Inspectors are being asked to act as advisors, but the surveys didn’t flag up a burning need for advice. What teachers want is hard information about assessment criteria, clear guidance about programme expectations, time for development and assurances that course materials and resources for professional development will be available. A roving band of inspectors giving master-classes does not give teachers what they say they need. Mike Russell is papering over the cracks, not dealing with the problems. Inspectors can’t deliver CfE, the onus for that rests with classroom teachers.
By telling the inspectorate to suspend inspections and set aside their other responsibilities, such as progressing government policy on bullying in schools, the government is effectively abandoning its commitments to monitor the state of school buildings or improving school standards. The government is desperate, as the evidence of its mismanagement of the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence accumulates, is to be seen to be doing something. But to stop HMIe from doing its normal job and send the inspectors in as the cavalry to ‘rescue’ the Curriculum for excellence just shows how bad things have become.
The Scottish government has already ditched its commitments on early education, on free school meals and hours of PE in order to cajole the local authorities into saving the government’s face over class sizes. Its failure to win the confidence of teachers and parents over the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence demonstrates even more clearly that this is an incompetent government, unable to face up to the scale of its failure. Russell’s deployment of inspectors into schools smacks of desperation. It will make little difference in terms of getting the Curriculum for Excellence back on track.
