The Scottish Context

Reflecting critically on the prior reading for this seminar and drawing, if you wish, on other readings too, how does the Scottish situation outlined in both papers relate to your own experiences of ‘schooling’. These experiences should be as recent as possible and draw on professional reflection. If you do not currently have a professional context, please then draw on the ‘personal’. 

As a secondary teacher in a Scottish school, the current situation in Scottish Education outlined in the readings is very relevant to my own current practice as well as to the school in which I work as a whole.

Priestly and Minty (2012) reported that “implementation was more developed in primary schools, where it is easier to meet with colleagues and work collaboratively than in secondary schools” (p. 2). However, I am fortunate to be placed in a straight through, P1 - S6 establishment with only 120 pupils. There are both pros and cons to this situation such as the flexibility and autonomy of a single person department weighed against the isolation and lack of colleagues within your own subject area. In terms of CfE the huge advantage of this has been that we, as a staff, have been able to do what Priestly and Minty (2012) describe above. There have been many opportunities to meet and discuss, and these discussions have often resulted in collaborative, interactive projects across the stages, subjects and departments. These projects have been very successful in “giving pupils greater levels of autonomy in their learning [and] in engaging them and providing relevance to their learning” (Priestly and Minty 2012, p. 2). Also, in terms of staff development, there was a great deal of knowledge and skills shared between colleagues as well as, for individual staff,  “pleasure gained from being able to teach outside of their subject” (Priestly and Minty 2012, p. 3).

However, in the senior years we have found it increasingly difficult to implement the true philosophy of CfE due to the conflict of interests there appears to be between what Hulme et al (2011) describe as “the double edged sword of innovation and evaluation” (pp. 444 - 445) where “accountability practices hinder innovation” (Priestly and Minty, 2012, p. 9).

In line with the values underpinning CfE, McAufliffe, 2013, states that “no longer can school art be just about the privileging of observational drawing over free expressive modes - a practice that served well in the training of engineers and craftsmen for Scotland’s flourishing industries of the past. An art education today needs to equip young people to meet the challenges of the 21st century education and be inquiry-led” (p. 4). Through CfE reforms there are signs that “the value of not always knowing ‘the outcome’ has found favour” (McAufliffe, 2013, p. 5) and that creativity has been “re-conceptualised as an ‘employability’ attribute” (Hulme et al, 2011, p. 439). However what I in art, and my teaching colleagues in their subjects, have found in attempting to put these reforms into practice in the teaching of qualification level courses has been that though “we are empowered and we are able to develop new things and we are professional enough to do that” somebody else with a “slightly different agenda” has come along and assessed and evaluated us on an entirely different set of values (Hulme et al, 2011, p. 440). In recent visits from HMIe staff to the school we found that their focus was on testing, summative attainment levels, paperwork, written plans and policies rather than innovation, creativity and individualised, pupil led approaches to teaching and learning.

In conclusion, I feel that in my own situation as an individual teacher and a member of a forward thinking, innovative school staff, that we have the capacity and will to “‘unlearn’ established practices and habitual responses” but are hindered by the system’s lack of capacity “to adopt a stronger learner orientation over a performance orientation” (Hulme et al, 2011, p. 445).

References

1. Hulme, M., Menter. I. and Conroy, J (2011) Creativity in Scottish School Curriculum and Pedagogy. In Sefton-Green, J. et al (eds) The Routledge International Handbook of Creative Creativity Learning. London: Routledge. Ch 44.

1. McAuliffe, D. (2013) Mapping and Forecasting the Change Agenda in Scottish Art and Design Education. In Bryce, T. et al [Editors] Scottish Education [Fourth Edition], Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

1. Priestley, M and Minty, S (2012) Developing Curriculum for Excellence. Summary of findings from research undertaken in a Scottish local authority. Sterling: University Of Sterling.