Education and the Curriculum for Excellence

Researchers at Stirling felt that politically independent research was needed to fairly assess the impact of CfE. In 2012,  Professor Mark Priestley and Sarah Minty, published a report suggesting that a major issue for the success of CfE lay in a gap between teacher practice and the aims and philosophy of the new curriculum.

At the time, progress in implementing CfE was variable across schools. Many teachers felt there were tensions between the big ideas of the curriculum and the finer detail of its experiences and outcomes. Schools that had taken a longer-term, big picture approach to implementing CfE had achieved more progress, especially if teachers had time to discuss planning and make the most of the new opportunities for teaching and learning.

Education systems globally are developing new national curricula that increasingly focus on the learner, core competencies and the importance of teachers as curriculum developers. Our researchers have also advised other countries as they seek to develop similar models to CfE. For example, Dr Valerie Drew has worked with local authorities and teachers in Wales. Her model for professional learning has influenced Welsh government policy on curriculum development.

In 2017, we hosted the 3rd European Conference on Curriculum Studies opened by Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney. This brought together senior policymakers and policy developers along with international curriculum scholars, all seeking to progress curriculum development.

The Stirling Centre for Research into Curriculum Making was established to improve conversations about curricula across research, policy and practice. The network brings together Stirling researchers, colleagues in other universities and educational practitioners and policymakers.

The network includes contributors from Cyprus, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and Jamaica. This networking has led to collaborative bids for research funding and influential publications such as The Curriculum Journal.

Recently, there has been emerging evidence from our research that in some areas of Scotland there has been a reduction in the number of subject choices offered to pupils despite the intentions of CfE of expanding the opportunities available to them.

This seems to be particularly the case in relation to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. This is very important as we know the subjects offered and studied at different ages can have a long-term influence on young people’s education and career options.

Our new research exploring this issue, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, will be led by Dr Marina Shapira from the Faculty of Social Sciences and supported by Professor Mark Priestley and a research team. The £270,000 study will conduct the first in-depth evaluation of subject provision through CfE. The two-year study is scheduled to report in Autumn 2021.

Research and big data analysis is ongoing at Stirling to assess curriculum provision and outcomes, the role of different actors such as local authorities and teachers, and impact of external pressure such as accountability and performance.

We want to know how this all impacts on the education of young people and the independent evidence we gather will help the Scottish Government further develop CfE.