Curriculum for Excellence

A lot of information on the new national qualifications and assessment frameworks is available for parents and carers. Perhaps too much information (!) but maybe you can get your head around the key terms and changes by reading these two recent publications that summarise where we are in June 2011.

Curriculum for Excellence Factfile – Overview of Key Terms and Features

(http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/Images/FactfileOverview_tcm4-665983.pdf )

This leaflet summarises and explains the terminology used within the new documentation and highlights what we should expect to see change as a result of the new qualifications. A key change to look out for will be the way our children experience learning – learning differently – with a different approach to learning in schools. The intention is to help learners develop skills, knowledge and understanding in more depth, in line with the seven principles of curriculum design, where all learning must take account of:

• Challenge and enjoyment
• Breadth
• Progression
• Depth
• Personalisation and choice
• Coherence
• Relevance

Parents and carers should expect to be kept informed of progress being made towards the goals set. We should look out for key phrases that could be used in reporting – developing, consolidating and secure – the end point being where the learner is able to apply the skills or knowledge confidently in more complex or new situations.

This leaflet also provides a number of links to other resources, including the Parentzone website you may be familiar with, providing information for parents on all aspects of children’s learning (www.LTScotland.org.uk/Parentzone )

Qualifications are changing – a guide for parents and carers

(http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/CfE_Parents_Leaflet.pdf )

This leaflet gives a useful overview of the which qualifications are changing and how they will be assessed. The timings of the changes are provided alongside the new structure that has basically unified the current national qualifications into a new National Qualification Framework covering : Access, National 4, National 5, Higher (revised) and Advanced higher (revised).

If you were familiar with the existing framework then the main changes to be aware of are:

Standard Grade(General level) & Intermediate 1 are replaced by National 4

Standard Grade(Credit level) & Intermediate 2 are replaced by National 5

Pupils who will be in S4 in 2013/14 will sit the new National 4 and National 5 qualifications, while S5 pupils will still be able to sit the current Intermediate 1, 2 or Higher qualifications. In 2014/15, pupils in S5 will sit the new National 4, National 5 or revised Higher qualifications, while, at the same time, pupils in S6 will still sit the current Higher or current Advanced Higher qualifications.

Individual schools will implement this process in different ways, so it is worth checking with our school website to keep abreast of JGHS’s final plans.

Another key change to note is that the Access and National 4 qualifications will be judged on a pass/fail basis without any external exam, whereas National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher will be graded A to D through a combination of work assessed internally by the school and an additional external assessment that has to be passed – this will usually take the form of coursework and/or an exam which will be marked by SQA through external assessment arrangement (as presently).

You can find out more about the new qualifications at the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) website. (www.sqa.org.uk/scqf )