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Meeting of the Parliament 11 November 2010

11 Nov 2010 · S3 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Curriculum for Excellence

Harper, Robin Green Lothians Watch on SPTV

Yes, Jean-Jacques.

I had the extreme good fortune and great honour to serve with R F Mackenzie in Braehead secondary school in Buckhaven in Fife, and I would like to take the opportunity to pay a short tribute to a man who, in a sense, forecast in the 1960s where we are now in our attitudes to education. In an education system that was deeply divided, with high schools and junior secondaries, R F Mackenzie was the head teacher of a very small secondary school: Braehead had just 400 pupils. That was before the raising of the school-leaving age, and most of the pupils from that school left without any qualifications and little in the way of an education that gave them the confidence and self-belief that we are looking for the curriculum for excellence to deliver for every young person in the country.

R F Mackenzie decided that he would set up in his school a curriculum that was thoroughly based on the creative arts, such as music and art, and on technical and outdoor education as well as on the basic subjects of maths, geography and literacy. I taught modern studies and English when I was there. We produced a school newspaper that went worldwide, and we were in constant contact with A S Neill in Summerhill school. We did not go quite as far as A S Neill, but we believed that young people should be given chances to develop in the ways that they could and that they should be encouraged to develop all the skills that were nascent within them. That was central to Mackenzie’s philosophy.

Now, after many years, we have a curriculum for excellence that takes on many of those points. In the first school that I taught in, we could hear the belts slapping in the corridors almost continually from the beginning to the end of the day. One of the bravest things that R F Mackenzie did was discourage the use of the belt. That is not to say that the belt was not used at all at Braehead, but most of the teachers did not use it.

That experience informs my attitude to the curriculum for excellence. I was overjoyed when it was introduced because I think that it is the best thing for our students. The cabinet secretary’s move to combine Learning and Teaching Scotland and HMIE and then to put them into the classroom is brilliant. It is just what we need, because those bodies have a lot to offer. Not only that, but they will learn from being engaged at the chalkface. Actually, teachers now use interactive whiteboards; technological advances have been so quick that classrooms are unrecognisable from those of my early days. The cabinet secretary’s decision can only be beneficial on both sides—to teachers and to HMIE.

I have some concerns, which I would like to reflect on. Amid everything, the most important subjects are the creative arts, and yet they are at standstill. I know of schools throughout the country where, if something is to be cut, local authorities will cut music, drama or art. Outdoor education went out the window a long time ago: the Government will be well aware of my concerns about that. I had hoped that, by now, those subjects would be able to expand because they are central to the whole spirit and ethos of the curriculum for excellence. I would like a hint from the Government on what it is thinking about for future development. Obviously, we cannot do everything at once, and we have to play with what we have at the moment.

I was glad to hear, amid all the criticisms, that there are secondary schools that have whole-heartedly taken the curriculum for excellence on board. Primary schools—I have visited many—think that it is the best thing that has happened to them. Many schools were teaching in the spirit of the curriculum for excellence anyway, so it was less difficult for them to adapt.

In this breath I will also pay a huge tribute to the contribution that eco-schools have made to the development of curriculum for excellence. Ten years ago, we started with 300 schools on the scheme, and we now have 3,000 schools on it, with the scheme being run by a very small staff in Stirling. We will entertain an international meeting on eco-schools in the Parliament next Thursday. Sadly, the parliamentary event coincides with another prestigious event run by a certain newspaper in Our Dynamic Earth, and at which—as far as I can tell—everybody will be except me.

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Meeting of the Parliament 11 November 2010

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