Curriculum for ExcellenceInto a second decade

What are we talking about?

Children not structures

Needs not frameworks

Responsiveness not provision

Respect and entitlement not permissions

Reality and not rhetoric

Changing the culture not just the rhetoric

And learning

Based on the gifts not the deficits

It has to be active

It has to involve the quest for meaning

It has to be varied

It needs motivation

It should respect disciplines but not be dominated by them

It must be assessed in terms of breadth, depth and application

It has to take children somewhere

It has to be accredited

It has to make them capable, not just qualified

Eric Hoffer

In times of change, the learners shall inherit the earth while the learned will remain beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists

David Cameron

And the learners who can create and innovate, who can identify opportunity and manage risk will shape that inheritance and define the future

What we know from today and before

We have a voice which is being well exercised and heard

We are in a conversation, not just a dialogue

We will get some legislation and support and we might get some change

In times of financial restraint parents offer value

Educationists have 1500 hours, parents have as much as we are prepared to give

We can create the links and the synergies

We can influence

We have survived

We are here for the long haul

We will work with what we have but we will work to have more and better

If the ambition is to get it right for every child and to get if right for Scotland, we can’t just change the curriculum

And we can’t neglect the resources that really bring change