Supporting the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence

Supporting the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence in partnership

On 30 March 2010 the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning announced a ten point plan to provide further impetus to the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence. As part of this plan, Dr Bill Maxwell, HM Senior Chief Inspector, announced on 14 May that additional support and challenge for the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence would be provided by HMIE and partners, with an emphasis on secondary schools. The aim was to provide support in ways which helped to build capacity and so contribute to teachers’ learning and professional development on which the successful implementation of Curriculum for Excellence depends.

Introducing the plans, HM Senior Chief Inspector said:

'These plans will allow us to provide substantial additional support for the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence over the coming months. Working with practitioners in all sectors, local authorities and partner organisations, we have been supporting Curriculum for Excellence from its inception, but this gives us an opportunity to work in a targeted way with schools and education authorities at this important stage of the process.'

To provide this support, HMIE postponed the inspections between August and December 2010 in secondary, special and all-through schools and associated community learning provision, and reduced the programme of inspection in primary schools and early years centres.

During the period to the end of March 2011, HMIE and partners provided a programme of almost 400 events for schools and local authorities, across all 32 education authorities, which attracted several thousands of participants. The work was guided by a Project Board with representatives of local authorities, HMIE, LTS, SQA and Scottish Government. In line with research on change in education, the aim was, where possible, to use techniques of professional dialogue which would build capacity, rather than simply convey information.

These events were set up in consultation with local authorities with the format, content and audiences determined by the requests of each local authority.

HMIE collected more than 2,000 individual evaluations from these events and the results are detailed on page 3 of HMIE Briefing: Spring 2011. To supplement this work, HMIE and its partners also wished to gather additional evidence from a sample of participants to examine the impact of the events and to inform future capacity building.

HMIE commissioned George Street Research to undertake additional research, with the objectives:

1. To provide further evidence of impact of the activities and proposed next steps from those involved in the additional support.
2. To identify key issues and examples of good practice to inform future support.

The report below outlines the key findings emerging from the research.

George Street Research Partnership Support for Curriculum for Excellence Research Report

Other useful links 

CPD Find 
LTS Website 
SQA Website 
Journey to Excellence