{"id":8574,"date":"2024-05-05T09:49:40","date_gmt":"2024-05-05T09:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8574"},"modified":"2024-05-05T09:49:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T09:49:40","slug":"a-lack-of-secure-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2024\/05\/05\/a-lack-of-secure-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lack of Secure Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alas, all is not well in North Britain. \u00a0It used to be said, and not just by North Brittons it should be noted, that they did things differently up there, did them better \u2013 and did them yesterday; that is, before more benighted parts of the UK. \u00a0Not any more. \u00a0Whilst doing things differently has not gone out of fashion (far from it), doing them well certainly has. \u00a0Watching narrow-minded nationalists and sanctimonious Greens [*<\/strong>] in disarray has always been very diverting, and now it's a daily comic turn.<\/p>\n

But there are serious aspects to their uselessness as a government and anyone living north of the border knows. \u00a0Schools are a good (ie bad) case in point. \u00a0Education Scotland, a quango, is conducting curriculum reviews following the 2021 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which found (unsurprisingly) that within the flagship Curriculum for Excellence programme, \u201cthe role of knowledge appears somewhat fragmented and left to interpretation at the school level\u201d. \u00a0I say unsurprising because it was always the intention to play down the acquisition of knowledge (It's anti-progressive it seems). \u00a0This is something the Labour Party in England flirts with as well as we might soon be finding out.<\/p>\n

Education Scotland\u2019s review paper describes the wide spectrum in the knowledge of pupils at the end of primary school as \u201ca potential barrier to progression\u201d and said that a similar problem occurs when pupils move from their first three years of broad education at senior school to the exam years. \u00a0The report says the problems identified \u201ccould be addressed by providing greater clarity (and thus consistency) of what learners would be expected to know by the end of the primary stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dear me. \u00a0What a state of affairs.<\/p>\n

In The Sunday Times, Lindsay Paterson, emeritus professor of education policy at Edinburgh University, described the report as dismaying. \u00a0He said:<\/p>\n

\u201cPupils who arrive in secondary school without a sound grasp of the basics struggle to make adequate progress after that. \u00a0The basis of secure knowledge is still being severely neglected by the Scottish curriculum, despite numerous warnings stretching back for a decade and a half. \u00a0The curriculum has worthy aspirations \u2014 developing student\u2019s confidence, stimulating their curiosity, providing the groundwork for adult citizenship. But these grand aims are vacuous without a much more rigorous attention to pupils\u2019 secure knowledge.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is especially true of many students who do not have literate parents, or parents who value education and schools, and where the great issues of the day are not talked about round the dinner table.<\/p>\n

The new First Ministerial team of all the talents has much to do.<\/p>\n

.......................<\/p>\n

[*] Sanctimoniousness is firmly rooted in Scotland's Presbyterian heritage. \u00a0Robert Burns' Holy Willie's Prayer<\/a> probes its dark depths. \u00a0You can listen to Bill Shannon<\/a> reciting it at the Dornoch Heritage Society's Burns Supper in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alas, all is not well in North Britain. \u00a0It used to be said, and not just by North Brittons it should be noted, that they did things differently up there, did them better \u2013 and did them yesterday; that is,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}