RSA Exploratory Seminar on Developing Work on Education and Skills

John and I recently attended an RSA in Scotland (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce) seminar in Edinburgh to identify ways in which RSA Scotland and Fellows can make a contribution in the field of Education and Skills in Scotland. A topic close to our hearts and we were not disappointed by the contributions and discussion which took place nor the excellent chairing of the event by Louise Macdonald.

Objectives of the seminar included:

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  Understand the context: within schools/colleges the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence and the RSA’s Opening Minds Project and, more widely, the need to enhance skills for individuals of all ages to meet their needs and the changing needs of employers.


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  Identify and list areas where RSA Scotland and Fellows could make a contribution at local or national level.


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  Establish priority areas for action and consider how these can best be tackled by RSA Scotland and Fellows.

It was interesting to learn of the Opening Minds Project in England with its five key competences: learning, citizenship, relating to people, managing situations and managing information which are developed in the classroom through a mixture of instruction and practical experience. It reminded me of the Curriculum for Excellence 4 capacities: successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens. Managing information was what we understand as information literacy:

Students should have:

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  Developed a range of techniques for accessing, evaluating and differentiating information and have learned how to analyse, synthesise and apply them


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  Understood the importance of reflecting and applying critical judgement, and have learned how to do so.

It was also interesting to hear about the Curriculum for Excellence Health and Wellbeing draft Experiences and Outcomes. Hillary Hall a Development Officer involved in writing the draft outcomes and experiences highlighted the ‘Planning for Choices and Changes’ element which involves skills and using available information.

Throughout my learning I am supported in preparing for significant changes in my life by:

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   developing strategies which help me meet challenges, manage change and build my resilience


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  reflect regularly on my strengths and skills, to help me plan my next steps


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   raising my expectations, developing my potential and recognising and celebrating my achievements


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  using available information, advice and guidance to help me make informed choices and develop personal planning.

The above reflects the work Ian McCracken at Govan High School has beeing doing with a school wide initiative to identify skills that pupils will need not just at school but for life and a common definiton and understanding of what these are. This also reflects the work we are doing with Skills Development Scotland (Career Scotland section) on Information literacy skills and career self-management.

The RSA has drawn up an Education Charter which sets out the principles they believe should inform future development of education for young people, in which they include all kinds of learning, whether formal or informal, and whether offered by schools, college, universities, training organisations or elsewhere. Again much of their work is aligned and resonates with the work we are doing.

Librarians should get out there ... and start knocking on doors

Brilliant article about school librarians in TESS includes our very own Ian McCracken, Govan High who is a project partner and on our project advisory group. Article also includes quotes / case studies from other activists in the field: Duncan Wright, convener of the School Library Association (Scotland) and librarian at Stewart Melville's College; Wendy Pieroni, learning resource co-ordinator at Blairgowrie High in Perth and Kinross; Mary Sherriffs, Pitlochry High's librarian; and Ayr Academy librarian Heather Stewart.

Douglas Blane reports:
School libraries and the people who run them can play a central role in A Curriculum for Excellence, inspiring new initiatives and pulling various departments together.

I would certainly endorse that and have been saying so for quite some time. Advocacy at its best.

Read the full artilce 'Librarians should get out there ... and start knocking on doors'

Meeting with Learning and Teaching Scotland / Curriculum for Excellence

On Wednesday December 10^th Christine and I, along with two of our Project partners, Cleo Jones, Principal Officer, Libraries & Resources at Edinburgh City Council and Ian McCracken, Learning Resources Centre Manager at Govan High School attended a meeting at Learning and Teaching Scotland’s (LTS) offices to discuss possible Project input to the development of the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).  LTS was represented by Stuart Ritchie, Director of Curriculum at LTS, Fiona Norris, Team Leader, language and literacy and Ian Graham, Schools ICT Programme Director. Although we have been working with LTS for several years, including most recently the case studies of IL in secondary schools, this is the first opportunity we have had to engage with LTS staff at a policy level and the meeting opportunity was therefore very welcome.

We reviewed with LTS colleagues the work of the Project and Cleo and Ian explained some of their work which underlined the key role our partners play in our work. Fiona explained that she is keen to have a project involving school librarians.  Having reviewed what both sides have to offer and identified IL as sitting within the CfE Literacy team – Literacies for Learning, four action points emerged to be taken forward.

1.      A joint project is to be formulated with the CfE Literacy team. As a first stage Stuart and Fiona will discuss it and come back to us with firm proposals. Christine and I will meet with Fiona and colleagues early next year.

2.      We will work with the Literacy team on an IL proposal for presentations / workshops at the Scottish Learning Festival in September 2009

3.      There was some discussion about the presence of IL in different parts of the GLOW (the national intranet for Scottish schools) website which are not linked together. We will jointly look how at how Information Literacy should sit within Literacy

4.      Following a discussion on the need for CPD for teachers in IL we agreed that   online resources are required. Some funding will be available to support the development of this.

5.      A Literacy event is to take place at the Hilton on the 10^th March, 2009 at which the keynote speaker will be Professor David Booth from Toronto. We will discuss Project involvement in this with Fiona.

We will hear more from LTS on the implementation of these plans by mid January. 

PS Thanks to Rob Westwood for giving the blog a mention in the current issues of CILIP Gazette. Apparently we are up there with the Prime Minister and Stephen Fry.

Scottish Learning Festival

Included in the the sesions I attended was the keynote speech by Fiona Hyslop MSP Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning in which she outlined the central role of learning in supporting the Scottish Government’s strategic objectives. Of particular interest was that of a mention of Information Literacy skills and Dundee Librarians creating a community of Information Literacy skills in her speach in reference to examples of joined up working and GLOW.

She spoke quite a bit about GLOW (a national digital network for Scottish Schools) and referred to it as a truely innovative service on a national basis, recognised by George Lucas who was calling on US Congress to do the same. (Laurie O'Donnell, director of learning and technology at Learning and Teaching Scotland, was named as one of the George Lucas Educational Foundation's "global six". Each year, the film-maker's foundation honours six educationalists who it believes are "reshaping education". O'Donnell was honoured for his use of information technology.)

With reference to the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) she said it was skills for learning, skills for life, beyond curricular into life and that there was still much to do: assessments; skills development; professional development for teachers.

In the afternoon I attended a thought provoking session by Ruth Sutton entitled "It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it…that’s what gets results" she talked about 'not the what but the how of teaching' and that there was 'not enough focus on the how' and that there was an 'enourmous gap between vision and reality'. She also talked about initiatives and spining or weaving plates and that from a personal perspective 'nothing that we identify as best practice is entirely new'.

With reference to research and practitioners - she talked about 'how do we get the water to the end of the furrow' which I though was a good analogy for getting research out into practice something which the library and information profession research community has looked at. On Assessments - Assesment for Learning (AfL) was more like Assessment for Teachers however teachers that support Assessment for Learning would not go back. Also there needed to be a move from 'plan for coverage to planning for learning'.

She talked a little about Limbic Learning (a new term for me) which is all about using the part of the brain which deals with emotion, experiences and habits - helps the telling into habits from knowing into doing. According to Sutton Limbic Learning is the key to challenge traditional approach to teachers' professional development. Returning to the how not the what she said that Curriculum for Excellence needs to be defined as the how not the what.

The afternoon's keynote Reforming the High School Curriculum: Tools for Raising Quality of Learning and Improving Equity, Richard Teese, Professor of Post Compulsory Education Training and Director of the Centre for Post Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Melbourne. He sees CfE as far sighted and ambitious and that it will tax Scottish schools on two major fronts: how to raise the quality of learning of many students and how to ensure that all young people build well on a succesful experience of school. He says progress on both these fronts will require strong incentives. His keynote included identifying some of the key challenges for Scotland in the context of CfE.

My final session of the day was Real and Relevant - Information Literacy Skills for the 21st century Learner Louise Ballantyne, Development Officer, Literacy, Learning and Teaching Scotland. According to her biography 'Louise has a broad experience of teaching at different stages throughout the primary school. Most recently at LTS she has played a key role in the writing of Literacy and English outcomes for CfE, and has engaged with authorities across Scotland as to how to take the framework forward.' I was particulalry interested in hearing what Louise had to say about information literacy as the Seminar Description refered to 'the Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes direct practitioners to help learners find and use information effectively, to use information ethically and with a critical eye.' Whilst what Louise was saying with reference to information literacy was not new to school librarians and those professionals involved in information literacy it was interesting and good to hear a teacher talk about information literacy. Once finished her material will I understand be available on the CfE website. I also understand that one of the school librarian GLOW mentors approached her about the material being included in GLOW. I hope to meet up with her at a later date and discuss as the seminar describes 'one of the more challenging areas of Curriculum for Excellence.' This is the part I like about attending events sharing information with other people.