Process of change

Learning and Teaching Scotland published the draft experiences and outcomes in stages for engagement and trialling. The main purpose of this activity was to gather views on the draft experiences and outcomes so that they could be further developed and improved in response to those views. In addition, engagement and trialling made an important contribution to the process of change for Curriculum for Excellence.

Engagement enabled anyone with an interest in education to be part of the feedback and revision process. The draft experiences and outcomes were published online and were accompanied by an online questionnaire for individuals, groups, schools and organisations to use to feed back their thoughts and views. The total number of responses was 1762.

More than 600 early years establishments and schools took part in formal trialling to test specific experiences and outcomes in practice across all curriculum areas. Schools and centres chose experiences and outcomes to trial based on their planned programmes of work. They submitted reports containing rich and detailed feedback which was used to inform the revision process.

Thirty-seven focus groups were held, covering each curriculum area and involving practitioners, senior education managers, representatives from professional bodies, industry, parents and learners, to discuss the draft experiences and outcomes.

In addition 133 submissions were received from a range of sources including learned societies and specialist groups.

All of these responses were analysed by the University of Glasgow, whose reports formed the basis for the refinement process. The final report endorsed the variety of mechanisms included in the engagement process, stating,