Personalisation and choice P7 to S1 - St Columba's High School
St Columba’s RC High School is in Dunfermline in Fife. It is a six-year comprehensive school with a roll of 920. The community of St Columba's High School is made up of pupils, staff and parents and works closely with its seven associated primary schools.
Focus of the case study
The study explores how the school has used the principle of personalisation and choice to introduce new interdisciplinary contexts for learning and support young people’s experience through transition from P7 into S1.
The case study shows how the actions taken by the school since the publication of 'A Curriculum for Excellence' (2004) and 'Progress and Proposals' (2006) have impacted directly on the learning experiences of the young people currently in S2, in supporting them to become successful learners, responsible citizens, effective contributors and confident individuals.
The changes which the school continues to implement demonstrate some key features of ‘Building the Curriculum 3' including:
- planning learning experiences using the draft experiences and outcomes in technologies, health and wellbeing and expressive arts from P7 into S1
- using teaching teams to enhance personal support for young people through primary-secondary transition
- enhancing opportunities for personalisation and choice from P7 to S1
- providing opportunities for personal achievement, pace and challenge through interdisciplinary projects
- designing learning activities across the four contexts of the curriculum: the ethos and life of the school; curriculum areas and subjects, interdisciplinary learning and opportunities for personal achievement
- implementing approaches to class organisation and timetabling which support child-centred approaches to learning and teaching, with maximum class sizes of 20.