Experimenting with CfE
this was set as homework for the next lesson...
15 out of 16 pupils noticed that the topic was different to the previous one.

They noticed that...
"we got to choose what we done"
"we got to pick our planning"
"it was more fun"
"we did posters"
"we learned what we wanted to learn about"
"we never actually worked out of a textbook"
"we worked in groups more often"
"we said what we liked to do then Mr Kelly went and seen what was most popular then put it up to see what we would do every week"
or...
WtF is CfE???
is it this?
Perhaps...
...but that doesn't tell me how to plan my lessons...
a bit of reading led me to focus on...
pupils taking ownership of their own learning
so I decided to give it a go and find out for myself
What I did
What happened 
What I thought of it
What the pupils thought of it
What next?
I started the topic without a title
We started with a class discussion instead
I then wanted to find out what the pupils already knew
I then asked the class to plan the topic in groups
these were then amalgamated into one plan by me
the pupils were enthusiastic to learn
getting beyond 'what questions do you want answered today' became impossible!!
the pupils produced interesting and varied presentations
which they peer assessed...
the pupils were very generous to each other
the scores averaged 93%
16 responded
15 said yes
we got to choose what we done
we got to pick our own planning
we learned what we wanted to learn about
we worked in groups more often
"
"
planning the topic
making the posters and powerpoints
the group work
everything
not working out of a textbook
"
"
drawing on the posters
hard to organise who was saying what
sometimes it was boring
"
"
11 chose the more recent topic
none chose the first topic
pleased overall
dynamic and motivated classroom
lack of focus on subject knowledge
less time spent on content
developed other skills instead
used the same approach with the next topic
 used a learning log to try 
and give topic more 'focus'
tried to make a greater 
emphasis on skill development
department is trying to incorporate some 
of these ideas into the new S1 course
i'm now on secondment as a curriculum for excellence development officer at east lothian council
fearghal kelly
fkelly@edubuzz.org
www.fkelly.co.uk
it doesn't end there!!