HM Inspectors of Education are to be diverted from their work inspecting secondary schools beginning next school session. For five months from August to the turn of the year, inspectors will drafted in to support the roll-out of the controversial curriculum for excellence. This unusual move took place against a background of growing concern that secondary schools not being ready for the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence in August.According to a recent HMIE report, half of secondary schools are only at an early stage of introducing the changes.
And a survey of Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) members found 89% needed more subject resources, while 84% said training was inadequate.
The suspension of inspections in our secondary schools will apparently free up to 100 inspectors to help introduce the new curriculum.
This seems to be a panic measure ‘papering over the cracks’ over the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence. Mike Russell Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning is not dealing with the problems. Inspectors can’t deliver CfE, that responsibility rests with the teachers. By telling the inspectorate to suspend inspections and set aside their other responsibilities, such as progressing government policy on bullying in schools, the government is effectively abandoning its commitments to monitor the state of school buildings or improving school standards. The government is desperate, as the evidence of its mismanagement of the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence accumulates, to be seen to be doing something. But to stop HMIe from doing its normal job and send the inspectors in as the cavalry to ‘rescue’ the Curriculum for excellence just shows unfortunately how bad things have become.
