Why the school summer holidays are the real Curriculum for Excellence

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Friday 19 August 2011

Scotland’s summer holidays are officially over: the schools are back and teachers and pupils alike are looking forward to another academic session.

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Sean McPartlin

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Parents and even children may be secretly relieved to get back in the old routine, and there are regular suggestions that the holidays are too long.

But I would suggest otherwise.

Over the years, my pupils have pointed out to me that, at the start of every session, I tell them: "This is the most important year of your school career,” but in a sense that is always true.

First year, last year, exam years or others -- every session in school is "the most important" because education relies on experience, and pupils aren’t being "prepared for life" at school, they are already living it.It is the communication of that fact, and the connection between school and "real life" that is crucial in effective teaching and learning.This autumn, the Curriculum for Excellence will be the phrase on the lips of many teachers, parents and pupils as we move forward with this latest revamp of our education system, and change can be unsettling and challenging.However, throughout a long career, I have worked through many changes, and the inescapable truth is that there must always be change in education, because the community we serve, its demands, and the needs of our students, continue to change also.The importance of the six-week break -- for teachers as well as pupils -- is that it permits a differing perception and a chance to put into action, outside the confines of school, the learning that has been assimilated during the year. A period where choices are made, and relationships developed, on the basis of individual choice, rather than within the control of a school timetable and curriculum, is a hugely effective way to apply learning, and to reflect on what still has to be discovered.Pupils need to be reassured of the relevance of what they are learning in school to their life in general: that is what motivates learning and rewards study. The responsibility for ordering their days and weeks to their own model, to raise their head from the desk and see what is around them, is just as essential to teaching and learning as instruction and revision.With the summer holidays come the opportunities to put into practice the theories learned in the classroom, and to continue the development of emotional intelligence through interaction with different groups of peers, and increased time with the family."What we did on our holidays" may be a clichéd essay title, but if pupils and teachers can bring into the classroom the experiences, the re-creation, and the reflection afforded by their summer holidays, then they will also be bringing their world into what will really be a curriculum for excellence.The summer holidays may well be a break from school, but they are certainly not a break from learning.

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Why the school summer holidays are the real Curriculum for Excellence

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