A few weeks ago, TESS published an article by Prof. Lindsay Paterson of Edinburgh University in which he argued that one of the main threats to ACfE was a lack of subject specialist knowledge in secondary schools.

This struck a rather dissonant chord with me, I have to say. I blogged about this a few months ago and it’s clear from this post that I disagree with Prof Paterson. As a classroom teacher I have come to conclude that a very real threat to the success of ACfE is this continuation of compartmentalised knowledge transmission that is attempted day in day out in most of our secondary schools, where departments jealously guard their perceived specialist status. As Sir Ken Robinson puts it so well, we still have this hierarchy based on subjects where the big three of English, Maths and Science dominate (depending on the make up of the SMT and the force of personality of each particular PT) followed by the social subjects and PE, with the creative and aesthetic subjects usually at the bottom of the hierarchy. ACfE is, to me, anyway, all about changing the way we work so that the old model based on teaching is replaced by one which focuses on learning. For this to happen, the traditional hierarchy needs to be flattened out so that all subject areas interact, perhaps as ‘themes’. Darren Frearson, from Djanogly city academy, Nottingham takes such an approach. he says…

“We’ve abolished the year 7 curriculum and gone for a thematic approach, where the students work in four pods, studying four rich tasks — an approach we have taken from Queensland. The tasks are British national identity, buildings and structures, performance and science and ethics. The students make decisions about when to use devices; for example, for British national identity, some put together a video, some use movie clips, or posters, blogs or pod casts”

This type of holistic approach doesn’t have to stop in S1. With some vision, good communication and willpower, it could continue through to S3…It’s ACfE in action and needs good teachers to facilitate the learning. Teachers rather than subject specialists.

Whilst there is probably much in what Paterson says about the need for more training for primary school colleagues in science teaching, I think he is way out of touch with the situation in the secondary sector. TESS have today published a letter from me which sets out my own take on this…

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6012025

I think this is one of the many important issues which are acting as an undertow to the free-flow of ACfE, and a dangerous undertow at that. Assessment is another such issue. More on that one in my next post…