Scotland’s curriculum – Curriculum for Excellence –helps our children and young people gain the knowledge, skills and attributes needed for life in the 21st century.

Scotland’s curriculum places learners at the heart of education. At its centre are four fundamental capacities. These capacities reflect and recognise the lifelong nature of education and learning. They:

• recognise the need for all children and young people to know themselves as individuals and to develop their relationships
with others, in families and in communities  

• recognise the knowledge, skills and attributes that children and young people need to acquire to thrive in our interconnected, digital and rapidly changing world

• enable children and young people to be democratic citizens and active shapers of that world

Curriculum is defined as the totality of all that is planned for children and young people from early learning and childcare, through school and beyond. That totality can be planned for and experienced by learners across four contexts:

Curriculum Entitlements

Children and young people’s rights and entitlements are central to Scotland’s curriculum and every child and young person is entitled to experience:

• a curriculum which is coherent from 3 to 18

• a broad general education, including well planned experiences and outcomes

across all the curriculum areas from early years through to S3. This includes understanding the world, Scotland’s place in it and the environment, referred to as Learning for Sustainability

• a senior phase after S3, which provides opportunities to attain and achieve, including to study for qualifications, awards and other planned activities to develop the four capacities

• opportunities for developing skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work

• opportunities to maximise their individual potential, benefitting from appropriate personal support and challenge

• support to help them move into positive and sustained destinations beyond school