Accessibility
- Challenge and Enjoyment
- Personalization and Choice
- Relevance
5. Every child and young person is entitled to personal
support to enable them to gain as much as possible from
the opportunities which Curriculum for Excellence can
provide
Supporting children and young people in their learning involves a range of people– parents and
carers, nursery teachers and nurses, primary teachers, secondary teachers, support staff,
college staff, psychological services, Skills Development Scotland, volunteers and workers from
voluntary organisations and local authority youth work provision. It is important to work in
partnership to “get it right for every child”. Children and young people are entitled to personal
support to enable them to
> review their learning and plan for next steps
> gain access to learning activities which will meet their need
Enrichment of learning through exploration of different contexts may, in
some circumstances, also be an effective way of meeting very able pupils’ needs at some
points
Planned learning should be active, enterprising
The environment for learning in pre-school settings promotes a high degree of challenge and
enjoyment and personalisation and choice
Learning activities in pre-school settings can provide rich opportunities for progression and
depth of learning
Learning through a wide range of well-designed activities will also offer relevance, coherence
and breadth.
children are fully engaged in their learning, which is interactive, purposeful and defined within
the outcomes and experiences
> the learning environment is relaxed and supportive with opportunity for observation,
interaction and further exploration of interests and activities
> the learning environment is imaginatively resourced and stimulating, with opportunity for
engagement in exploratory and spontaneous play
> imaginative use of space and res
the experiences and outcomes are designed to open up
opportunities for active, challenging and enjoyable learning. Planning will need to use this
framework to develop a range of resources designed imaginatively for learning that responds to
the needs of children and the school community.
The encouragement of depth of learning challenges primary teachers to think beyond the
notion of progression as moving quickly from one topic or level to the next. The time spent on
discussion of learning, explaining it to others, applying what has been learned in different
contexts and spending time to probe and research a particular issue adds depth to learning
The principle of relevance should be used to help those planning the curriculum in selecting
content which connects with the child’s experience, learning and interests in and beyond the
school environment and ensuring that such links are made by class teachers using their in
depth knowledge of the whole child during learning and teaching. This will enable learners to
understand the relevance of their classroom learning, for example seeing connections with
experiences in their family or local community, the world of work, their experiences of travel or
their interests in sport or media
Primary teachers’ depth of knowledge of their pupils’ prior experiences, learning and interests
helps them to take account of personalisation and choice during teaching and to provide
‘customised’ support and feedback. Rich opportunities for choice at these stages may be
provided by the school as a whole, for example in personal projects or where pupils have
choice in activities sessions and in classrooms where learners are involved in the planning and
assessment processes and encouraged to pursue aspects of learning independently
activities should
encourage young people to develop and demonstrate creativity and innovation. The
experiences and outcomes are designed to provide motivation and challenge and to raise
expectations of achievement
Personalisation and choice during S1– S3 will continue to include choices in approaches to
learning within the classroom
