*please note, video was deleted when I tried to access [as of 03/09/2019]*
It is fair to make comparisons between the IB’s learner profile attributes and CfE’s four capacities for learning. Both are there to build a foundation for learners to contribute to society upon leaving school and to help improve the communities that they find themselves in, both domestically and internationally. With this consideration and co-operation, society can move forward to attain new heights, therefore the utilisation of these developments is vital to our curriculum.
The immediate similarity that struck me was present in CfE’s details for ‘responsible citizens‘. This can be linked to many of the IB’s attributes — such as thinkers, open-minded and reflective — and puts emphasis on learners emphasising with outside parties that differ from their own thinking. This train of thought is an important aspect of everyday life that calls for people from different backgrounds and cultures to work together and reach a common goal. Additionally, the call for responsible citizens has never been larger as the world continues to bridge previous gaps through the advancement of technology and will only become more common in years to come. Therefore, it is imperative that this line of understanding is instilled in the minds of students so humanity can continue to grow off the back of their learning in the near future.
Another similarity between the two curriculums is the learner profile attribute of communicators with the capacity of effective contributor. Similar to the previous paragraph, communication is key to all aspects of life, irrespective of context. For society to run successfully, it is essential for the population to be on the same page as one another. As such, it important to teach pupils to express themselves in a way that allows them to be critical thinkers and take control of situations whilst accounting for the opinions of others. This brand of ‘outside of the box thinking’ also builds self-resilience and allows for individuals to bounce back from difficult situations and use the circumstances to learn in future. From my own experience, I learned that children have an initial struggle to overcome the realisation that they made a mistake and believe that they have failed, per-se, without recognising that failure is the key to success. I took pride in seeing the push that my mentor and the school put on normalising the act of making mistakes and believe this is reflected in the similarities between IB and CfE’s thinking.
Lastly, CfE’s capacity for successful learners is, naturally, a key component for all of education. Therefore, it exhibits the vast majority of learner profiles. Students must have a desire to learn to absorb knowledge. By using their interests and abilities to teach the curriculum to them, pupils are more likely to continue their learning outwith the school grounds and take an interest in the subjects that they are learning in their own time. This aligns with inquirers that helps usher in passion, motivation and enthusiasm for their own education.
It is worth noting that there are differences between the two approaches, however. The most glaring of which is that the Curriculum for Excellence is a lot more centred on the four capacities affecting Scotland than the rest of the world, at least initially. This is reflected under responsible citizens, calling for a bigger emphasis on Scotland’s place in the world and what we contribute to it, rather than the bigger picture being the international spectrum; differing from the IB’s approach of impacting local, national and international communities.
