Education Scotland is leading a systematic review of the Scottish curriculum called the Curriculum Improvement Cycle, to ensure it remains up to date and relevant for children and young people.

A new discussion paper, which has been developed to inform emerging work of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle in Scotland, has now been published.

‘Working Together to Make Change Happen’ begins to outline how the Curriculum Improvement Cycle will work in practice. This follows the publication of the first discussion paper called ‘Background and A Case For Change : Findings from the Pilot Curriculum Reviews 2023/24’ which sets out why the work is being carried out and unpacks the pilot curriculum reviews. It also talks about evolving the technical framework and aims to inspire thinking. The second discussion paper which was published in December 2024 is called ‘Towards an Evolved Technical Framework.’ This paper draws on the finding from the pilot curriculum reviews and other evidence to explain what the options might be to evolve the Technical Framework of Scotland’s Curriculum which uses a ‘Know-Do-Understand’ model.*

The new discussion paper ‘Working Together to make Change Happen’, provides an overview of the development of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle to date and shares what is currently in the scope of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle. This paper also outlines the practices, processes and approaches that are being used, considers what is needed to build capacity to support any emerging changes, and identifies the interdependencies.

Gillian Hamilton, Chief Executive of Education Scotland, said:

“’Working Together to Make Change Happen’ provides an overview of the design, development and processes that are now in place to support the Curriculum Improvement Cycle. Scotland is now almost one year into putting a process in place that will enable the curriculum to be reviewed in a planned and ongoing basis, and practitioners and partners have been involved in the design and development of this process from the start. We have published this discussion paper as part of our commitment to keeping the education system updated on the process and progress being made.”

If you are interested in finding out more about the Curriculum Improvement Cycle you can sign up to the quarterly news bulletin here: Subscribe to Curriculum Improvement Cycle Mailing List

* A Know-Do-Understand model offers a solution to making the position of knowledge more explicit as part of an evolved technical framework. It also offers a way to clarify the knowledge that learners should have.