​Learn about how pupils improved their artistic skills and business management.

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Curriculum for Excellence

Narrator: Curriculum for Excellence is energising learning and teaching in Scotland, making it more relevant to the real world and giving young people the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to succeed.

Perth Papers

Alison Ferguson - Art Teacher: The project was a soap opera in which the pupils took parts, developed characters. There was no script, it was all improvised. They called it Perth Papers: A Modern Day Soap Opera. It was a company that’s going downhill, the kids all took part in it. They have to diversity, produce a new product to save the company so that there’s no redundancies.

Katie: We were just, like, told we’re going to get this, like, project, we want you to come up with some ideas, and we just, like, had to start from there. And it was, like, everybody had to, like, fight for their role and pretend, like, because we were, like, being made redundant and that.
Ewan: The periods before we had art, everyone was always discussing what was going to happen and who was going to be fired, so that, you know, everyone was really getting into it

Alison Ferguson: Initially it was two separate periods, one that was experimental and social, interactive, the other period was traditional drawing and painting. I think that the project was interesting in that it grew arms and legs and the pupils themselves did that, it came from them. One of the things that happened was that the painting period, they integrated it into their soap opera and it became a club that was run from Perth Papers in leisure time, and that was great. And then actually the paintings became part of the project and provided the designs for the cards that they decided to make, so it all tied in very neatly and they liked that.

Ewan: I’m the manager of the production team and everyone, but Jamie’s just, he looks over everything and ...

Jamie: Yeah.

Ewan: ... keeps an eye on it, so that’s ...

Jamie: I don't really do much, I play golf and, you know, looking at the sports magazines, but if I need to be somewhere I’ll ...

Ewan: He will do it if he needs to work, but if he doesn’t need to then he’ll just skive of it.

Jamie: Yeah, that’s why I pay you to do stuff.

Jodie: It’s nothing like school, because school, everything runs quite smooth in school, because, like, you just go to your classes. But when you actually go and do a class that, like, you’re in a working place and you’re, like, older, you ... it’s a lot different, it shows you what the real world’s like.

Katie: I suppose it’s, like, more about what you can do yourself, because personally I felt I got more confident and, like ... because you learn a lot more because, like, I didn’t know, like, how hard it would be, like, to fight for our jobs and that, but, like ... when we were, like, oh, suddenly I’m being made redundant, I’m, like, well I’d better speak up, I’d better, like, make myself heard.

Alison Ferguson: I think the success of working with Curriculum for Excellence in that mode is that there’s ... you’re not teaching a subject in isolation, you’re teaching in a much more natural way, as you would when you’re bringing up your children, you explain things, you know, why things happen, and there’s just a great depth and more enrichment in their learning. There’s more diversity, there’s an accessible point for every child in the class, and they can build on that. they can take it in directions of their own personal interest.

[End of Recording]