Case study: How the new curriculum works in practice

Instead, the subjects will be brought together under social sciences or science in first and second years.

It is a move which will see children taught in a smarter and more co-ordinated way, said the headteacher, which he believes will free up space in an already packed timetable.

Dave McClure said: "Because you are not putting a different teacher in for each subject, it makes it a bit easier."

He has also removed the rota system where pupils would study a term of history, then geography then modern studies, with a similar set-up for the three sciences. That will free up time for two hours of PE a week, and remove the problem where pupils have to decide whether to take history at exam level, despite not having studied it for several months.

Mr McClure said: "Part of the freedom of the Curriculum for Excellence comes if you remove some of the restrictions."

However, he quickly stressed children would still be aware of the individual subjects and how they perform in them.

"They will always know acids and alkaline is chemistry and that electricity is physics, as teachers will be pointing out the context. And they will be assessed on the individual subjects so when it comes to their choices, they know which element they are best at."

And he explained how children would learn subjects in a cross-curricular way.

Unusually, Mr McClure has decided to include business studies under the social sciences grouping. "It is important to include the economic aspect. So in the first term, pupils will start a project called 'Scotland'.

"They will start it at the end of November to coincide with St Andrew's Day and continue it until the end of December. Within the topic there will be history, some geography, modern studies and business studies elements. They will begin by looking at present-day entrepreneurs in Scotland and then look to the past to see them in an historical context."

So they could begin by examining the careers of Sir Tom Hunter, who started in sporting retail, and Dragons' Den star Duncan Bannatyne, then look to earlier Scots and inventors such as John Logie Baird, or even engineering which could fit with geography?

"Yes," he agreed.

One concern of secondary specialist teachers and parents on this practice is teachers operating outwith their area of subject expertise. However, Mr McClure argued this would only be done in the lower stages of schooling, with individual subjects taught at exam level upward."At the early stage of secondary, it is more about skills than knowledge."

Mr McClure has also issued directions to teachers to put learning in a health context wherever possible so, for example, maths classes should look at food labels. "They could look at the salt content and ask if that was too much - but at the same time they would be learning percentages.

"Or if they were studying statistics in maths, they could look at obesity or diabetes statistics and examine the causes at the same time."

But he also has revolutionary ideas about upper secondary, with new exams called Nationals due to replace Standard grades in 2014.

"What we'd like to do, in consultation with parents, is reduce the number of subjects and do them in more depth - so instead of doing eight (Standard grades], pupils would do six (new Nationals] plus literacy and numeracy."

Mr McClure also hopes to teach the upper years of secondary together so fourth, fifth and sixth-years could be in the same Higher or Nationals class together.

It would allow particularly bright youngsters to leap ahead while giving others more time to achieve qualifications at the pace they need. And it is claimed that is just the flexibility the Curriculum for Excellence has been promising.