Curriculum For Excellence: Letter from SSTA

June 2010Dear Scottish Government,

Parents will assume that the SSTA was invited to take a seat on the Management Board (albeit a considerable time after the board was set up ) and the National Assessment Resource Content Group as a means of ensuring that the views of experienced secondary teachers were consulted. Yet, on every issue save one, those well-founded concerns have been rejected or ignored. Is it any wonder that our members have demanded that we take more direct action? However, Mr Russell issued his own Ten Point Plan after no consultation with the Management Board. Yet now the SSTA is condemned by Mr Russell for democratically consulting its own members. I hope to have the opportunity to attend the October meeting of the Management Board. This will be the first opportunity to bring explicitly to the Management Board the concerns over which we propose to ballot our members. If I am not able to do so due to the cabinet secretary's intervention, then members of the public, teachers and parents will draw their own conclusions about the Scottish Government's commitment to implementing the Curriculum for Excellence.

Peter Wright

President SSTA