Scottish vs English curriculum and school generally

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

Would be really interested to hear from teachers and parents about how you feel about working in Scotland and what the ‘system’ is like.
Husband and I are becoming more and more disillusioned with teaching in England and also how our three small children are experiencing school. It is all so high pressured and exam focused without any room for play. As teachers, our creativity and autonomy has been removed and we’re left following set models and being forced to treat students as data. We’re wondering about trying to move to Scotland where it appears to be a more holistic approach and teachers seem to have more of a working time agreement and flexibility. But are we just being naive and it’s not all the different? Or swapping some problems for others?
We’ve holidayed in Scotland lots and I have lots of family in Dundee and Aberdeen - life just seems to move a bit slower generally which we both really crave and want for our children too. But again, we’re always on holiday so could be viewing it the wrong way!!

I went to school in Scotland and now teach in England. I didn't appreciate til I moved down here how very Scottish-centric my education was - my husband finds it hilarious whenever I talk about school. English focused heavily on Scottish literature, history was all about the Highland clearances, Mary Queen of Scots, brochs and crannogs etc. Topics in primary school were things like 'Scottish weather'. PE included ceilidh dancing every year from age 5 to 17. I did some work experience in Scotland before training in England (around 10 years ago) and things up there were definitely more relaxed. Mixed year classes in primary are capped at 25 (the school I teach at had a Y3-6 class of 36 children this year) and I think infant classes are too. This was all before the Curriculum for Excellence though which, from what I can gather, has been something of a shit show.

Wow I hadn’t even thought about the different focuses for content! Yes I’ve read a bit about the curriculum for excellence and it sounds a great idea but hasn’t done well in practice. Really would like to know what that looks like as a teacher

I used to teach in England before SATs reared their ugly head and it all sounds awful. There seems to be a lot of paperwork for teachers and some academies sound truly terrible places to work with unrealistic expectations and demands on staff.

However, imo Scottish education has suffered since the implementation of the curriculum for excellence. It's all full of outcomes but without actually telling the teachers what they have to teach in order to achieve these. I think it would be very hard starting out as a teacher nowadays, especially with only a one year qualification. When i started, we had a document that outlined everything you had to teach in every year. There's too much emphasis on group work and investigating stuff so high school teachers complain that kids are unable to work on their own.

We do have the working time agreement, but this is open to abuse by some heads who demand a lot more from their staff who in turn don't stand up for themselves. Class sizes are capped at 25 for a mixed age class and 33 for a straight .class