Learning Throughout Life

Supporting Learning throughout our lives

Learning begins at birth and continues throughout our lives. Scottish Government education strategy, and the curriculum frameworks that deliver it, recognise that learning is lifelong, and are designed to help learners develop the skills they need for learning, life and work.

Here, we introduce the pre-birth to three framework, 3-18 curriculum, and the national guidance and frameworks which support adult learning and community learning and development, which together form the curriculum in Scotland.

Understanding the curriculum as a whole

The 3-18 curriculum aims to ensure that all children and young people in Scotland develop the attributes, knowledge and skills they will need to flourish in life, learning and work.

The knowledge, skills and attributes learners will develop will allow them to demonstrate four key capacities – to be successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors

Developing skills and attributes

It aims to develop four capacities, helping children to become:

• Successful learners

• Confident individuals

• Responsible citizens

• Effective contributors

Find out more about the Curriculum for Excellence here.

The totality of experiences

The curriculum includes all of the experiences which are planned for children and young people through their education, wherever they are being educated. These experiences are grouped into four categories.

• Curriculum areas and subjects
  The curriculum areas are the organisers for setting out the experiences and outcomes. Each area contributes to the four capacities.

• Interdisciplinary learning
  How the curriculum should include space for learning beyond subject boundaries.

• Ethos and life of the school
  The starting point for learning is a positive ethos and climate of respect and trust based upon shared values across the school community.

• Opportunities for personal achievement
  Pupils need opportunities for achievements both in the classroom and beyond, giving them a sense of satisfaction and building motivation, resilience and confidence.

Added to this, because children learn through all of their experiences - in the family and community, nursery and school - the curriculum aims to recognise and complement the contributions that these experiences can make. Find out more about the structure of the curriculum.

Planning learning experiences and positive outcomes

The experiences and outcomes are an essential component of Scotland’s new curriculum and apply wherever learning is planned. They signpost progression in learning and set challenging standards that will equip young people to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The title 'experiences and outcomes' recognises the importance of the quality and nature of the learning experience in developing attributes and capabilities and in achieving active engagement, motivation and depth of learning. An outcome represents what is to be achieved.

The experiences and outcomes are used both to assess progress in learning and to plan next steps.

The purpose of the curriculum

The four capacities

The purpose of the curriculum is encapsulated in the four capacities - to enable each child or young person to be a successful learner, a confident individual, a responsible citizen and an effective contributor.

The curriculum aims to ensure that all children and young people in Scotland develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they will need if they are to flourish in life, learning and work, now and in the future. The attributes and capabilities of the four capacities are outlined below:

The attributes and capabilities can be used by establishments as a guide to check whether the curriculum for any individual child or young person sufficiently reflects the purposes of the curriculum.

Developing the four capacities

The experiences and outcomes are a set of statements which describe the expectations for learning and progression for each of the eight curriculum areas.

The experiences and outcomes for each curriculum area build in all the attributes and capabilities and so develop the four capacities.