""There were doubts that schools were ready and there were predictions, mainly from the opposition benches, of catastrophe," he said."I would agree catastrophe has been avoided - but I'll let you into a secret: this new curriculum, billed as the greatest shake-up of Scottish education in a generation, has wrought a change so imperceptible that one could be forgiven for thinking it hadn't happened at all.
Standard Grade remains until 2014. It is still being taught and kids are still picking their options for this at the end of their second year of secondary school. We still haven't even the vaguest idea as to what its replacement will look like. But we're all guessing it'll look like son of Standard Grade. In the interregnum, we're merely tweaking our existing courses - knowing that we shouldn't expend too much energy doing much more than this because it is the exam structure that drives the content in the preceding years. And we are, of course, still waiting for an English translation of the crash of jargon that is the Curriculum for Excellence.
