Estate Living Digital Publication Issue 11 November 2015 | Page 46

Curriculum

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Curro School
When used in an English sentence, the word alfresco
is usually associated with a food experience, yet it can
be used in the context of education too.
Alfresco education looks at what is outside the
confines of where we traditionally position education.
Schools continues to be seen as that place where
curricula-based education and are taught in order to
provide learners with a successful future.
Yet how do we think outside the school grounds
and how do we ensure the curriculum is relevant
and that the skills and ways learners think will be
a success in the real world? The answer lies in
what we valued - if educators, parents and school
authorities’ only value and reward memorisation
and the requirements inside the school, there are
slim chances that learners will succeed alfresco.

Students will not find ways to access jobs by
thinking inside the system. The world we live in
is changing and it is through this rapidly evolving
reality that young people need to find their way.
The schooling system should help them do so by
teaching them what will enable them to thrive with
change.
Some educators claim we need to go beyond set
curricula to an alfresco classroom that fosters habits
and attitudes that will help learners to face difficulty
and uncertainty calmly and confidently and create
lifelong learners. This requires more than just scoring
high marks on exam papers and encourages learners
to approach examinations with confidence. It is not
abandoning the set course menu, but simply serving
it within a different context – and in the real world,
context is everything. Guy Claxton, a professor of