Kirsty McFaul is Senior Education Officer at Education Scotland, an Executive Agency of Scottish Government. She has worked at Education Scotland since 2012 leading on the Technologies curriculum area including Craft, Design, Engineering and Graphics, Business Education, Computing Science, Digital Literacy and Digital Learning and Teaching. In her current role she leads a team which works across Scotland supporting local authorities and schools who deliver education in all settings. Her role also requires her to work with external stakeholders from large Tech companies to local/national organisations such as Police Scotland, Universities/Colleges, teacher professional bodies/unions and senior leadership in local authorities. Advising and supporting Scottish government cabinet ministers and ministers across a range of portfolios is something unique to her role as digital overlaps with many areas.
Key highlights have been leading the review and implementation of the Technologies and Digital curriculum in 2016, leading the support for schools during the COVID pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and the continued engagement of the education sector from leaders to front line teachers – in 2024 this amounted to 152 session to 4341 educators, 31195 learners in 1496 schools (Scotland has around 2500 schools).
She is looking forward to taking part in the Fellowship programme and hopes to learn from others in this sector to improve the work she is currently undertaking in Scotland. Working and learning with others is a privilege and rarely possible in her current role so she is looking forward to making new contacts and colleagues.