Case studies

A pilot school one year on

What follows here is an honest account of why I accepted the invitation to become a 'Pilot School'; our experience as part of that project and why I still feel able after a year of this initiative to support its implementation.

The beginning of the debate, for me, lay securely in what we were 'doing' at Key Stage 3. Key Stages 4 and 5 seemed to have a very focused momentum, they were structured clearly and operated with a clear overview. We seemed to begin our GCSE years with the approach, 'Now we are real students with real exams ahead so let's see what we have to do and get it done.' This had never meant that we spent all our time on examination skills - literature is still a focal point of our department's love of English, and the teaching of literature remains our greatest pleasure. However, we certainly felt that we had a responsibility towards understanding and teaching to 'cover' the assessment objectives. We were fully versed in the demands of the syllabus and would never have simply followed our own random pattern for the delivery of any course.

Reviewing successes and concerns at Key Stages 4 and 5 led to some interesting debates. Sometimes we felt our students had a 'start over again' approach at Key Stage 4. Why? Shouldn't what was happening at Key Stage 3 have been a clear preparation for Key Stage 4? Isn't education a journey and a continuum of experience? If so why do we discount previous experiences? How can we build on what has gone before if we teach and learn independently of what has gone before? That was the philosophical and practical debate engendered by the NLS and the Framework for Teaching English.

The importance of what was happening at Key Stage 3 and, indeed, Key Stages 1 and 2 suddenly took on greater significance and we began seriously to explore the curriculum diet we were offering at Key Stage 3. What did we find? In complete honesty I would say:

• A curriculum which did not take into account the changes and challenges of what was happening in our primary schools.
• A curriculum which often repeated the practice of Key Stage 2 rather than building on it.