Case studies

Reworking school management team priorities

How the Key Stage 3 National Pilot links into our own school's priorities

John Sheppard, Deputy Headteacher at Whitecross School in Gloucestershire, describes how the school's management team has reworked its practice in order to give priority to Key Stage 3.

Whitecross School is a mixed-ability foundation school in rural Gloucestershire with 788 pupils. Our aim in joining the Key Stage 3 Pilot has been to improve the quality of teaching and learning throughout the school. This is also an important part of the our school development plan. We were conscious that many lessons in Years 7 and 8 lacked pace, and we were looking for ways to improve this. When we began implementing the Key Stage 3 Pilot, I was struck by the way the four-part lesson structure for all subjects could reinforce the school's interactive teaching and learning philosophy.

We knew that writing and speaking, in particular, needed improvement throughout the school. We, therefore, initiated a cross-curricular approach to literacy in September 1998. This was given a higher profile by the then draft Framework for teaching English: Years 7, 8 and 9, and QCA's cross-curricular 'Language for Learning' objectives.