Evaluation of the Two Year Key Stage 3 Project - Communities and ...

6. ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY DATAAs has been shown, the Two Year Key Stage 3 was put into practice in a wide variety of ways and thiswas reflected among the case study schools. Some of the differences in how the two year programmewas put into effect are summarised in Table 9. Summary figures for total pupil absences at the schoolsare shown in Figure 12 (for Phase 1 schools the Project could only affect absences in 2004 and 2005,and for Phase 2 schools in 2005 only). 28Interestingly, four of the eight case study schools had instigated their curricular innovations beforejoining the Two Year Key Stage 3 Project and, for some of these, the Project could be said to offer alegitimating function, although this was only stated explicitly by one senior manager. Innovations thatmay, for example, have been especially scrutinised if the school were to have undergone an inspectionby the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) could be seen to have greater protection throughparticipation in the Project. This point was also made by a school governor who explained that theschool had previously been looking for opportunities to be more flexible but was constrained by theNational Curriculum.Six of the eight case study schools offered a two year Key Stage 3 during Year 7 and Year 8. Most ofthe material presented later in this section relates to schools offering such a model. In five of these sixschools (the exception being a middle school) pupils were intended to be entered early for GCSEs in atleast some subjects and to use the saved time to enter for extra qualifications by Year 11. In addition, insome of the schools the saved time gave the school greater flexibility to offer a range of pathwaysthrough Key Stage 4 including vocational options.The other two case study schools offered what we have described as a ‘foundation’ model. That is, ashortened Key Stage 3 curriculum was provided during Years 8 and 9 (A third school, which alsooffered a Year 7 and Year 8 model in some subjects, provided a ‘foundation’ year to the two lowest setsin one subject.) Of the two schools offering a purely Year 8 and Year 9 model, in one of the schoolsYear 7 provided an opportunity to devote some time to teaching independent learning skills andcompetencies, such as literacy, numeracy, teamwork and emotional intelligence, that were designed toenable pupils to be successful in the classroom thereafter. The overall aim of the project at this school,which had low levels of prior attainment, was to ensure that pupils were able to access the Key Stage 3curriculum on entering Year 8. A governor interviewed wholeheartedly supported the innovation.The other school offering a ‘foundation’ model was a pilot school for the RSA Opening Mindsprogramme. Under this scheme Year 7 pupils attended ‘opening minds’ lessons for 10 out of 25 lessonseach week (taught by one or, if necessary, shared between two teachers). Pupils followed a projectbasedprogramme with each project lasting for half a term and incorporating content from sevenfoundation subjects. Such an approach was felt to smooth the transition from primary school as pupilsthen had to contend with fewer teachers and would find it easier to navigate around the school. Inaddition it was suggested that some subjects (e.g., RE) benefited from being able to present material ina particular context (for example when studying a project on the Romans or on migration) rather than asa discrete subject.28 While it was an aim of the Project that improved motivation and engagement would translate into improved attendancethis is not reflected in the absence data. Although the data relate to the whole school rather than the year groups exposed toa two year programme, even when schools were able to provide attendance data broken down by year groups no clearpattern was evident. This was largely because the two year programme had not been operating long enough to draw anyfirm conclusions about differences in attendance from one year to the next.30