KS3 Alliance launches national call for evidence on 'overlooked' phase

The KS3 Alliance has launched a call for evidence on how schools can improve students’ experience of the phase and establish a clearer purpose for the early secondary years, amid concerns that key stage 3 is “seriously overlooked”.

The alliance, which is supported by the Department for Education but led by education organisations, is asking schools, trusts, colleges, researchers and young people to submit evidence about approaches that have worked, and those that have not.

It argues that Years 7-9 have too often been treated as a bridge between primary school and GCSE, rather than as a distinct phase of education.

The alliance will examine four areas:

• Student engagement and belonging
• Literacy and numeracy
• Assessment and use of data
• The development of skills and pathways into later education and work.

The alliance will also hold events around the country, including in Cambridge, Doncaster, Exeter, Leicester, Manchester and Newcastle.

‘Purpose’ of KS3 is unclear

Becks Boomer-Clark, co-chair of the alliance and chief executive of Lift Schools, said KS3 had been a “seriously overlooked phase of education”.

She said: “We have allowed the purpose of KS3 to become unclear, while the accountability pressures of GCSEs have come down and down and down and started to touch upon every experience.

“It’s complete madness that a teacher of a Year 7 class is even thinking about GCSE pass rates in that moment, but I do think it’s beginning to change.”

She added: “It’s the last phase of truly universal schooling that every child experiences before they make their separate choices, and it’s that phase during which engagement can be sustained, during which academic foundations can be secured, and future pathways widened, or the reverse - and too often it’s the reverse for those children that need us most.”

KS3 ‘as important’ as early years

Ms Boomer-Clark added: “There is a growing body of research that shows us that early adolescence is a distinct developmental phase, and it’s got implications for education that I would argue are just as important and just as significant as our understanding of early childhood development has been for practice in the early years of primary school.”

Claire Heald, co-chair of the eastern region’s alliance and CEO of CAM Academies Trust, said: “The challenges we face are often shaped by place, so the solutions must be, too: rooted in local context, driven by shared ambition and collaboration, and informed by the expertise of schools and communities.”

The alliance says it wants to identify effective practice already taking place in schools and trusts, as well as areas that could be tested and evaluated more widely.

Dame Lesley Powell, co-chair of the alliance and chief executive officer of North East Learning Trust, said it would give teachers and school leaders an opportunity to “share expertise to drive meaningful change”.

The call for evidence closes at 5pm on Monday 9 November.