The government will launch a key stage 3 “alliance” to build the evidence base for what works for early secondary students, the education secretary has announced.
Bridget Phillipson told delegates at the Association of School and College Leaders’ (ASCL) conference in Liverpool this morning that the alliance will form part of the government’s universal Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) offer.
Rebecca Boomer-Clark, chief executive of Lift Schools (23 secondaries, 31 primaries), and Dame Lesley Powell, chief executive of the North East Learning Trust (eight secondaries, five primaries), will co-chair the new alliance.
The move comes after the recent Francis review of curriculum and assessment warned that there is slow progress in the earlier years of secondary and a need to “maintain momentum”.
KS3 networks to support ‘excellence’
The alliance will be supported by regional networks, which the government said would allow sharing of “excellent practice, and harness local innovation”.
The government has announced a series of reforms targeted at key stage 3, which comprises students from Year 7 to Year 9.
Students will now take a reading test in Year 8, in response to concerns that too many were leaving school without adequate levels of English.
The government has also promised to introduce an oracy framework in both primary and secondary, with research by the National Literacy Trust showing that oracy opportunities “decline sharply” in KS3.
Lift Schools and the Reach Foundation have launched a “KS3 Futures” programme to understand why so many students disengage in Years 7-9.
This will include piloting a later start to the school day and potentially reducing the number of teachers that a student is taught by.
Schools ‘must think about belonging’
Writing for Tes today, Ms Boomer-Clark and Dame Lesley say the KS3 Alliance has been designed as a “sector-led endeavour, bringing together practitioners and researchers to strengthen the early secondary years”.
The co-chairs add that the sector needs to think “seriously about engagement and belonging”. “These are not nice-to-haves,” they write. “They are absolutely fundamental to a child’s success - we need to recognise that relationships and identity play an increasingly important role in motivation during adolescence.”
Ms Boomer-Clark and Dame Lesley also say that school needs to be a place where children “regularly have fun” and there is space to “discover and explore their wider interests”.
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