AS I write, ministers are expecting the results of the second stage of the review of Curriculum 2000. While stage one of the review by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority focused on short-term issues, in particular the problems of assessment of AS-levels, stage two looks to the medium and longer term. It can therefore afford to be more radical and visionary in scope.

QCA and the Department for Education and Skills officials could do worse than revisit Ron Dearing’s original 198 recommendations of March 1996 for inspiration. Here are my top five forgotten favourites, taken verbatim from Lord Dearing’s final report.

1 The AS * Those intending to take the full A-level should, if they wish, be able to progress to it without taking the AS.

* Students proceeding to the full A-level should bypass the AS in order to reduce the burden of external assessment and additional exam-entry fees.

2 Modularlinear assessment * There may be advantage in seeking to combine the merits of both the traditional (linear) and modular A-levels... This might typically involve a structure of three modules accounting for the first half of the syllabus, and a final examination covering the remaining half, which would also include questions that test understanding of the syllabus as a whole.

* The first three modules would constitute the reformulated AS, while the final examination would cover the whole of the A-level syllabus in greater depth.

3 Advanced extension awards * Consideration should be given to externally marked extended assignments in which students research and explain a topic or issue in depth.

4 Key skills * All learners, including A-level students, should be given opportunities ... to practise making oral presentations to peer groups, to engage in discussions on their presentations, and to tackle projects through group work to develop experience of team working.

5 Breadth * Breadth would be provided by studies in complementary areas so that between the studies in depth and those in breadth, four broadly defined areas of study would be covered: science, technology, engineering and maths; modern languages; the arts and humanities; “the way the community works” (including business, law, psychology and sociology).

These five recommendations could dramatically improve the post-16 curriculum. At a stroke the weight of external exams would be halved for most students by allowing them to bypass the AS. To uncouple the AS and A2, making each a discrete, but related qualification, (like Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers) would pave the way for such a move.

A modular AS and a linear A2 would deliver the best of both approaches allowing students to gain the benefits of each (small steps, motivation and structured papers plus in-depth, longer, more sustained questions sampling the course as a whole).

Advanced extension award papers are currently separate from A-level and only available in some subjects. This is neither inclusive nor cost-effective. If the awards are not to be integrated into A2 in the form of extension questions on the A2 papers, an alternative approach should be considered. Extension awards could be replaced by a single, extended project (ideally of a cross-curricular, cross-subject nature). This would do much to help develop students’ independent study and research skills.

Such a project could also dispense with the need for a separate key skills assessment since the project could develop and assess these as well. Another tier of unnecessary exams, with all the associated cost, bureaucracy and loss of teaching time, would be taken out.

The final missed opportunity of my top five is Dearing’s “advanced diploma”. Although the Government is now showing belated signs of interest in some kind of over-arching certificate, it would be easy to get this wrong. A vocational alternative for those not suited to more academic study would do nothing to bridge the academicvocational divide. Nor would it broaden the curriculum for all.

What we urgently need now is a new middle way between the (potentially) very narrow, elective A-level diet (whether academic or vocational) and the (allegedly) over-prescriptive but balanced curriculum framework offered by the international baccalaureate.

If the QCA’s advice to ministers, due to be submitted today, takes up just one of these ignored Dearing proposals, it will improve things for both students and teachers. If all five were resurrected it would be a miracle. But then, Christmas is just the season to contemplate the miraculous!

Geoff Lucas is Secretary of the Headmasters and Mistresses’ Conference