The revisions to the national curriculum Orders, replacing statements of attainment with level descriptions, are greeted as a potential cure or, at least, as promising partial relief.

Nervousness about this method of assessment has not been confined to teachers of pupils with disabilities and learning difficulties, but they have perhaps suffered most. Uncertain about how best to interpret the statements of attainment, unconvinced of their relevance for pupils with the profoundest difficulties and unwilling to marginalise their pupils by excluding them from their curricular entitlement, teachers have tended to resort anxiously to tick-lists of attainments rather than focusing their teaching on the programmes of study. Many now see level descriptions as releasing them from the fetters that have restricted their freedom of manoeuvre until now.

At the Marlborough School in Woodstock, an Oxfordshire comprehensive school where all 850 pupils have a common curriculum up to 16, the head, Ed McConnell, identifies the changes to teacher assessment as the greatest challenge in the revised Orders.

He believes the revisions enable the school to build on existing good practice. The five faculties - language, sciencemaths, humanities, artsdesign technology and home and community - are working towards a consistent approach to teacher assessment not only within the school but, gradually, at cross-school level too.

The school’s English staff have recently taken part in a national assessment exercise to establish the levels which could typically be expected of pupils at different key stages, based on the new level descriptions. The school has a wide range of pupils with special needs and the English staff have contributed examples of work by pupils with dyslexia and with other difficulties at key stage 3.

In other subjects, especially maths and science, ticklists are still comparatively common, in addition to discussions based on examples of pupils’ work.

“Different faculties have different emphases,” says Ed McConnell. “What we have to learn is which emphasis should be the dominant one across the school. The portfolio is the one we should most like to develop.”

Pamela Wright agrees about the importance of improving teachers’ assessment skills. She is deputy head of Ormerod School, Oxford, a special school which has 17 of its physically disabled pupils integrated into the Marlborough School, where she is based.

“The new level descriptions will aid programme planning and assessment. They offer a way in for pupils with special educational needs. Previously we had the feeling that our pupils had to be able to complete all the statements of attainment for each attainment target unless the national curriculum had been modified or disapplied through their statement of special educational needs. ”

Other implications of the revised Orders such as “freed time”, and the greater differentiation of the curriculum according to individual needs, present fewer challenges than teacher assessment. The Marlborough School’s common curriculum for all up to 16 is based on five areas of experience, operates on a 10-day cycle and includes half a day weekly for “electives” beyond the national curriculum. Pupils can choose to take part in community service, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, fund-raising for charities, sports and other activities. Pupils also spend up to 2 per cent of the school timetable working on personal and social development, which includes careers guidance and links with industry. For the Ormerod pupils there are also sessions of physiotherapy, speech therapy and other treatment to be fitted in. “Time saving is marginal, ” says Pamela Wright. “A lot of people are saying that they now have just about the curricular demands that they can cope with, so where is the freed time?” On differentiation, the Marlborough School is well ahead of many others. Responsibility for special educational needs, including those of the most able, is written into the contracts of the deputy head, the three curriculum managers and the subject leaders rather than being vested in a special needs co-ordinator or department, as often happens.

“What tends to happen in that kind of structure,” explains Ed McConnell, “is that two or three people are flailing around trying to individualise programmes and depending on the help of subject colleagues who do not necessarily feel genuine responsibility to pupils with disabilities and learning difficulties. ” The school does, however, have two senior tutors for counselling and guidance, Bob Peterson and Ruth Jackson. Colleagues can draw on their specialised knowledge and experience of pupils with special needs when necessary. The school has set itself firmly against streaming and setting, which other schools might regard as good practice.

While the Marlborough School sees teacher assessment as its greatest challenge, Keith Bovair, head of Durants, a north London special school for pupils with moderate learning difficulties, is concerned about keeping up staff motivation and morale. He fears that the slimming down of the curriculum after the Dearing review may tempt some teachers to narrow their curricular sights and their expectations of pupil progress. “Special schools could go back to the deficiency curriculum of the kind often offered before the passing of the 1988 Education Act or we could fall into focusing merely on the national curriculum and its testing,” he says. “We need to keep the curriculum extended.”

His concerns reflect those of heads of other schools for moderate learning difficulties who are encountering pupils with a far wider range of needs than before, from severe learning difficulties to very disturbed behaviour. How to meet such very diverse needs through the national curriculum, another shared problem, is bringing heads together in networks around London, Nottingham, Sussex and elsewhere.

At Durants School in the borough of Enfield, the education for its five to 19-year-olds could hardly be described as a deficiency curriculum. “Enterprising” and “stimulating” would better describe the work in foreign languages and PE.

During the past two summers, pupils at key stage 3 have put their French vocabulary into practice in the grounds of a ruined monastery at Rauzet where, with pupils from a mainstream school, they have helped to reclaim and revive the monks’ fish pond. In June, Year 11 pupils will be in Nantes for a few days, running a market stall and selling school-made produce (including traditional English teas if health and safety regulations permit). This is a Team Enterprise venture, supported by the local branch of Safeway and the Enfield Chamber of Commerce, which has helped develop pupils’ business and social skills and european awareness, as well as their French.

Work in physical education was extended last term to include an Indian dance project. Pupils made their own costumes and performed for their parents. Experiences like these do wonders for their self-esteem.

At the same time the school is aiming to improve its pupils’ literacy and enjoyment of books, through partnership teaching by the school’s deputy head, Brenda Bell, with Enfield LEA’s language and curriculum service, at key stage 3. The school is also taking part in a national pilot study for vocational qualifications, the GNVQ, at key stage 4.

All these projects have been chosen with an eye to the pupils’ work in the extended as well as the national curriculum. At secondary as well as at primary level teachers still make use of the topic approach, but the work is gradually becoming more subject-based. In future the curriculum will be systematically monitored by teachers for its balance and coverage and to inform planning.

Both schools, in their various ways, are reacting with drive and energy to the revised curriculum Orders. The changes, according to Chris Stevens, SCAA’s professional officer for special educational needs, “will give more flexibility to meet individual needs in a curriculum which SCAA believes will support teachers in raising standards and in making it a curriculum for all.”