Pilots and Trials

KS3 Regional Pilot

St Patrick’s College, Maghera

The following information is a transcript of an interview conducted with the pilot school at the end of the first year of the pilot.

 

This school had already implemented changes prior to participation in the pilot. The interviewee was invited to be coordinator of these changes and inevitably became coordinator for the Key Stage 3 Regional Pilot.

 

The majority of the following information describes the planning that took place a year prior to commencing the pilot. Initially the coordinator independently planned before introducing others to the team. This involved:

• Brainstorming
• Digesting the information
• Looking at different models
• Visiting other schools to look at their ideas
• Examination of school needs
• Set objectives

The decision was made to look at the themed approach of 'myself' by the principal which would focus on two aspects: pastoral and curriculum.

 

The school decided to have a core curriculum team for Year 8 with each teacher delivering English, History, Geography, Religion and Learning for Life & Work (excluding Home Economics) to the same class. This allowed the pupils:

• To identify with one teacher.
• To develop their organisational skills.
• To identify with the connected learning between subjects.

The core curriculum team was created to teach the Year 8 classes. Learning for Life & Work was a discrete subject with Personal Development, Employability and Citizenship having one period a week each.

 

In November 2005, an evaluation was conducted of the new scheme for Year 8; the major criticism found was that there was a lot of duplication with Learning for Life & Work and other subjects and pupils viewed this area as a non-subject. Due to these findings the vice principals are currently examining alternative models of delivery of Learning for Life & Work in the 3 year groups of Key Stage 3. The decision on the particular model being used for each of the year groups is yet to be made.

 

The initial stage of planning was an audit of each subject area on a departmental level. The function of this was to ensure schemes of work were adhering to the requirements of Assessment for Learning and Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities. An additional advantage identified was the reassurance to teachers that they were not 'reinventing the wheel'.

 

Departments worked collaboratively in their own units and relayed back the information to the team. A link teacher was identified for every department for the area of Thinking Skills & Capabilities and also for Assessment for Learning. Each individual's responsibility was to show evidence how each of these areas was going to be embedded into the scheme of work in their subject area.

 

Departments have worked internally and planned collaboratively to meet these requirements. To date, all the core subjects (those that will be taught by one teacher to each class) had completed their schemes of work. For the remaining departments the work was ongoing to complete the schemes of work.

Although most fears were distilled in the planning process, some issues were identified:

• The initial concern of one teacher delivering a variety of subjects instead of individual teachers teaching their own specialist area.
• The lack of credibility that Learning for Life & Work has amongst pupils as a subject.
• Changing the mindset of those individuals who have a traditional approach to teaching.
• Concern of the consequences for Key Stage 4 assessment which is summative not formative.
• The lack of time to complete tasks.
• More training needed on Assessment for Learning.