It seems like human nature to focus on causes closest in time to the effect we are concerned with, rather than on perhaps more powerful but more distant factors.
This is a rather abstract way of saying we don’t give enough time to key stage 3!
Last week, Ofsted published the results of its survey into that key stage. The survey was stimulated by Ofsted’s concern that primary schools were outpacing secondaries (although I don’t know that this is a tenable position given that massive turmoil at secondary level).
And their conclusion was that key stage 3 is the poor cousin of key stages 4 and 5. This was true in planning, monitoring and staffing, where the high-stakes “examined” key stages tend to get the most attention.
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