KS3 Why bother

[Patrick McMahon]

The national curriculum, originally devised to bring a 'broad and balanced' approach to school history, now provides options which may result in KS3 pupils experiencing very different content , from school to school, from region to region. The 'rigour' of GCSE courses, so different from the innovative (hopefully) KS3 teaching, in some ways may dismiss previous experiences as irrelevant. My own experience and that of colleagues, is that what is taught during KS3, whilst enjoyable and fulfilling (at the time) for pupils, drifts into a blend of 'Harold was shot in the eye', 'Beckett was chopped up by Henry's knights', 'Henry Vlll had lots of wives' and the Civil War,sliding into an inseparable morass of Industrial Revolution, social issues of 19th and 20th centuries and of course WW1 and WW2 ( in preparation for a possible GCSE course); the key questions are; is the CONTENT relevant and is the KS3 'skills aquisition' process ignored once the 'real' GCSE starts to roll?