We commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to look at the extent of, and rationale for, offering a two- or three-year Key Stage 4 curriculum in England and investigate how the choices made by schools about the length of their Key Stage 4 affect pupil outcomes at GCSE.
The structure of the national curriculum for secondary schools in England is that Key Stage 3 runs from Year 7 to Year 9 and Key Stage 4 from Year 10 to Year 11. While the national curriculum is compulsory for maintained schools, academy schools (around three-quarters of secondary schools in England) may choose whether to follow it. As a result, some schools have opted to change the length of their Key Stage 4 curriculum, teaching GCSE content over three years.
The researchers undertook a quasi-experimental study that matched a group of schools with a two-year Key Stage 4 to a similar group of schools that offered a three-year Key Stage 4.
However, it was not possible to achieve a strong enough match between the two groups. This means that it is not possible to conclude that any differences in outcomes between the two groups of schools were down to the length of their Key Stage 4 curriculum.
Evidence from interviews with school leaders suggests that, in many of the schools offering a three-year Key Stage 4 curriculum, the policy change may have been one of a suite of changes or policies implemented by the schools. Surveys also found that many schools considered Key Stages 3 and 4 holistically and reviewed the sequencing and delivery of the curriculum across the five years, rather as two distinct key stages.