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Teachers are generally positive about curriculum changes which have allowed them to be more creative in their teaching, according to a report published yesterday by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills.

The report, Planning for change: The impact of the new Key Stage 3 curriculum, found that of all the changes introduced into the Key Stage 3 curriculum last September, teachers were most enthusiastic about how less prescription had enabled them to introduce more varied and engaging approaches to teaching and learning. The majority of Year 7 students interviewed were also mostly positive about the variety in teaching and the ways in which this involved them in their learning.

Christine Gilbert, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, said: “It is still early days for the new Key Stage 3 curriculum but our inspectors found a generally optimistic picture with both teachers and pupils positive about the changes. Now the task is to ensure that this positive approach in lessons translates into improving standards for pupils in all schools.”

Ofsted inspectors visited 37 schools which taught Year 7 students, including a mix of sizes and urban or rural locations across England, during the first two terms after the new Key Stage 3 curriculum was introduced in order to look at the early stages of implementation.

The Key Stage 3 changes were designed to provide greater flexibility for schools to develop the curriculum in ways that meet the needs of all learners more closely. This flexibility can be used to develop more varied and engaging teaching approaches, provide focused support and greater challenge so that all pupils progress and to make learning more relevant by connecting subjects, events and wider activities.

Planning for the new curriculum and early implementation were outstanding in four of the schools visited, good in 21, satisfactory in eight and inadequate in one. In the most successful schools, senior leaders had ensured that staff were involved in developing a coherent curriculum throughout the school, and senior staff monitored its implementation.

However, a common feature in the less successful schools was that subject leaders were left to interpret the curriculum as they saw fit. In these schools, no matter how good the development was in individual subjects, the curriculum as a whole lacked coherence. Subject departments were also at different stages of implementing the new curriculum. Some were fully prepared, while others had made only minor modifications.

The new curriculum includes a focus on developing personal, learning and thinking skills and the tools necessary for working life such as team work, creative thinking and self management. Although there were some good examples of these skills underpinning learning across the curriculum, introducing them was generally left to subject departments to implement as they saw fit. Even when this was done well, schools usually had little or no knowledge of where the skills were being taught.

Functional skills - those core elements of English, mathematics and ICT that provide individuals with the skills and abilities they need to operate confidently, effectively and independently - were usually well planned and taught. But there was little development of them across the curriculum. Only four of the schools surveyed were using other subjects, cross-curricular work, particular school events or other aspects of the curriculum to enable students to develop or strengthen these skills.

All the schools made clear links between the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and the rest of the secondary curriculum, however, only five of the schools knew enough about the primary National Curriculum to create links with it and improve pupils’ transition from primary to secondary school. Similarly assessment information from primary schools was not being used to inform teaching and learning in Key Stage 3 in a way that helped teachers personalise provision in this sample of schools.

The key recommendations from the report are for the QCA to provide more support to schools to help them assess students’ progress in developing personal, learning and thinking skills, the DCSF to provide support and guidance for schools to help them to devise coherent plans across the whole curriculum and for schools to ensure that all subjects meet the statutory requirements in planning to implement the programmes of study at Key Stage 3.

1. The report, ‘Planning for change: The impact of the new Key Stage 3 curriculum’, can be found on the Ofsted website www.ofsted.gov.uk/Publications/080262

2. The report, ‘Planning for change: The impact of the new Key Stage 3 curriculum’, is based on survey visits to 37 schools with Year 7 students, conducted between May 2008 and March 2009. The schools differed in size and were chosen to represent urban and rural settings across England. They included selective and non-selective schools, secondary schools with and without sixth forms, and middle schools. The schools’ overall effectiveness at their previous inspection ranged from satisfactory to outstanding.

3. The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It rates council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

4. Media can contact the Ofsted Press Office through 020 7421 6899 or via Ofsted's enquiry line 08456 404040 between 8.30am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Out of these hours, during evenings and weekends, the duty press officer can be reached on 07919 057359.