Our role in challenging the most able: Addressing the wasted years in Key Stage 3 English

Ben West, Achievement Lead and Teacher of English, The Garibaldi School, UK Understanding the secondary context Ofsted’s ‘Key Stage 3: The wasted years?’ report (2015) noted how ‘there was a lack of challenge for the most able pupils’ in one of five of the routine inspections analysed (p. 4; see also Glew, 2007). As synthesised by Hughes (2005), frequent references to the lack of challenge in schools had been noted in Ofsted reports in previous years; these reports attribute the lack of challenge at Key Stage 3 to the fact that, too often, the secondary English curriculums ‘do not build sufficiently on pupils’ prior learning’ (Ofsted, 2015, p. 20). If students are not adequately challenged in Key Stage 3 there is the potential for ‘stalling’ - where a student’s attainment in Key Stage 3 is the same as or worse than it was at the end of their time in primary education at Key Stage 2 (Ofsted, 2015). This article, which stems from a larger piece of research in s