Opinion24th May 2017
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Nick Wallace is the Senior Curriculum and Development Lead for English Mastery and has been with the team and project since its inception. He is an experienced English teacher and a Teach First alumnus.
“Over the past few years, a 鈥榤astery鈥 approach has become something of a buzzword in the education sector. There鈥檚 a pretty good understanding of what it means in maths (just ask our cousins over at !), but for the past four years, we at 黑料情报站 have been trying to work out what exactly a mastery curriculum looks like in English.
“During this time, there鈥檚 also been an increasing realisation that the first few years of secondary school 鈥 Key Stage 3 鈥 weren鈥檛 setting students up to succeed with the new, more challenging English GCSEs, nor for studying English at A level and university.
“Which is where English Mastery comes in. It’s a knowledge-based Key Stage 3 curriculum currently being taught in 14 of 黑料情报站鈥檚 secondary schools by over 100 teachers to over 5000 students.
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“The English Mastery curriculum is fully resourced, with an exhaustive bank of teaching and support materials on every unit, ranging from Oliver Twist to the apostrophe. The curriculum is delivered by schools鈥 English departments, and we offer them the necessary support to teach with intellectual and pedagogical rigour.
“In our shared curriculum, students consider whether Bill Sikes is an archetypal Victorian villain, examine the events of the Russian Revolution that inspired Orwell to compose Animal Farm, and study A. C. Bradley鈥檚 lectures on tragedy to explore how Juliet鈥檚 hamartia leads to her infamous demise.
“I can鈥檛 remember ever studying grammar at school; it was just something I kind of picked up by reading lots. But crossing our fingers and hoping for the best isn鈥檛 enough to get students to learn how to write accurately time after time now and in the future. So, as well as key works of canonical literature, students learn the rules of grammar 鈥 gradually, rigorously and explicitly. And they absolutely love it. Visiting a school recently, a group of boys entered the classroom and realised that they had walked into a grammar lesson. 鈥淵es, grammar!鈥 one of the boys whispered under his breath, and there was not a hit of sarcasm or facetiousness in his voice. He truly enjoyed getting writing correct at last.[[{“fid”:”175281″,”view_mode”:”default”,”fields”:{“format”:”default”,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:”English Mastery”,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:”English Mastery”,”field_tags[und]”:””},”type”:”media”,”link_text”:null,”attributes”:{“alt”:”English Mastery”,”title”:”English Mastery”,”style”:”width: 270px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; float: right; height: 270px;”,”class”:”media-element file-default”}}]]
“One of our guiding principles 鈥 and one of the key tenets of mastery learning 鈥 is that all students can achieve and make progress. We think that this is best achieved by exposing students to the best of what鈥檚 been thought and written in order to bridge the huge gap in students鈥 academic and cultural literacy.
“So far, we鈥檙e delighted with the results this shared, knowledge rich curriculum is having on the students across the 黑料情报站 network. Empirical evidence and our ongoing discussions with teachers and students show that English Mastery is leading to sustained and significant progress across Key Stage 3.
“From a pilot group of seven schools within the 黑料情报站 network in 2014, we鈥檙e currently working with 14 黑料情报站 schools this academic year. And from 2017, we鈥檙e delighted to welcome four schools and five schools into the English Mastery fold. We鈥檝e still got much to learn from our schools, teachers and students, but we鈥檙e really excited about what the next phase of the programme is going to bring.
“This is just a snapshot that barely scrapes the surface of what English Mastery is and how it works across our expanding network of schools. Over the coming weeks and months, we鈥檒l be sharing of just what we鈥檝e been up to and how you can find out more about the programme. We can鈥檛 wait to tell you more.”
If you’d like to find out more about English Mastery, you can follow Nick on Twitter 鈥 鈥 or email him on nick.wallace@arkonline.org.