Last month marked an anniversary that didn’t get much of a mention. Before you start frantically checking your calendar, no, you didn’t miss my birthday or anything.
It’s been ten years since Ofsted released their report, Key Stage 3: The Wasted Years? Remember that one?
Over the last decade, I’ve heard that report referenced many times – in conversations, blogs, and presentations. So, on its ten-year anniversary, I thought I’d give it a re-read. I hoped it might be like revisiting a favourite cosy mystery, spotting clues I’d missed the first time. Instead, it felt like reading the prologue to a story we’re still stuck in.
A Decade Ago: The Stark Warning
Reading the 2015 report again, the first thing that strikes you is how stark Ofsted’s verdict was. It packed no punches. The charge sheet for what was going wrong for 11 to 14-year-olds was long:
- KS3 was “The System’s Poor Relation” and was consistently overlooked.
- The best teachers and sharpest focus were reserved for the high-stakes GCSE and A-level years.
- A bungled transition – Schools poured energy into pastoral care (which is vital, of course) but often forgot the academic hand-off. They failed to build on what pupils had already learned.
- The Groundhog Day curriculum – A staggering 39% of Year 7s said their maths work was simply a rerun of what they’d done in primary school.
- Coasting high achievers – Those highest achievers were not being challenged enough, commonly left to tread water until the exam years kicked in. The report noted that there was often a failure to adapt provision for the most able disadvantaged pupils in Key Stage 3.
The warning was crystal clear – we had to stop wasting these crucial years.
Fast Forward 10 years – UCL Report
Just over a week ago, University College London (UCL) produced a timely report. They tracked a group of over 30,000 disadvantaged pupils who were in the top quarter for maths attainment at age 11. These were our highest achievers, the very students with the most potential. The report shows what happened to them.
61% achieved at least a grade B/5 at GCSE (compared to 82% among all high achieving pupils)
The UCL report points to slow progress during secondary school as being a potential key driver. The problem starts right back in those “wasted years” that Ofsted waved a red flag about a decade ago. It feels like we are telling the exact same story, just with updated statistics.
The TIMSS Time Machine
Avid fans of Tony’s Angle (hello to both of you!) will know I’ve been digging into the 2023 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) results. A few things stood out.
Two things stood out to me.
Firstly, our primary pupils in England are flying, with a score well above the average of 500. However, by the time they hit Year 9, those gains have eroded. While still above average (and let’s absolutely celebrate that), the score is significantly lower. My first thought was that this dip must be a universal feature of the primary-to-secondary transition. But when you look at a country like Australia, the gap between their primary and secondary scores is far less pronounced. In England, the decline in progress is a consistent pattern.
Digging deeper into the data, there’s more evidence. While we’ve improved significantly in procedural areas like algebra, our performance in the cognitive domains of reasoning and problem-solving looks like it has barely budged.
So, Have We Wasted Another Decade?
Not completely. That would be unfair. There are brilliant schools and passionate departments out there making KS3 a genuine priority, refusing to treat it as a holding bay for the exam years.
But at a system level? Have we ducked the big questions>
This isn’t about pointing fingers at dedicated Heads of Department who are grappling with staff shortages and countless other pressures. This is a system challenge that we should try and tackle. For me, acknowledging the difficulty doesn’t mean we accept the status quo. If the story of the last ten years has been one of stagnation, the story of the next ten is entirely up to us.
10 Recommendations
It’s about what we do next. We can make a different choice. For what it is worth, here are my thoughts
- Elevate the Status of KS3: Make Key Stage 3 maths a genuine priority within schools, on par with exam years.
- Launch a ‘National Challenge’: Establish a 10-year, government-backed mission for KS3 maths, with funding for professional learning through maths hubs.
- Appoint a ‘National Challenge Director’: Create a specific national role to oversee and improve the academic progression from KS2 to KS3.
- Champion ‘Change Driver’ Schools: Identify and fund schools that are excelling in KS3, empowering them to share best practices across the system.
- Improve Data Sharing: Work with EdTech to create a system for richer, more detailed data transfer from primary to secondary schools.
- Research the ‘Summer Dip’: Commission a major national study into summer learning loss, focusing on why it disproportionately affects disadvantaged pupils.
- Build, Don’t Repeat: Redesign the Year 7 curriculum to ensure it builds directly on KS2 learning from the very first lesson, eliminating repetition.
- Create a ‘Transition Curriculum’: Develop a specific, statutory, dedicated curriculum for Year 7 to bridge the gap effectively.
- Embed Problem-Solving: More explicitly integrate reasoning and problem-solving skills into our curriculum.
- Deploy Expert Teachers: Work with schools to find ways to ensure the most experienced and effective maths teachers are assigned to teach Key Stage 3 classes, not just GCSE and A-level.
In 2015, Ofsted told us KS3 was wasting talent. In 2025, UCL and TIMSS have shown us the bill for that inaction. The evidence is in. The question is no longer if there’s a problem, but what we’re going to do about it.
Do we want another sequel in 2035 called The Still Wasted Years, or do we finally decide to rewrite the script?
And that’s what Tony reckons.
Until next week.
