Teach-Secondary-Issue-14.5

LESSONS LEARNED The adoption 10 years ago of a more linear structure for A Levels transformed KS3/4 teaching for the better, argues Neil Davenport S eptember 2025 will mark the 10th anniversary of A Levels returning to a linear structure, after more than a decade of modular assessment. Under the old modular system, students would work through discrete units, often with the option to resit exams across the two-year course. The reformed linear model, by contrast, demanded that students would need to sit all required assessments at the end – thus testing their mastery of the full syllabus in one comprehensive set of final exams. Academic excellence During his tenure as Education Secretary, Michael Gove was openly critical of Curriculum 2000-based A Levels, arguing that they failed to prepare students for the rigour and independence of higher education. His reforms were designed to restore academic depth by fostering a more sustained form of engagement with the subject content. In a twist that raised eyebrows at the time, it was a Conservative Minister who insisted that A Level politics should include the compulsory study of Marxism– an unlikely endorsement of critical theory in the name of intellectual seriousness. Yet this move actually exemplified Gove’s broader strategy, by demonstrating that academic excellence – rather than ideological convenience – should be at the heart of schooling. Gove was politically astute, in that he understood how many parents and progressive educators – despite their wariness of Conservative reforms – remained committed to high standards, and were becoming increasingly frustrated by what they perceived as grade inflation and content dilution. I began teaching when the modular systemwas first rolled out in the early 2000s. Among the most noticeable changes at this time was a shift away from requiring students to master a substantial body of knowledge. Exams became shorter, less demanding and more formulaic. Long-form responses that required extended reasoning, synthesis of ideas and nuanced argument became increasingly rare. The reintroduction of linear A Levels in 2015 was a deliberate attempt to reverse this trend, reviving the expectation that students should build deep, cumulative knowledge and demonstrate sophisticated levels of understanding. Deep and rigorous Now, 10 years on, the current Labour government has shown no intention of reversing those reforms. On the contrary, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson recently reaffirmed the value of a “ Deep and rigorous curriculum ” in a speech to the Centre for Social Justice. Her comments suggest that the principles behind the linear A Level model – rigour, coherence and knowledge – have now achieved broad political consensus. This points to the deeper legacy left by those reforms. What began as a change to post-16 assessment ended up reshaping the wider curriculum landscape. The linear A Level helped normalise the idea that academic challenge should be central to not just sixth form, but across the whole of secondary education. Gove’s reforms may have initially targeted the upper end of the system, but they quickly became a lightning rod for broader curricular and pedagogical change – a change which, I would argue, has transformed teaching and learning across KS3-4 for the better. At its core, the linear A Level model has been about more than assessment structure. It’s underpinned by a distinct curriculum philosophy; that students should be taught a rich body of knowledge, which is revisited and reinforced over time, and then assessed in a way that encourages holistic understanding. This is in direct opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy of the early 2000s, which assumed that knowledge was secondary to skills, and that a ‘differentiated’ or ‘accessible’ curriculum (often a euphemism for less challenging content) was the best route to success for disadvantaged students. In fact, research and classroom experience have shown the opposite to be true. Disadvantaged pupils are often the ones who benefit most from a demanding, knowledge-rich curriculum. Sociologists have long argued that working class students tend to arrive at school with less cultural and linguistic capital than their more advantaged peers, but too often this analysis drifts into educational fatalism, treating social inequality as a reason to lower expectations. What this approach overlooks is the core mission of state education – to equip all pupils, regardless of background, with the intellectual tools needed to thrive. An engine of opportunity The reformed A Levels helped to reassert that mission. Schools began to recognise their duty to not just raise results, but also to build intellectual confidence, subject fluency and academic vocabulary. Education was once again framed as an engine of opportunity, rather than a system of gatekeeping. The impact wasn’t confined to sixth form. A subsequent restructuring of GCSEs following the same linear “What beganas achange topost-16assessment ended up reshaping thewider curriculumlandscape” 12 teachwire.net/secondary