What is keystage 4?

What is keystage 4?

Ralph Lucas (Editor, The Good Schools Guide) gives expert video advice on: Where can I get a copy of a school's exam results?; Where can I get a copy of the school's OFSTED report?; What are league tables? and more...

Keystage 4 is the run up to GCSE, the two GCSE years. It's the time when education gets serious again and you are focused on taking children through GCSE examinations. There is some prescription there. Children have to do English, have to do mathematics, have to be offered science, have to be allowed to do various other subjects. So there's some structure there, but you're beginning to get children breaking away and doing their own thing. So it's much more flexible than what's gone before, but it is also very purposeful, because you've got a real examination at the end of it.