ABSTRACT

The curriculum, together with 'accountability' and 'assessment and evaluation', constituted an educational trinity which increasingly dominated the debate of the late 70s and early 80s. This book describes the experiences of 4 comprehensive schools in facing such challenges over the period 1978 to 1981. The schools concerned were participants in a locally directed Transition from School to Working Life project which was in turn one of a network of several dozen similar autonomous projects established throughout Western Europe as a result of an initiative of the European Community. The book is based on the results of a programme of research which closely followed the evolution of the project in the schools over a three year period. It provides a detailed case study not only of an important aspect of the secondary school curriculum but also of the process of curriculum development at the level of the individual school and LEA.