ABSTRACT
Teachers convey a sense of pupil enthusiasm, but we need more than this to get at pupils' judgements. Several curriculum reports stemmed from work in Manchester Local Education Authorities Alternative Curriculum Strategies project. This chapter draws on part of the formal evaluation of that project – the part which focused on pupils' views, pupils like Jason. Several studies have discussed pupil experience of and reactions to curriculum innovation. The pupil comments used in this chapter come from a series of tape-recorded interviews, usually of about a half-hour's duration, with 70 pupils who were in an original sample, in 1983, of whom 50 were followed through to May 1986. The chapter provides a characterization of what 'normal school' is like, at least for many pupils. Each set of pupils' comments is followed by a brief discussion, the aim is to provide sufficient material for readers to make their own judgements.
