ABSTRACT
In Change Forces with a Vengeance, Fullan (2003) warns that ‘premature clarity is a dangerous theory.’ I would hazard a guess that many of the staff at Broadgreen High School had similar emotions, although certainly not articulated in the same way, when in 1991 I suggested introducing the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), because the A-level system was failing to equip our students with the sorts of skills and knowledge that the late twentieth century demanded: the need for more breadth and a high profile for science and technology, to name but two. Not that I lacked support for the initiative. Some three years earlier the Higginson Report had been published (DES 1988), and its proposals had been vetoed by the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, while the Oxford University report to the Advisory Council on Science and Technology (Pring et al. 1989) had been all but ignored. It was just that Broadgreen did not quite fit the profile of an International Baccalaureate (IB) school. Ours was, and is, an inner-city co-educational community comprehensive in Liverpool, with 5 per cent of students statemented and 54 per cent entitled to a free school meal. We also have two specialist units on site – a Deaf Resource Base (for both profoundly deaf and hearing-impaired students) and an Access Resource Base (for disabled students). Notwithstanding this, there were a number of factors that moved the debate forward. First, there was a Guardian leader, ‘The Vacuum after 16’, published on 15 August 1990, which was blunt in its judgement of A levels: ‘no other developed state in the world has such a narrow end to its school exam (system).’ Second, the process of introducing the National Curriculum stimulated massive interest in the whole school curriculum and, of course, the relationship (in so far as there was one in 1991) between the 11-16 and 16-19 phases. One thing at least was clear – that relationship was better served by the IBDP than by A levels. Third, the staff at Broadgreen had generally recognised that the speed of change was unlikely to slow down, and were therefore open to new ideas. It must be emphasised that at this stage, however, there was no suggestion of dropping A levels: rather, the two systems would operate in tandem, despite the cost.
