English Mastery provides a knowledge-rich curriculum aiming to help teachers establish students’ progress and effectively plan English lessons throughout Key Stage 3. This report by the Education Endowment Foundation looks at the impact of English Mastery on participating students’ English attainment via the GL Progress Test in English.
English Mastery was developed to improve upon current assessment approaches to measure progress more effectively in English at Key Stage 3: the programme includes a variety of elements that are of interest to schools, such as an emphasis on explicit teaching, delivering a knowledge-rich curriculum and interleaving.
The curriculum has four pedagogical pillars rooted in cognitive and educational research: 1) emphasising accumulation of knowledge, 2) discrete grammar teaching, 3) systematic instruction of Tier 2 vocabulary (high frequency/multiple meaning words), and 4) use of standardised, norm-referenced student work. There are different pathways for children reaching age-related expectations and those working below expectations.
Implementation and process evaluation activities undertaken show that the programme was viewed positively by the majority of treatment school teachers.
They reported that the use of English Mastery reduced planning and marking workload and were satisfied with the training and support they received to deliver the curriculum. However not all treatment schools were able to implement the programme as intended due to disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.