This study was funded from the Education Endowment Foundation’s 2019 ‘School Choices’ round. It aimed to investigate the extent of, and rationale for, offering a two- or three-year KS4 in England and explore how the choices made by schools on their length of KS4 affected pupil outcomes at GCSE.
This was a quasi-experimental study that used a matched comparison group, difference-in-differences approach. A total of 405 schools responded to a survey exploring KS3 and KS4 length for their Year 9, 10, and 11 students. The impact analysis included 104 of these schools (170,675 pupils); the data was matched to the National Pupil Database for analysis. The number of schools in the sample has implications for the analysis and interpretation. The study compared existing practices in schools rather than implementing a specific intervention.
