A Study Of The Curriculum Of The Specialist Schools

Today with the development of politics and economy challengeing theeducation, the secondary education is paid close attention to.So every countryall around the world takes the road of development with varieties,typically forthe specialist schools in England which already has had some successfulexperience.Currently China is also being actively in exploring a variety roadto develop secondary education and establishing specialist schools,thusdrawing lessons from the successful experience of the England contribute todeepening the study of the Specialist Schools Policy,riching the strategies andapproaches of the building of China’s specialist schools and promoting thesecondary education to a more diverse,higher quality and more equitabledirection properly.Through the documentary method and case study method,based on thestudy of the development of the Specialist Schools Policy in England,thispaper focuses on the curriculum of the specialist schools,including thenational curriculum and specialist curriculum. The development of the specialist schools in England has gone through four major stages: SchoolChoice spawned the birth of the specialist schools;weak schools transformatedto the specialist schools; The full realization of the specialization of secondaryschools;specialist schools went towards partnership,making the specialistschools mature.With the development of the specialist school,the curriculumreform is ongoing,too.From a high degree of national curriculum and thesprout of the specialist curriculum to trends to a flexible national curriculumand diverse specialist curriculum,then to a more flexible and coherencenational curriculum and balance with penetration specialist curriculum,thenational curriculum narrows repeatedly,providing a broder space for thedevelopment of the specialist curriculum. The assessment report proves thatthe combination of the national curriculum and the specialist curriculum iseffective,by which the curriculum is balanced, the standards of students areraised, the attitude of students towards the learning is changed and the therange of opportunities available to students is extended.By analysing two typical specialist schools’ curriculum and specialistcurriculum:the art and science specialist school--Sale Grammar School, thesport specialist school--Ashton on Mersey School,the experience supportfurther that dealing with the national curriculum and the specialist curriculumappropriately will benefit the school.Thus the experience of the specialist schools in England has somerevelation to China’s building of specialist schools as following:the specialist curriculum areas are designed by government;countinue to expand the spacefor schools to develop school-based curriculum;raise the standards of teachingand learning by specialist curriculum;promote school to form positive ethosby specialist curriculum.