A series of high-profile events will see Devon and Cornish Schools introduce a new, “Teach to the Test” approach to teaching.
The first, on Monday April 14, will see all students in Devon and Norfolk receive a two-week “education welfare” course.
It will be taught by a teacher at Devon and a teacher in London, with an independent tutor for both.
The aim of the two-day course, according to the government’s “Learning to Test” scheme, is to provide students with the necessary skills and knowledge to be able to take part in the 2020 GCSE.
The government hopes the scheme will provide a “critical mass” of pupils who are prepared to take the exams.
“It will allow our students to get ready for their exam on time,” said the education secretary, John Hayes, in a statement.
“As such, it will allow us to increase the number of pupils prepared to study GCSEs.”
The government has been promoting the “Teaching to the T”, or TET, programme for some time.
Last year, it announced the first-ever compulsory TET course in the UK.
But the TET curriculum, designed by a consortium of leading schools and academies, has also been criticised for being too easy.
“Teaching the TEU is not easy, and teaching it well is not the answer,” said Matthew Clements, chief executive of the National Association of Head Teachers, in an interview with The Telegraph.
“You cannot be an absolute expert on every subject in a curriculum.
It’s like the old saying: you cannot teach a man to fish and he will catch all the fish.”
But it is a good starting point for a student to get a sense of how they can prepare to be a good student.
“The “Teaches to the Tests” programme will also see the Government set up an “Academic Training Agency” to help academies to train more pupils, as well as supporting schools to recruit staff from outside the UK and help them make their own assessment plans.
The Government will also invest £100m over three years into a new “Teachers Training Service” to train and support teachers, as part of a wider strategy to encourage more people to take up teaching.
More to come.