Accelerated Christian Education Schools

ACE is a system promoted by an international organisation based in the USA known as the 'School of Tomorrow', and its aim is to provide 'a God-centred curriculum'. There is an ACE headquarters in the United Kingdom in Swindon, called 'Christian Education Europe'. The organisation does not itself own or maintain schools, but it provides materials for use in institutions which subscribe to its philosophy. These schools operate a non-standard curriculum, delivered in a very distinctive way which many inspectors will find unusual. Among the distinctive features of the school are:

an individualised learning style that makes use of printed packages of materials known as PACES (Packages of Accelerated Christian Education), which are intended to ensure that pupils can advance at their own speed rather than as part of a year group
the way in which the school accommodation is organised to reflect the individualised learning style
a refusal to enter pupils for any public examinations such as GCSE, AS or A levels, and the use of an examination called the 'National Christian Schools Certificate'.

ACE schools normally revolve around the 'Learning Centre', of which there may be more than one in a school. The Learning Centre is usually a large room which has 'offices' around its walls: these are rather like a modern version of a monk's carrel in a medieval monastery, and are where pupils work for most of the day. There is a supervisor's desk, a scoring station where pupils can mark their own work at regular intervals, and a table for the tests which must be done at the end of each unit of work. Adults do not have the title of teacher, but there are 'supervisors', who are responsible for answering pupils' questions, and other adults known as 'monitors' who have received training from Christian Education Europe and who participate in regular in-service training.

ACE schools have a compulsory core curriculum of five subjects: English, word building (formal grammar), mathematics, social studies (history and geography), and science. There are also optional PACES available in additional subjects such as Spanish, and at secondary-age level there are a number of 'elective' subjects which pupils can choose.

Pupils work at their own speed through the PACES in the main curriculum areas, but they are expected to plan their own work each day by setting themselves goals in terms of the number of pages that they aim to complete. In case of difficulty they are able to ask for help from adults by raising a flag on their learning station. At frequent intervals, pupils mark ('score') their own work, and at the end of each unit of work there is a supervised test in which they must achieve a score of 80% before they can move on to the next PACE. Pupils who fail to get a satisfactory grade have to re-take the unit. There are very few opportunities for pupils to write at length or for a range of purposes, and when creative writing is undertaken it often reflects the distinctive language style and ethos of the materials. In addition to the PACES, there are structured video programmes available to support some areas of work, particularly in early reading and in science.

One area in ACE schools which is likely to be controversial concerns the National Christian Schools Certificate (NCSC). This has been introduced in order to certificate the achievement of older pupils who have successfully completed a given number of PACES in the core and optional subjects that they have studied. This certificate is not officially recognised in the United Kingdom, although individuals and institutions have sometimes recognised it as adequate evidence of achievement. It is important that schools should point out that the NCSC is a non-standard qualification whose acceptability depends on the individuals or institutions concerned.

There are three additional points to bear in mind when inspecting ACE schools:

Not all schools follow the ACE system in its entirety: some of the longer established schools have modified the system and will, for example, teach some lessons in a conventional way and enter pupils for public examinations.
An important feature of ACE schools is preparation for the Annual Convention, which takes place in July near Oswestry. In the weeks before this, pupils will spend a lot of time in preparing for competitions which cover such areas as public speaking and sporting events.
The PACES were originally written so that they could be used by children who are being schooled at home, and it is not uncommon to find such children attending ACE schools two or three days a week.

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