The Key Stages are the age-ranges of the children and youth in the education system. There are four of them and they each have their own needs, appropriate to the level of spiritual, cognitive, emotional and physical development that the children have reached.

These key stages match the different stages of schooling over much of the United Kingdom. Once again, there is no need for us to invent a new system when a perfectly serviceable one already exists. Although the terms used here are derived from the government’s National Curriculum for England and Wales, there is nothing in curriculum statements or in actual school practice that differs markedly from this in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Key Stage One roughly corresponds to the age-range in an Infant school, stretching over a period of three years, from 4 to 7.

Key Stage Two corresponds to the age-range in a Junior school, stretching over a period of four years, from 7 to 11.

Key Stage Three corresponds to the age-range in the lower years of a Secondary school, stretching over a period of three years, from 11 to 14.

Key Stage Four corresponds to the age-range in the middle years of a Secondary school, stretching over a period of two years, from 14 to 16. These two years are the years in which G.C.S.E. courses and their Scottish equivalent are studied by the youth.

Compulsory education begins at 5 years of age in the U.K. and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá refers to 5 as the beginning of a child’s formal education (B.E. p30 1987), but many parents wish their children to have pre-school provision at nursery or playgroup. This is reflected in the Bahá’í community by the existence, in every Bahá’í Community School, of a pre-school class with children as young as 2½ attending. It is surely of great benefit for very young children to develop the habit of attending Bahá’í classes, of associating in a Bahá’í environment with children of the same and similar ages. Therefore a Bahá’í curriculum should allow and provide for a stage before Key Stage One; so:

Key Stage Zero corresponds to the age-range in the pre-school years of nursery or play-group, a period of about one and a half years from 2½ to 4.

Below, these key stages are summarised in a table for ease of reference:

It may, presently, be the case that few 14 - 16 year olds are regularly attending the Bahá’í Community Schools, whether through lack of provision for them or lack of interest on their part. That does not, however, excuse the curriculum from providing for their needs, especially as Bahá’u’lláh had made the age of maturity 15 years and Key Stage Four goes up to , and just beyond, that. It would, indeed, be preferable, for many reasons, that youth continued to attend regular Bahá’í classes, in whatever form, for the sake of their continued systematic Bahá’í education. Education is life-long, the more so if it involves training for adult life. And if, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, education and training in character formation is wasted after puberty (B.E. p17 1987), then the more that the youth can be exposed to while they are still even slightly impressionable, the better.

Curriculum documents address general guidance to the age-range in each Key Stage. It is the syllabi that draw out the details for each year separately. A curriculum would only ever state what should or might be covered for each Attainment Target by the end of each Key Stage. This allows syllabus-makers plenty of freedom to arrange subject matter in different ways to suit different needs and different tastes.

In the present situation, where the classes in Bahá’í Community Schools and elsewhere are often made up of children whose ages vary from two to four years from each other, it is important to ensure that the programmes of study devised for the children are arranged so that they provide new lesson materials for each year that the children are in that class. Thus a class with children whose ages vary by four years should have a four-year rolling programme to avoid repetition.

However, it is equally important to ensure that, just because the children have learned about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during Key Stage One, they do not miss learning about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in progressively more detailed and demanding ways at each subsequent Key Stage. A curriculum ensures that this vital consideration is addressed.

This idea of curriculum progression is as much a part of the curriculum as its attainment targets and strands. Over the eleven or more years of Bahá’í education, any individual child should be enabled to progress in a number of different ways. Indeed, this progression should be part of every strand. In a very interesting article by Mike Newby called "Understanding Curriculum Progression", which appeared in the Autumn ’95 British Journal of Curriculum and Assessment, some eight forms of learning progression are listed:

Obviously, if a child that is capable has shown no progress or development in these eight ways after a systematic working through of the curriculum, then their education has been largely wasted and the curriculum has failed them.