The Rise of English
From the 19th Century to the 2008
National Curriculum
Aims
• To reflect on key moments in the
development of subject English
Objectives
• Know some of the key factors that have
influenced the current secondary English
curriculum
The Rise of English
The Nineteenth Century :
• Arnoldian View; English as a civilising
agent
• Utilitarian approach – educating, to an
extent, a workforce
• A form of social control? (see Eagleton)
The Rise of English
Early Twentieth Century:
• Becomes a required school subject (1904)
• ‘Civilising agent’ as seen in Circular 753 (1910):
‘Literature supplies the enlarged vocabulary which is
the mechanism of enlarged thought and for want of
which people fall back helplessly on slang, the base
coin of language. Pure English is not merely an
accomplishment, but an index to a formative
influence over character.’
• Literature, essentially, didn’t include novels in this
definition.
The Rise of English
The Teaching of English in England (1921)
(The Newbolt Report)
‘Progressive Ideas’:
• student centred teaching
• Class discussions, drama work
• Peer marking/criticism
• Value of oral work
• Critical of over emphasis on spelling,
punctuation and grammar
• All teachers are teachers of English
The Newbolt Report
Traditional Views:
• ‘The great difficulty of teachers in many districts is that
they have to fight against the evil habits of speech
contracted in home and street. The teacher’s struggle is
thus not with ignorance, but with a perverted power.’
On the working class’ attitude to literature:
• ‘agnostic to, and contemptuous of literature…. A subject
to be despised by really virile men….to be classed by a
large number of thinking working men with
antimacassars, fish-knives and other unintelligible and
futile trivialities of ‘middle-class culture’
The Rise of English
The 1930s
The Spens Report (1938)
• Continuing view of English as civilising; a legacy to
hand on
• Spoken English ‘slovenly, ungrammatical and often
incomprehensible to a stranger’
• ‘Teachers….struggle against the popularisation of
the accents of Hollywood. The pervading influences
of the hoarding, the cinema and a large section of
the public press are subtly corrupting the taste and
habits of the rising generation’
The Rise of English
The Influence of Leavis
• The rise of practical criticism
• Different practice – similar philosophy
(the Great Tradition), similar view on
popular culture
The Rise of English
Emerging Themes
• Establishment of a canon of works that
embody timeless values
• Such works have a humanising effect
• Students should appreciate, not criticise,
great literature
• Working class language is ‘corrupt’
• Exposure to fine writing will enable students
to use standard English
• Popular culture is a ‘corrupting’ influence
• ‘The Cambridge School’
The Rise of English
Post-War English
• The rise of the ‘London School’ (London Day Training College/Institute of
Education, London Association for the Teaching of English)
• Associated with bigger educational shifts – the rise of comprehensives,
mixed ability teaching, raising of school leaving age, CSE, coursework
assessments, multi-cultural education, anti-racist, anti-sexist agenda
• Looking at English in use; valuing individual’s dialects; seeing language as
core to personality, personal growth and development.
• Key moment the 1966 Dartmouth Conference, and John Dixon’s Publication
from this Growth Through English
• A focus on links between language and thought, leading to James Britton’s
influential text Language and Learning, the ‘discovery’ of Vygotsky
• Valuing diversity
• Key figures: James Britton, Douglas Barnes, Harold Rosen, Nancy Martin.
• Characterised as ‘progressive’, ‘slack on standards’, ‘neglecting basics’,
etc… one of the targets of the ‘Black Papers’, which led to the Bullock
Report.
The Rise of English
A Language for Life (1975)
The Bullock Report
• Saw complexities of English/language teaching
• Reinforces language and literature
• Condemns decontextualised study of grammar
• Promotes talking and writing
• Raises ideas about language across the
curriculum
• Reaffirms the idea that all teachers are teachers
of language
The Rise of English
1980s, 1990s, 2000s – The Rise of the National Curriculum and the Key
Stage 3 Framework
• Kingman Report (1988) – ‘to recommend a model of the English language
…..which would serve as the basis of how teachers are trained to
understand how the language works’
• Failed to recommend ‘formal’ grammar teaching
• Foreshadowed the LINC (Language in the National Curriculum) project
• English in the National Curriculum 5 – 16 (The Cox Report) (1989)
• English in the National Curriculum 5 – 16: Revised Orders (1993)
• English in the National Curriculum (1994)
• National Curriculum for English (1999)
• The National Literacy Strategy (Key Stages 1 and 2) (1997)
• The Key Stage 3 English Framework (2000)
• A range of reports from OFSTED (notably on Boys and English), and QCA
(on Boys, and on Grammar Teaching)
• English 21
• Revised National Curriculum Orders (to be implemented from September
2008)
The Rise of English
Essential Features of the Cox Curriculum (1989)
• Lengthy rationale, discussion of place/status of Standard
English, range of reading including multi-cultural texts, media
texts. Established place for drama.
• Five ‘views’ of English teaching:
– Personal growth – focusing on relationship between
language/learning and role of literature in developing the
imagination
– ‘Cross-curricular’ – emphasis on the fact that all teachers are
teachers of language
– ‘adult needs’ – English as preparation for the working world and
life beyond the school
– ‘Cultural heritage’ – responsibility to introduce students to finest
works of literature
– ‘Cultural Analysis’ – the role of English in helping students
towards a critical understanding of the world in which they live
More Key Features of the Cox
Curriculum
• Division of English into three Attainment Targets: AT1 Speaking
and Listening, AT2 Reading and AT3 Writing
• A programme of study for each attainment detailing range and
breadth of experience
• 10 Level scale for each AT showing continuity/progression
• Used the ‘Key Stages’ –
–
–
–
–
Key Stage 1 – Year 1-2; (5-7)
Key Stage 2 Year 3-6; (7-11)
Key Stage 3 – Year 7-9; (11-14)
Key Stage 4 Years 10-11 (14-16)
• Fundamental in bringing a degree of standardisation to
Departmental schemes of work
• Content not pedagogy (what, not how, to teach)
• Almost immediately called to be reviewed, deemed to be weak
on Standard English, phonics, ‘suitable literature’, and SPaG
(spelling, punctuation and grammar)
The Rise of English
Essential Features of the 1994 Curriculum
• Used defunct 1993 curriculum as basis
• Retains three attainment targets but
‘slimmed down’
• Each AT divided into Range, Key Skills and
Standard English and Language Study
• Listed authors for pre-19th century reading
• 10 level scale replaced by 8 levels, each level
consisting of a description of a typical
student at that level (‘best-fit’ model)
The Rise of English
Essential Features of the 1999 Curriculum
• AT1, 2 and 3 renamed En1, En2, and En3.
• Each programme of study subdivided into
two sections: Knowledge, Skills and
Understanding and Breadth of Study
• 1900 watershed moved to 1914
• Higher profile for media texts (particularly
moving image texts)
The Key Stage 3 Framework
• To build on NLS at Primary
• Word, sentence and text level objectives
for each of Years 7,8 and 9
• Heavy emphasis on ‘basic skills’ and
‘genre based’ approach to writing
• Non-statutory
• Accompanied by huge investment in
training material and consultant support
The Rise of English
The 2008 revised National Curriculum
• Key Stage 3 and 4 separated
• Restructured into 4 key concepts:
Competence, Creativity, Cultural
Understanding, Critical Understanding
• Key Processes - Speaking and listening,
reading, writing
• Range and content
• Curriculum Opportunities
National Curriculum Odd One
Out
• Charlotte Bronte Emily Bronte Anne Bronte
• Sir Walter Scott Robert Louis Stevenson Daniel
Defoe
• Mary Shelley
Bram Stoker
Kate Chopin
• John Bunyan
William Thackeray Anthony Trollope
• Thomas Hardy
Henry James
James
Joyce
• Henry Fielding
Virginia Woolf
Charles
Dickens
• Elizabeth Gaskell
Edith Wharton
Jane
Austen
• H G Wells
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Conrad