We have drawn on the work of Kirstie Hewett (EA Primary and Early Years Education Committee Chair), Jenny Stevens, Barbara Bleiman (English and Media Centre), Andrew McCallum (English and Media Centre), Professor Robert Eaglestone (Deputy Chair of EA Higher Education Committee), Pie Corbett, Freddie Baveystock, Joe Barber, and Elizabeth Draper in writing our response. Edited by Joe Barber, July 2022.
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Response: analysis of the research
Response: the primary and early years education perspective
Response: the secondary and further education perspective
Executive Summary
In May 2022, Ofsted published its Research Review of English. This executive summary of a response authored by several subject specialists gives an overview of the main concerns arising from the review.
Ofsted’s Research Review of English does not do justice to the full breadth and range of research in English, does not support the National Curriculum and is inadequate as a guide for leading the discipline. Rather, the parameters of the review appear to be set by the Education Inspection Framework and as such, presents a limited set of priorities and preferences for English teaching. Important aspects of the subject such as the study of non-fiction, the role of creative writing and the role of reader-response are given very little attention.
The review is selective in its use of research. It misrepresents several studies and omits many others which might otherwise challenge its overemphasis of cognitive science and knowledge retrieval. Where some substantial claims are made regarding the curriculum and pedagogy of English, the evidence base is sparse, not subject-specific or methodologically insecure, relying on opinion rather than robust research.
The review relies on a simplistic model of how meaning is made during reading, proffering technical knowledge and skills as singularly important and quite separate to engagement with meaning through an authentic, purpose-centred English curriculum.
The role of speech in language development is not given suitable clarity or credence. Schools are tasked with planning progression in spoken language for the first time and with little in the way of guidance on how to achieve this.
There is a lack of guidance for the middle primary phase and the review proposes the development of automaticity in transcription ahead of any form of composition in spite of research which shows the value of emergent writing for developing writers.
The review displays a partial set of values regarding suitable texts for study. This arguably impacts on students’ reading for pleasure (because competence is foregrounded as the key to development), fails to acknowledge agreement on text choice as problematic and displays a worrying disregard for truly diverse reading matter. Notions of literary merit, relevancy and complexity present an outdated view of the subject.
Furthermore, questionable values around prestige language use suggest class-bias and present prescriptive approaches to language teaching which are problematic for many subject specialists.
The review, in relying heavily on knowledge acquisition, fails to consider what types of knowledge are of value and import to the study of literature. This fails in turn to acknowledge the role of the reader in interpreting and co-constructing meaning. Rather a ‘transmission’ model of teaching appears to be advocated and formulaic responses to texts are recommended. The kind of knowledge which is prioritised is that which is referred to as ‘background’ and fails to take stock of fundamental aspects of the discipline which have evolved due to theoretical change which has in fact been reflected in curriculum reform previously.
The review represents a missed opportunity to consider the subject of English in its fullest sense in 2022 because of its failure to collaborate with the full extent of expertise and evidence available. Equally, the complexity of the subject, found in its very many elements and dimensions is not recognised and as such, the review is a missed opportunity to consider the subject’s future.
The review has implications for all who have an interest and involvement in the teaching of English. From teachers to teacher educators and from curriculum managers to academic researchers the review falls short in both representing evidence and providing guidance for how its recommendations be taken forward.
Introduction
Ofsted have recently added to their series of curriculum research reviews with a publication which focuses on English. The aim of the series is to consider ‘what published research evidence tells us about a high-quality education in each subject’ and states that the research reviews will include information from: academic papers; the Education Endowment Foundation; the Department for Education; large-scale international studies (e.g. PISA); their own research and guidance; and secondary evidence, such as teacher-authored blogs.
Of late, there has been a significant amount of information for those who lead English to digest. Recent publications[1] sit within current thinking on the value of insights gleaned from research into cognitive science and their implication for curriculum and learning design, and the context of the ‘National Curriculum in England’ with its clear focus on the importance of building knowledge. The idea of such reviews is really welcome; sharing knowledge and engaging in rich, collaborative discussions on evidence-based approaches which consistently seek to improve the quality of learning for all children in all schools, is fundamental to our profession.
What follows is an analysis of the review’s handling of research to set the coordinates of the subject henceforth. There are striking similarities between the two perspectives from primary and secondary specialists and both offer a robust proposal for a comprehensive and independent review of the subject, carried out by a range of subject specialists and researchers.
There are however, some reasons to be cheerful because the review addresses a number of related issues that have been of concern to English specialists for some time. On the issue of teaching GCSE texts at KS3, the review suggests that this might only ‘narrow the curriculum rather than create readiness for those texts when they are studied at GCSE’. Let’s hope schools take this on board. The over-teaching of GCSE texts is perhaps a major contributor to pupils being turned off English by the time they make their A-level choices.
On a related point, the review shows concern about the use of GCSE success criteria and mark schemes designed for summative assessment being used as a template for curriculum design. Such an approach is likely to overlook the range and nature of knowledge pupils need for success at each key stage. The common use of GCSE-modelled mark schemes from Year 7 onwards has tended to limit the type of written and spoken assignments students are set. Students need to have the freedom to write and speak in many different formats and for various purposes and audiences.
In regard of assessment, the review questions the reliability of data generated through internal assessment and frequently used to track pupil progress. Again, many schools track progress on a quarterly basis, meaning that much teaching time is taken up with preparing for and feeding back on assessments. Although the latest Education Inspection Framework makes it clear that internal data will not be scrutinised, schools still seem to have faith in its predictive validity.
An analysis of the research
A core purpose of English has always been to develop children’s knowledge and understanding of themselves and the world, stimulating expression of their thoughts, emotions and experiences through a wide range of spoken and written texts. These are qualities of personal and academic growth which go far beyond the acquisition of knowledge.
Overall, the review fails to represent the subject, its research and its development in this regard. It does not seem to support the National Curriculum and surely cannot lead the discipline. If this review is to shape the curriculum and pedagogy of English, all who have a stake in it should be cautious of its claims.
As the English and Media Centre (EMC) point out, hard-pressed teachers are likely to trust that an Ofsted research review has used sound methods and has been scrupulously careful and even-handed in its treatment of research. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The review is highly ideological. It oversimplifies complex issues, makes simple ideas seem complicated, ignores highly significant research studies and strands, including research that has stood the test of time. It also misrepresents some of the research that it does quote. Based on the Education Inspection Framework (2019), its parameters are set narrowly and partially, over-emphasising research from cognitive science and psychology and ignoring a wealth of important research about subject English and its pedagogies. So, its conclusions are unhelpfully skewed, with a strong slant towards memory, retrieval, cognitive load and associated issues, rather than a broader set of equally, (or many in the subject community would say more) important issues in teaching the subject.
Thus the research evidence appears to have been selected on the basis of whether it fitted within this previously defined approach rather than whether it was based on findings from credible studies on the teaching of English within the classroom which, as noted by the Education Endowment Foundation (2021) may not necessarily apply ‘across different pupil age groups, subject areas, and school contexts’ and consequently be considered to be robust enough to warrant their place in defining a high-quality curriculum for English.
As the EMC have said, there are some significant weaknesses in the robustness of the evidence-base used to develop the review. In terms of academic evidence, there are a handful of notable names, for example Cremin and Myhill; Such research is likely to be most relevant to the national context. There are a number of significant omissions, for example there are no references to Young and Ferguson’s extensive work on the writing curriculum. There is also a somewhat narrow interpretation of the sources that were used, for example a lack of focus on the crucial importance of children learning to make meaning from the start in their decoding of texts which is clearly present in the work of Cremin.
The review also notes that in some places the evidence-base is sparse, for example on the impact of decodable texts, which is based on a sole review of the research literature that indicates the potential benefits of the use of decodable texts as only one potentially desirable characteristic of early reading texts which should be considered alongside other factors including a high degree of interest. This is also the case in the section beneath the subheading ‘Pedagogy for novices in literature is different than for experts’ in which the research into the design of the curriculum for novices does not draw on any research conducted within the field of English, and appears to be based again on one lone study, published in 1993 which concerned the elite performance of a small number of adult violinists in Berlin.
The work of two English Association Fellows, Carol Atherton and Gary Snapper, has been grossly misrepresented. Warwick Mansell’s article for Education Uncovered provides a detailed account of how their book Teaching English Literature 16-19 has been misused in the review. Atherton and Snapper assert that their work has been taken out of context, selectively edited and even supplemented in the Ofsted review.
We agree with several points raised by the English and Media Centre. Firstly, one of the most troubling elements in the review is around attitudes to language, which are based on highly contested and largely discredited research on word gaps, and more recent research which is based on teacher ‘opinion’ rather than rigorous classroom research. The language gap narrative, coupled with ill-informed views on standard English, are of real concern as they offer conclusions that are not founded in serious linguistic research and are potentially very damaging to students in classrooms.
Equally, the section on grammar distorts the research and makes substantial claims for the benefits of ‘foundational’, explicit grammar teaching for writing that are not substantiated by the research, which itself suggests that the picture is much more complex. The section on defining kinds of knowledge in English offers one individual teacher/blogger’s framing of this, presented as a model for use in the classroom, rather than recognising that there are many other ways of representing knowledge in the subject in academic research in English. This is just one of many examples where the conclusions drawn are not rooted in research but rather in opinion and ideological preferences.
The misrepresentation of research on grammar is just one of many examples of distorted readings of published research. One other example is the misuse (or misunderstanding) of Arthur N. Applebee’s Curriculum as Conversation. The review erroneously turns Applebee’s arguments about cultural traditions in conversation with each other into an argument against teaching texts that relate to students’ lives because it denies them access to other kinds of texts. Applebee in fact, argues strongly for the opposite view, that texts from different traditions enrich study of mainstream texts.
There is also a highly selective use of a good, thorough research papers, for instance a meta-research study on vocabulary, ignoring several of its subtle and nuanced bullet-point conclusions in favour of just a few that suit the writers’ ideological stance. A key finding in a piece of meta-research on background knowledge and reading comprehension is entirely missed. It suggests that background knowledge is of much less significance in students reading of narrative texts, as compared with expository texts. So, this is surely likely to be less relevant to English as a subject, where much of the reading is narrative in nature. This very important caveat is missed and this paper is used to argue for the vital importance of ‘background knowledge’ in reading comprehension in English.
Finally, it is indicative of the poverty of the review that so little is said about some of the key aspects of the subject. There is no discussion whatsoever, for instance, of the research on poetry and pedagogy (e.g. Geoff Fox, Sue Dymoke, Julie Blake and others). Research on writing is extremely limited and omits key research (e.g. Lucinda McKnight on the use of PEE formulae, the work of Richard Andrews, previous reviews on boys and writing, research by Myra Barrs and so on). There is practically nothing on the teaching of creative writing, (for instance research around creative criticality, or on the teacher as writer.) On reading, there is nothing around reader-response theory as applied in classrooms (e.g. Langer, Giovanelli and Mason and others).
The primary and early years education perspective
A concern arising from reading the review is the lack of consideration given to the crucial importance of ensuring that gaining and sharing meaning is at the very heart of children’s use of spoken language, reading and writing. These language modes are instead presented as vehicles through which to develop the technical competence which is to be displayed in KS4 assessments. ‘Meaning’ is mentioned briefly in the initial introduction, but does not appear anywhere within ‘The early English curriculum in schools’ despite the wealth of research which shows that approaches which develop both technical knowledge and skills alongside a focus on the making of meaning are more successful than those which focus purely on the former, including for EAL pupils. Nor does it acknowledge the research which demonstrates that more effective teaching is to be found where a teacher’s philosophy promotes the role of meaning through an authentic purpose-centred English curriculum.
Moving beyond ‘The early English curriculum in schools’, meaning is referred to within the section on general comprehension processes where there is the rather curious statement: ‘some pupils may need to build the habit of constructing meaning as they read’. This appears to overlook that the habit of, and indeed desire for, constructing meaning is a natural part of and prerequisite for all readers if they are to gain any value whatsoever from the practice of reading. Building children’s knowledge of language, texts and the alphabetic code along with the knowledge of the processes of reading and writing matters, but this should be achieved through a curriculum which has at its heart, the desire to use language to engage with verbal and written texts in order to make meaning. This omission must be addressed by Ofsted.
In addition, there is a lack of depth and clarity, particularly in relation to spoken language, and the development of children as readers and writers beyond the early English curriculum. One of the limitations of the review is that it gives far less consideration to the modes of spoken language and writing than it does to reading. As stated earlier, there is a lack of engagement with the full body of research which relates to the teaching of writing; this has been reviewed in more depth by Young and Ferguson and thus will not be replicated here. The review’s focus on spoken language is very short. In keeping with other recent publications, for example The Reading Framework (2021) and the Early Years Framework (2021), the review recognises the crucial importance of proficiency in spoken language as a key foundation for that in reading and writing.
However, the review states that schools must plan the progression of spoken language development through the school. This is the first time that such a declaration has been made by Ofsted and is clearly at odds with the National Curriculum (2013) in which the spoken language curriculum is presented as a list of twelve statements which apply to all years with no progression identified. In the review, the teaching and learning of new vocabulary is identified clearly as the prime focus of children’s development in spoken language, although there is some very welcome consideration of Mercer et al.’s work on the four components of The Oracy Framework in the general section on spoken language, and it is important that this is considered alongside ‘The early English curriculum’. However, the review does little to identify what makes an effective spoken language curriculum, nor how this can be achieved, and refers only to the desirability of creating a ’literature-rich’ environment in which children can flourish while making no mention of a language-rich one which aims to achieve such a progression.
A further concern for teachers and subject leads wishing to make use of the practical implications of this review in their considerations of curriculum design is the lack of guidance for all pupils in the middle of the primary age phase. As noted earlier, the review states that guidance is the same for both primary and secondary phases, with a specific section dedicated to early provision. It is fairly easy to identify both early practice alongside that which is focused on upper KS2, KS3 and KS4, but is much harder to gauge for lower KS2 who are hardly referred to at all. For example, the importance of developing children’s transcription skills at an early stage, providing a clear and consistent approach to the teaching of handwriting and spelling through high-quality phonics teaching which includes dictated sentences while teachers model the process of transcription for classes and individuals, is clear, and focus on the composition and writing process is given for UKS2, but the transition between these two very different levels of proficiency is not addressed.
This is hugely challenging in that primary practice has, in recent years, typically separated the teaching of transcription skills from the teaching of composition, thus reducing the cognitive load on pupils and firmly establishing the editing part of the writing process as the time to ensure that application of knowledge from the former is secure. This is based on a wealth of research which shows the value and impact of developing children’s transcription skills within an approach which also champions the pleasure and sense of achievement that comes from sharing engagement with and composition of texts which harness and nurture children’s interests and experiences.
However, the approach proposed in the review appears to promote the notion of children developing automaticity in their transcriptions skills before they are permitted to attempt any written form of composition thus ignoring young children’s innate desire to engage with the world around them in ways that are modelled to them, and the wealth of research into the critical value of emergent writing and the role of invented spelling in supporting children’s development as writers. Again, this is at odds with what is outlined in the National Curriculum where composition is clearly identified as part of the curriculum for pupils from Y1 upwards and so further guidance, which explains how these expectations are to be achieved and managed for pupils at differing levels of automaticity, is needed.
Similarly, in the general section on reading, guidance is given on the value and impact of spending time teaching ‘reading strategies’, but it requires reading of the sources cited to determine how these have been defined (determining the meaning of vocabulary through the use of contextual clues, comprehension monitoring, and connecting ideas, for example through the creation of summaries or visual mental images). It is implied in the review that the teaching of such strategies would be appropriate from UKS2 onwards, although how the teaching of comprehension would take place prior to this, without sharing the idea that reading is an active process in which the reader gathers meaning, is not at all logical or clear. It is crucial that Ofsted provide greater guidance for teachers and subject leads to avoid an unnecessary increase in workload by producing guidance which supports the navigation of this transition.
The review does not fight shy of pointing out that whilst standards in ‘phonics’ have risen there has not been a similar rise in KS1 reading results which have remained ‘stable’. The science of reading provides clarity to what we know from research about word recognition but there is an imbalance in considering the importance of oral comprehension and composition from the start which may hold the answer to why reading results have not risen.
Whilst vocabulary is discussed, words only really yield up meaning within sentences. Oral composition is mentioned in terms of learning stories but there is no mention of children’s natural inclination to change stories and invent their own, let alone draw on their own interests or how composition can be taught in EYFS.
Some guidance is given on suitable texts to be taught through whole-class work but this is limited and complex. Again, the lack of clarity over phase specific guidance is unhelpful here as the review proposes that text choices should be made based on ‘literary merit rather than any other purpose’. This appears to omit any consideration of the many reasons that underpin the satisfaction readers may gain from engagement with a particular text. For example, motivation is considered briefly within the general writing section but not within the context of reading at all. The notion of the development of reading for pleasure as being achieved almost exclusively through the development of competence as a reader is a highly questionable one. It is hoped that primary teachers will still be granted the autonomy to consider the role of children’s enjoyment of a text and interests in the contexts or content which it explores as at least equal to its ‘literary merit’ when making choices for whole-class learning.
A further challenge is the directive that at primary and secondary level, texts should be carefully selected ‘so each text bootstraps the language and knowledge needed for the next’. How this is to be achieved in practice without dictating the texts to be studied at each year group in each key stage in each school is difficult to imagine, and will place significant demands on schools’ time in securing such progression. It also raises profound questions over the extent to which it is in fact possible to reach agreement on such sequences of texts, whilst ensuring that they do not conflict with the many other valid and evidence-based reasons for making the best text choices for a particular group of pupils, nor impact on the role such shared texts have on nurturing our children’s pleasure for reading.
The secondary and further education perspective
In terms of teaching English at secondary level, the review is confused and confusing. The research is cherry-picked, sometimes misunderstood, taken out of context and occasionally drawn from problematic sources. The review seems very muddled about knowledge: there are three very poorly-defined kinds, then four fields, which become domains, then suddenly adds new forms of knowledge such as ‘component knowledge’. It’s hard to see how such mess can build a curriculum.
So, much of what we might wish for in an English subject review isn’t there because it’s not in its remit. The review fails to engage with the issue of curriculum reform and the somewhat dated and unrepresentative selection of texts that so many GCSE and A-level English Literature students continue to study. It makes no reference, for example, to the Runnymede / Penguin ‘Lit in Colour’ research into this topic. The review also makes the assumption that successful engagement with English literature rests upon the acquisition of knowledge (as in the concept of ‘cultural literacy’) yet does not acknowledge that this assumption no longer holds sway among many teachers of English. The review recycles a number of assumptions about the requirement of English to be approached through the lens of knowledge acquisition. Such an assumption presents the student as a receptacle waiting to be filled. There is very little acknowledgement that pupils bring their own life experiences and knowledge to the classroom, nor that ‘meaning’ is often co-constructed by teacher and learner. In the case of literature, many teachers know that teaching the same text to two classes in parallel, or from year to year, will result in different readings – all equally valid. And this is because each student brings a unique combination of life experiences/reading/thinking to bear on the text in question.
The obsession with vocabulary ‘gaps’ is another case in point. There is an assumption that language can be ‘valued’ like a car or a painting and built up like money in a bank. There is no sense that pupils can play creatively with the vocabulary they already own or use their own language knowledge to comprehend unfamiliar words (something of great value for EAL learners’ progress). The review’s recommendation that ‘teachers model spoken language for pupils […] includ[ing] language that pupils might not encounter away from school’ is troubling in its barely concealed class-bias: it puts the learner in the humiliating position of being taught how to ‘speak properly’. Having to follow a prescribed model of speech is more likely to lead to dysfluency than the fluency the review foresees.
The review seems to assume that there is a repository of fixed vocabulary, terminology and sentence structures which learners need to internalise if they are to communicate effectively in speech and writing. National-level examination script reviews have revealed that the prescriptive teaching of writing frames, technical terms and rhetorical strategies has become more and more prominent – very much to the detriment of the quality of both language and literature responses. The Ofsted review recommends exactly the strategies which impede learners’ communication in speech and writing. The recommendation that students develop the ‘discipline of rhetoric’ is more likely to stultify and denaturalise their speech, and make their writing clichéd and trite, than it is to enable them to communicate effectively. In all, the review’s recommended methods are more likely to create a Goneril than a Cordelia.
Useful formative assessment is exemplified in the review as ‘Can you add the key terms ‘anaphora’ and ‘hyperbole’ to your response?’ but how the inclusion of terminology might improve the quality of student responses is unclear. There is no recognition in the review that students themselves will use so-called ‘technical/rhetorical features in their everyday discourse (e.g. the historic present when they’re recounting a recent encounter; hyperbole when describing an object of desire) and to draw on these examples and put a term to them is a much more effective pedagogical strategy. The same goes for students’ writing. Rather than pre-teach techniques such as ‘zeugma’, ‘bathos’ or ‘polysyndeton’, we should teach to allow students to realise their use and effect in what they read, write and speak.
Ergo, the review seems to favour a transmission model of teaching, getting close to the ‘scripted teacher’ in places. The teacher is there to ‘model’, ‘instruct’ and ‘equip’ the learner, using material that is carefully pre-planned. Yet English in the real classroom doesn’t always operate in such a clean-cut manner – nor should it. Effective teaching is responsive teaching: In English it is not always predictable or possible to know what ‘gaps’ students will have. In this review the teacher is positioned as the holder of all knowledge, able to predict what learners don’t know and can’t do. At the same time, their role in the classroom seems to be primarily instructional: they transmit a body of knowledge; model ‘different interpretations’ In other words, both teacher and learner do as they’re told. In many respects this positioning of the teacher accords with the government’s decade-long determination to phase out ITE in favour of school-based ITT.
The review underlines the importance of ‘sequencing text choice for progression’, yet there is scant detail on what this means in practice. It recommends that texts should be increasingly ‘complex’, though its (vague) definition of complexity seems to pay little regard to the nature of literary writing. Nineteenth-century literature is placed as the epitome of complexity, without any acknowledgement that the prose of an 1830s’ writer is likely to be radically different from that of a writer of the 1890s (Carlyle’s ‘complexity’ is very different from, say, George Gissing’s). ‘Complex syntax’ is suggested as a marker of ‘complexity’ and, as such, would seem to dismiss much of Beckett, Pinter and Hemingway, to name but a few authors.
The review’s discussion of text choice and ‘relevancy’ seems to be a thinly-veiled attack on current initiatives to decolonize the canon (or what the awarding organizations call ‘diversifying’). It suggests – with little subtlety – that ‘literary merit’ is being sacrificed for the sake of certain political causes, dismissing attempts to make text selection more representative of the student body as ‘the tyranny of relevance’. This view is clearly that of the current government (only recently, Nadhim Zahawi tweeted that ‘Larkin and Owen are two of our finest poets. Removing their work from the curriculum is cultural vandalism’ in response to OCR’s ‘refreshing’ of their GCSE anthology) and poses a threat to our discipline’s integrity and autonomy as well as the heritage of the English literary canon.
The review’s view of subject English is extremely outdated as suggested by vocabulary such as ‘parsing’. The whole approach to the subject is very far from what students would encounter in English studies at university level or, indeed, at A-level. Yet one of the key drivers of the 2015 reforms was that ‘[a]t the top end the new qualification should prepare pupils properly to progress to A-levels or other study.’[2] The approach to the subject demonstrated in the Ofsted review militates against any such ambition. For example, there is no acknowledgement that meaning is created by the reader and is not solely in the control of the writer (New Criticism, the ‘death of the author’ and most other post-1960s poststructuralist approaches to literary study seem to have passed the author(s) of the review by). Rather, they embrace what Eagleton defined as the ‘gush about sunsets’[3] approach, whereby students cultivate the finer sensibilities of aesthetic appreciation to admire the ‘beauty and power’ of the ‘rich’ literary language handed down to them.
The term ‘background’ is used in place of ‘context’ in numerous places, taking the subject back to pre-theory days. There seems to be no understanding that the two terms are crucially different when used in relation to a literary text. Since Curriculum 2000 (A level), ‘context’ has been taken into the language of the subject, recognising the shifts in thinking that had come with critical approaches such as New Historicism.
The review’s treatment of English language is equally concerning. It is widely acknowledged that the 2015 reforms created a worrying disjunct between English language study at GCSE and that at A Level thanks to the loss of the Spoken English unit and the integrated assessment of Speaking and Listening. The Ofsted review does nothing to address this gap. For example, technical terms such as ‘anaphora’ are suggested as ‘key’ to literary study, with no acknowledgement that the term has a quite different meaning in linguistics.
In a concluding section, the review considers the leadership of the English curriculum, proposing that the effectiveness of this depends on the subject lead’s ‘knowledge of the subject and of effective pedagogy, and the extent to which they have autonomy and control over the curriculum, drawing on their subject expertise’. It is, to say the least, perplexing to see how the many restrictions contained within the review offer even the smallest opportunity for this.
Conclusion
The review refers to English as a ‘unified subject’ across all phases with key differentials identified simply as age and key stage. It’s a pity that given the emphasis placed on the importance of epistemic knowledge (for both teachers and pupils), that this review has not recognised the sheer diversity of subject English or the nuances of its many different elements.
Most broadly, the subject is made up of English literature and English language, each of which harbour myriad areas of disciplinary specialism. However, as the review attests, English also includes the more educational areas of phonics, literacy, reading and writing. These aspects of the subject typically fall to the ITTE provider to cover in the limited time they have. A further question which hangs over the suggestion that regular and frequent, subject-specific CPD should take place, is who in possession of such expansive and specialist subject knowledge, should deliver such training to teachers?
The publication of a subject review of English has the potential to make a significant contribution to the development of deep and secure subject knowledge across all educational sectors. However, in its present form, the review has a number of significant weaknesses which must be addressed rapidly to minimise any negative impact on the precious resource of curriculum time which affects students’ academic and personal development or on teachers’ workloads This must be redeveloped in collaboration with those who have expertise in English curriculum research in order to ensure that the full body of relevant, robust and credible research underpins all guidance on how schools can ensure that their English curriculum is of the highest quality.
Inevitably, then, questions are raised about the robustness of the evidence-base which underpins these proposals as ‘a high-quality education’ for English, indicating that the review should be rewritten to take account of the full body of credible research into the teaching of English which already exists, and commissioning reputable, independent and experienced researchers to create secure evidence where evidence is sparse so that we can be sure that the precious resource of curriculum time is wisely invested into students’ learning.
[1] The focus on English comes hot on the heels of the schools’ white paper ‘Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child’ (28 March, 2022) and just under a year after the publication of ‘The reading framework: teaching the foundations of literacy’ (DfE, 2021) which offered guidance to schools to meet the existing expectations in the teaching of early reading. A few months earlier, the EEF updated their guidance on ‘Improving Literacy in KS2’ (Nov 2021), having updated the companion publication on KS1 in 2020. The EYFS Framework was also updated in 2021, with a revised emphasis on early language and literacy.
[2] (Letter from Michael Gove to Glenys Stacey, 2013) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/529404/2013-02-07-letter-from-michael-gove-reform-of-ks4-qualifications.pdf).
[3] (Eagleton, An Introduction to Literary Theory, p107)
