ABSTRACT
Curriculum, for English as for the other school subjects, was from 2000 (DfEE/QCA 1999). This edition is now firmly embedded in classroom practice, largely uncontroversially despite what D’Arcy (2000:30) has described as ‘the increasingly formalistic emphasis’ and a rather more terse, instructional tone than that used previously. In fact its impact has been lessened somewhat by the introduction of the National Strategy (or National Literacy Strategy – NLS – as it once was and is still often known) at secondary level in 2001: English departments have been far more concerned with its wide-ranging and profound implications than with any changes in the National Curriculum itself. The next chapter deals in more detail with the Strategy. Fortunately the National Curriculum is not only about measurement but also about establishing a framework for teaching through specification of programmes of study. It has more broadly served to focus attention on the nature of English teaching: why the subject has such a prominent place within the curriculum, and what to do with it once it is there. This is not some esoteric debate undertaken solely by those professionally involved in the teaching of English: for better or for worse, education has been opened up to an unprecedented degree to the wider public – New Labour’s battlecry during the 1997 General Election, ‘Education! Education! Education!’, for example, clearly struck a chord with the electorate; subsequent developments have borne this out, even when (or perhaps especially when) governmental policies have been contentious. Most people feel that they have something to contribute to the education debate; certainly most have an opinion to offer, based either on their own remembered education or on their children’s continuing schooling, in a way unlikely to apply, say, to the processes and professions of law or medicine. The position of English is perhaps even more extreme, in that the English language is almost universally shared by the citizens of the UK and virtually everyone feels a degree of expertise. In a sense, of course, there is a great deal of truth in this – language is by its very nature owned by those who use it and the learning of spoken English is achieved without any formal teaching – but these same people would be less likely to pronounce upon the nature of art, geography or mathematics in education. The special position of English teachers in this context presents an opportunity both to influence opinion and to draw on existing views; but it is an elusive opportunity, all too easily missed.
