ABSTRACT
T H E M A J O R C H A N G E to the secondary English curriculum since the first edition of this book has occurred at Key Stage 3 developing (some would add, with indecent haste) from the Primary phase National Literacy Strategy and its centrally embedded Literacy Hour. The National Strategy: English Strand, as the National Literacy Strategy insofar as it affects English has become, now profoundly influences all three years of Key Stage 3, and has significant and wide-ranging implications too for subsequent phases in the English curriculum. Perhaps ‘influences’ is too weak a word in this context, however: certainly all English departments are influenced, but in some schools and some LEAs the English curriculum as it has hitherto developed is in danger of being subsumed by the Strategy. Certainly there is something potentially all-encompassing about it, but my argument here – throughout the book and in this chapter particularly – is that it need not be so. Rather, I hope to show that, with flexible and positive interpretation, it is possible and desirable to implement the Strategy and safeguard and develop all that is worth fighting for in the English curriculum. But at the same time we need to be realistic, and directly critical when necessary, if this desirable flexibility is to be attained.
