ABSTRACT
Arguments about what effective English teaching is keep the subject alive and dynamic. However, a consideration of the history of the development of subject English may give some insight into what may be to come. Optimistically, given English teachers' traditional desire to argue over the nature of the subject and how it should be experienced by young people, it might be the case that a gradual eroding of a National Curriculum gives rise to innovation and development in the subject, and perhaps even to a reassessment of the subject's evolution. The Cox curriculum may well have given the official seal of approval to personal growth English among its five models of the subject, but in doing so was only vindicating a broader progressive model of English that was already firmly established in the hearts and minds of many in the profession.
