ABSTRACT
The original arrangements for setting up a National Curriculum as laid down by Kenneth Baker in the 1988 Education Reform Act were deeply flawed. The main problem was that there were no clear guidelines about who should take final control over the curriculum. In the 1930s and 1940s grammar was usually taught through mechanical exercises such as parsing and clause analysis. The clever children, of course, advanced quickly in their reading and writing skills, as they usually do whatever the quality of the teaching. They were selected at a very early age, and placed in an ‘A’ stream. National Curriculum English gives due weight to spelling, grammar and handwriting, but instead of the old boring exercises, young children are encouraged to write their own stories, to discuss them with the teacher and their friends, and to improve them, perhaps for printing in a class or school magazine.
