ABSTRACT
In the Education Reform Act of 1988, children of all cultural and linguistic backgrounds were promised ‘equal opportunity’ and ‘equal access’ to the curriculum. Since then the National Curriculum subject documents have been revised and slimmed down in the light of the Dearing Report. The lower school was obviously more directly influenced by outside curriculum controls in the form of the National Curriculum, which they had to ‘deliver’, and teachers were subject to the pressures of ‘handing on’. In relation to the National Curriculum, the original guidelines emphasised approaching the curriculum through cross-curricular themes and dimensions that ‘promote personal and social development, include equal opportunities, and education for life in a multicultural society. English language, as Theresa commented earlier, was something that pervaded all aspects of the curriculum, and there were many examples of the teachers using opportunities to advance children’s English language development.
