As an organisation committed to promoting secondary English and media teaching that challenges and inspires all students, the English and Media Centre believes there is much to welcome and applaud in the report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review. It is clearly the product of a substantial and serious process and has taken on the views of many individuals and bodies. Its recommendations, if implemented with imagination and care, should result in important, highly beneficial changes for our subjects.
We recognise the following in particular as offering the prospect of significant and welcome reform.
High standards for all
The emphasis on ‘high standards for all’, with a renewed emphasis on disadvantaged students is very important, as is the need to ensure that students at every level of attainment are offered a curriculum that meets their needs.
Diversity and Representation
We very much welcome the recognition that a National Curriculum for all will reflect ‘the issues and diversities in our society.’ In terms of English, we are glad to see this referenced not only in the broad statements but also in a commitment to ensure that the English Programmes of Study include diverse texts where students can find themselves represented.
Media Literacy
We are very pleased to see a significant focus on media literacy in the report as a whole as one of five ‘applied knowledge areas’ and, in particular, the recommendation ‘that the Government strengthens the role of media literacy in English’ and that ‘GCSE English Language includes analysis of multi-modal and ephemeral text types’. It is also very positive that the report recognises that media literacy needs to start in primary school, rather than waiting till KS3. We also welcome the report’s focus on helping young people to recognise misinformation and disinformation. We hope that practical proposals emerging from the report will enable students to develop and learn from their own media knowledge, for example making their own media products as a way to foster learning in a spirit of creative-criticality.
Digital Literacy
We welcome the inclusion of digital literacy as another applied knowledge area and hope that future developments recognise the important role that can be played by English and Media teachers in giving students tools to navigate this important aspect of the communication landscape.
Oracy
The sustained emphasis on oracy throughout the Review is very welcome. In particular, we welcome the recommendation that this area is given greater specificity in any reforms. We are broadly in favour of the proposed creation of an ‘oracy framework’ and hope that this will be introduced with care, to ensure that it does not become a set of checklists, or talk frames equivalent to the writing frames that have narrowed and limited writing in English and some other subjects. We hope that in the next stages, there will be a clear acknowledgement of the different kinds of talk that comprise a full oracy curriculum – talk for learning; developing and learning different forms of talk; learning about talk – rather than just seeing oracy as ‘learning to talk’, with frameworks for performative aspects of this area. We are hopeful that any framework will recognise the importance of different varieties of spoken English, as well as promoting the value of second and third languages to individual students and equally to all students in the classrooms and schools where they are taught.
Knowledge and curricular coherence
We welcome the acknowledgement of subject differences and, in particular, the fact that knowledge and understanding in subjects like English is largely ‘cumulative’ whilst in others it is more ‘hierarchical’. Whilst mastery is mentioned a few times in the review, it seems that it is acknowledged that not all knowledge, and not all subject learning, can be approached through this narrow lens and that there will be differences in what constitutes curricular sequencing and coherence. We are hopeful that the new English programmes of study are developed with this flexibility in mind, so that the subject can be reinvigorated and build on its vibrant, creative traditions, where knowledge is generated as well as given. The fact that the report recognises the need for a degree of teacher autonomy is of particular importance in a subject like English, where the scope for choice of content allows the curriculum to be tailored to context. We also applaud the idea that the National Curriculum should leave space for schools to include additional elements and aspects to suit their local needs and students.
English and Drama
We are pleased at the recommendation ‘that Drama has its own discrete section within the English Programme of Study at Key Stage 3’. We agree with the report that this will help ‘to set out expectations more clearly and ensure equitable access to Drama education’. Specific references to Drama in the English curriculum will lead to increased possibilities for English teachers to include such aspects as performance, role-play, script-writing and devising of drama texts as part of their offer to students. We also believe there is the chance to strengthen students’ media literacy skills by studying the adaptation of different texts, including plays, into different media.
There needs to be thought about how Drama in English can also be built on from primary and then into GCSE and A Level, so that there is a possible progression into Drama and Theatre Studies.
Grammar and the grammar test
We very much welcome the recommendation to revisit the content of the grammar curriculum, to slim down what is to be taught and to recognise that it is grammar in use that matters rather than the naming of parts. We also welcome the emphasis on understanding about grammar by thinking about language in use. We hope that in any subsequent work, ‘language in use’ refers to the language of the texts children read and write, and that it is not reduced simply to teaching them to rehearse and repeat sentence structures. We hope that the detailed critiques of the recent DfE Writing Framework, offered by ourselves and experts like the linguist Debra Myhill, will feed into the way that grammar is both taught and assessed in the primary curriculum.
English Language and Literature GCSEs
We are both very relieved and pleased to see that the concerns of the whole subject community have been listened to and that recommendations suggest substantial changes to the English Language GCSE, including reducing duplication with the English Literature GCSE.
We welcome all the suggestions for change in relation to English Language – the expansion of text types studied to encompass more than just the literary and include ephemeral and multimodal texts; ‘focusing on the study of the nature and expression of language (including spoken language)’; drawing on a broader range of genres for extended writing tasks; and supporting young people in the development of media literacy skills. We hope that a clear distinction between the two English GCSEs allows for more genuine language study in English Language, encompassing the study of the language itself – spoken, written and multimodal, and in all its rich variety – in the new GCSE.
We are pleased to see recognition of the potential link between studying texts that show greater representation and diversity and students’ engagement and outcomes. While the recommendations stop short of greater specificity about the inclusion of more diverse texts, we hope that the general direction of travel will make it possible for awarding bodies to create examination specifications that make it easier for teachers to opt for more diverse and representative texts for study. We recognise that many in the subject community will be pleased that the requirement to study a Shakespeare play and a 19th century novel remain in place. We hope that awarding bodies will have scope to revise how these texts are assessed, reducing the burden of unnecessary memorisation and encouraging more thoughtful, personal responses.
We recognise some of the reasons why the report has not recommended large scale changes to methods of examining. We would have preferred some exploration of alternative forms of assessment but recognise the challenges in these times. We hope, though, that any reforms give awarding bodies the scope to develop mark schemes that counter some of the considerable problems faced by the GCSE English examinations in terms of reliability in recent years and also to discourage teaching an artificial form of ‘exam English’ that is of little value beyond GCSE, either in the world of work, or in further academic study. We also note with interest the observation that ‘decisions on assessment methods for each qualification are based on the nature and structure of its subject content’. Given the centrality of talk to English Language’s subject content, we would like to see serious consideration given to the potential for at least one element in the English GCSEs being assessed through talk, as well as the possibility of assessing talk itself.
We have some questions and concerns about a few aspects of the review, either because they are not backed by adequate research evidence, or because of likely adverse unforeseen consequences.
The Year 8 Diagnostic Test
We are unclear about what such a test would look like and about its purpose, including how it would be reported. Given any test risks skewing teaching at KS3, we would like further clarification. We would also like to know how the proposed test matches up with the Y8 reading test recently announced by the Secretary of State for Education.
Oak National
We noted eight references to Oak National as offering excellent exemplification and resources to support the new national curriculum, with no indication that there may be many other providers offering equally good – and perhaps higher quality – resources. This linking of the new national curriculum to a single provider whose quality has been seriously questioned in recent years, is a concern.
The Teaching of Reading – Phonics
Though primary is not our area, we have a longstanding interest and expertise in the teaching of both reading and writing, and of course, in students who come to secondary with below average reading skills. We are concerned that, despite a great deal of evidence and expert opinion, the review still seems to be wholly committed to the idea of the phonics test, and the dominance of phonics as a method, rather than recommending a more balanced approach to the teaching of reading that includes phonics but much else besides.
Conclusions
The report makes lots of suggestions about bringing back aspects of English that were lost in the previous round of reforms and have been sorely missed. It also provides the opportunity to think about how to take the subject forward into the present era, particularly with its emphasis on media literacy and digital literacy. Given the cautious nature of the report’s ‘evolution not revolution’ approach, it is unsurprising that its suggestions are relatively restrained and maintain a high degree of continuity with the current English curriculum. However, we believe that there is more than enough in the report to leave space for new programmes of study for English that can re-energise the subject, particularly if teachers and awarding bodies are given sufficient autonomy to create curriculum content that is true to the nature and structure of the subject. While the report does not deal specifically with Media Studies, we also believe that the emphasis on media literacy can help raise the profile of this important subject.
