English is an eco-system stretching from Early Years, through KS1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to degree level and beyond, and into teacher training. Damage to any part of this the eco-system jeopardises the whole. Recently, it has suffered significant damage, at every level, and in multiple ways. This damage is leading to children not enjoying the subject, not learning to read, write, speak and listen as well as they might, not choosing to study it at A Level, not choosing degrees in the subject, poor recruitment into PGCE and ITT courses where training has been put into a narrow, unappealing and un-subject-friendly strait-jacket. For those who do enter the profession, a delivery model and excessive accountability mean that job satisfaction is low and retention is poor. Far too many primary and secondary teachers are stretched by the demands of the curriculum, assessment and inspection frameworks, which emphasise discrete knowledge and skills. Far too many secondary English teachers are no longer subject specialists. This too has had an impact on the quality of teaching, which itself then impacts on quality of learning and whether students want to continue with the subject. At degree level, the subject is battling against a narrative that devalues the Humanities, often based on shallow and incorrect views of the value of English for employability and the UK economy which do not match the evidence.
What follows is a list of principles and understandings about the nature of the subject that all of our organisations agree upon. For clarity and brevity, we have not offered the arguments and evidence in support of this manifesto here, but would be happy to share these with anyone who wishes to find out more.
English as a subject is distinctive in the way that it:
- crosses boundaries in being critical, affective, aesthetic, creative and analytical and has different strands – literary, linguistic, involving the production of texts as well as the reception and critical analysis of texts
- is non-hierarchical and non-sequential in the organisation of its knowledge – unlike some other subjects
- embraces indeterminacies and so has many different right as well as wrong answers
- is both a ‘servicing’ subject (teaching children how to read and write in ways that span all learning) and a subject in its own right – teaching ‘about’ language and literature.
School English should include:
- a focus on the central place of meaning in teaching reading and writing, situating lessons in authentic purposes for reading and writing and enabling pupils to understand why learning to read and write will be important in their lives
- learning about, and learning how to use, spoken language in multiple contexts, recognising its importance not only in children’s lives but also as the foundation of all learning
- taught experiences that, in EY and KS1 and 2, develop children’s knowledge of phonemes and letters alongside their comprehension, and knowledge about writing
- opportunities for dialogic learning – ‘talk for learning’ – both with a teacher and with peers, to allow for exploration and development of personal response, interpretation and understanding of complexity and ambiguity
- textual encounters that go well beyond the literary, to include non-fiction, media texts, multi-modal texts and spoken texts as well as written ones
- opportunities to learn ‘about’ language, through exploring language in use, as well as using language
- opportunities to develop visual and media literacy and critical literacy skills to equip students for 21st century life
- a broad range of textual experiences including canonical and diverse texts, both contemporary and from the past (range is currently prescribed by the National Curriculum Programmes of Study but this should be revisited and re-inflected to include greater emphasis on reading for pleasure, picture books, Young Adult fiction and diverse, contemporary texts).
English pedagogy in school settings should:
- recognise that English as a discipline is founded on social, creative and cultural practices, and in this sense differs from some other subject disciplines in the pedagogies required to teach it
- include dialogic episodes in classrooms, as a vital part of learning alongside teacher input
- be responsive to students’ cultures and interests, recognising the importance of students’ voices being heard in classrooms, drawing on, and showing respect for their own linguistic resources
- take note of insights from cognitive science but treat them with due care, judging with caution their applicability beyond experimental and laboratory settings and in relation to English as a subject discipline
- be decided by teachers and departments, allowing them to judge what is appropriate to their own contexts, intentions and students
- avoid overly structuring and scaffolding learning, which much evidence suggests is neither in the interests of higher attaining nor lower attaining students.
English in Early Years and Primary should:
- centre on the importance of children understanding the value of literacy to them
- ensure that young learners are able to develop motivation for reading and writing, making sense of their learning from the start, constructing meaning from experience and being actively engaged in their learning
- develop children’s literacy holistically, using creative and play- based approaches which allow pupils to be curious and inquisitive; explore and investigate; be imaginative and creative; question and seek to clarify; extend their thinking around the concepts, themes and meanings of texts and to develop and extend their learning, including through play
- integrate speaking and listening, reading and writing, including contextualised understanding about the links between phonemes, letters and words and attention to the ways in which words are structured in sentences as part of the grammar of language
- connect to personal, social and emotional development, and children’s understanding of the world where possible.
Assessment of English should:
- be re-thought, all the way from EYFS to KS5, to ensure that it is necessary, fit for purpose, valid and reliable and does not distort the curriculum. The Phonic Screening Check, KS2 grammar tests and reading tests do not currently meet these criteria, nor do GCSE English Language and Literature
- build on what children already know and can do and enable teachers to plan effectively for pupils’ ongoing developmental needs
- at KS3, be much more proportionate, designed for genuinely ‘formative’ purposes rather than data-collection, and have validity in relation to the subject discipline
- include opportunities for extended writing and independent research
- include speaking and listening
- Involve a radical overhaul of GCSE English Language and Literature, which are currently not fit for purpose and have contributed to a decline in the subject at A Level and beyond. This should include, among other things:
- a re-evaluation of the relationship between the two qualifications
- fresh consideration of their different purposes as a measure of competency in use of language or a broader cultural entitlement
- an expansion of textual range and diversity and the scope and nature of writing requirements
- a restoration of language study as part of an English Language qualification
- a re-thinking of the examination tasks and methods of assessment, including assessment of – or by means of – spoken language.
The teaching of reading should:
- recognise that phonics is just one of many aspects of reading that allow children to decode texts, both for early years learners and those requiring later interventions
- place more emphasis on reading comprehension and a broad range of aptitudes and habits that constitute what it means to be a reader, than a narrow focus on decoding
- focus attention on meanings, and on reading comprehension from the very start of children’s journey towards becoming engaged, enthusiastic and competent readers
- recognise that reading for pleasure and reading comprehension develop through the use of picture books and real books in EYFS, KS1 and KS2, not just decodable texts and other reading schemes, and through YA fiction as well as other texts at KS3
- affirm the identities and languages that pupils use, in the books selected to share
- ensure that a narrow, elitist or monocultural view of the world is not dominating others, and that all reader’s interpretations are explored and taken into account
- include talk and communal practices of reading, to develop every aspect of children’s reading.
The teaching of writing should:
- allow pupils to understand the purposes and pleasures of writing and see themselves as writers: with valuable things to say, with confidence to have a go at writing, with resilience to persevere when aspects of writing become challenging, and then to experience the satisfaction that is achieved when writing is completed
- be about process as well as product, teaching the processes of drafting, editing and proof-reading, with scope for experimentation and exploration, so that it is genuinely developmental
- recognise the relationship between reading and writing, so that students draw on their reading to develop as confident, expert writers, and engage in creative writing themselves in order to better understand the texts they are reading
- offer a breadth of opportunities for writing in multiple genres, not simply narrow, prescribed formats associated with GCSE or A Level examinations
- allow students to think for themselves through writing, rather than being constrained and limited by scaffolds, formulae and pre-taught structures. (This is as true for lower attaining as for higher attaining students.)
- encourage children who can write in more than one language to do so, investigating the similarities and differences between these languages and English in terms of directionality, characters, and word and sentence structures
- teach students about what writing can do for them, both now and in the future, as a form of self-expression, communication, aesthetic pleasure, imaginative exploration, and powerful agency in their lives.
The teaching of speaking and listening (oracy) should:
- recognise both key planks of oracy – talk for learning and learning how to talk, both of which involve different approaches to talk, and different stances on assessment of talk
- be given parity of esteem with reading and writing, as a fundamental aspect of the system of language that students should learn in English
- recognise and value the linguistic resources that students bring with them, rather than using deficit and gap models that lead to injustice and discrimination
- include opportunities and support for multilingual learners to think and speak in languages other than English
- provide opportunities for students to talk in classrooms, and engage in and hear all kinds of voices, such as in role-play, drama, simulations, poetry performances, readings, speeches and debates.
English at university level should:
- be valued for the way it develops graduates with a rich knowledge of some or all of the areas of literature, language and linguistics, creative writing, and digital humanities
- be valued for the ways in which, through this knowledge, students are enabled to understand past and present cultures, societies, systems and movements, and different peoples, positions and perspectives, forms of communication and expression
- be recognised and valued for producing graduates who are able to communicate, collaborate, think independently, critically, and creatively, and also create, allowing them to contribute to society and the economy in diverse and essential ways
- be recognised as being vital to the whole eco-system of English as a subject, from EY through to A Level and beyond, providing the highly knowledgeable English teachers of the future
- enable research in all areas of the discipline, including forms of creative practice and interdisciplinary work.
Initial Teacher Training in English should:
- make plenty of time and space for trainee teachers to develop their own subject knowledge in relation to pedagogy
- support trainees to develop their confidence and professional autonomy in the classroom so that they can best address the needs of the children they teach, who in many ways will be unique to that region and school community
- allow teachers to plan lessons that they then teach, as a key part of becoming a teacher
- develop trainees’ professional knowledge about using books in their education settings to support children’s development of reading and writing
- teach principles and insights from a range of research, past and present, rather than dogmatically prescribing a narrow selection focused on the latest ‘trends’ which are highly contested assertions about learning
- respect the professional expertise of English ITT tutors and their ability to prepare English teachers, not just for their early years, but for a long career.
Continuing Professional Development should:
- be a key part of a strategy to recruit, train and retain highly qualified teachers
- be focused on the subject discipline and subject knowledge and pedagogy related to the subject, rather than generic whole school CPD
- be built into teachers’ work and career plans, so that they are given time in the school day to focus on this, and on implementation in their schools.
This manifesto has been endorsed by:
- The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education
- The English Association
- The English and Media Centre
- The Institute of English Studies
- The National Association of Advisers in English
- The National Association for the Teaching of English
- The University Council for General and Applied Linguistics
- The UK Literacy Association
- University English
