Chen and Derewianka (2009:230) note that the 1960s and 70s saw a great deal of teacher autonomy with decentralised control. Teachers responded to the individual needs of pupils and there was a focus on child-centred approaches. Schools, however, were not working in isolation but informed by bodies which focused on inspection, assessment, curriculum and subject support at local and national level (Alexander, 2004; Levin, 2009). In terms of the wider, national picture, this support did not demand uniformity and the only sense of commonality was provided by external examination syllabi. This could be described as a
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liberating time to be a teacher (Chen and Derewianka, 2009:230). However, whilst Brooks (1998, cited in Beard, 2000:423) notes that standards in literacy amongst primary school children had remained stable from the post-war period, there was evidence of a ‘long tail of under-achievement’ in England (Brooks, Pugh and Schagen, 1996, cited in Beard, 2000:423). It was this underachievement that had become marked in international comparisons of reading scores. Thus there was a strong sense of inequity in that some children were not achieving their potential in literacy and a growing movement of thought that suggested it was the teaching methods in schools that were holding them back (Beard, 2000; Chen and Derewianka, 2009).
Westbrook, Bryan, Cooper, Hawking and O’Malley (2011) note that before the large scale literacy reform that occurred in England, secondary school provision for pupils who encountered challenges with reading and writing showed a great deal of disparity. Research into reading emerging from the USA and Australia (Beard, 2000) and, significantly, policy- driven interventionist approaches in the USA (Chen and Derewianka, 2009), provided an impetus for the implementation of the National Literacy Project in 1997 (Sainsbury, Schagen, Whetton, Hagues and Minnis, 1998) to be followed soon after by the National Literacy Strategy in 1998. For a detailed exploration of the implementation and impact of the national strategies see Levin, 2009; Moss, 2009; Westbrook et al., 2011. The rise of international comparisons in literacy in the form of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) meant that literacy came to be seen as a ‘valued economic commodity … linked to employment and workplace productivity’ (Chen and Derewianka, 2009:231). Education and particularly standards in literacy and numeracy became a top political priority with policy designed to address perceived deficits in global literacy rankings. The consequent impact on the subject English has been explored in Section 2.5.
In all of this we can see the standards debate in literacy playing out against issues of equity for all pupils, the global imperative to achieve a productive economic workforce, and political fears for the consequences of poor performance in global
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league tables. Highly interventionist and centralised attempts to monitor and regulate what happens in English classrooms have been implemented to ensure the efficacy of an input-output model that can be measured and quantified. In this analysis we begin to see the tensions inherent in English: between the desire for individual, child-centred approaches which focus on the personal and transformative elements of the subject and the need to ensure that all children are literate and able to play a productive part in society. These aims are not mutually exclusive; as Cox (DES, 1989) noted, they are part of what it means to teach English. The tensions perhaps emerge through the means to achieve and measure these aims, which can seem to place them in conflict.
We can add to these tensions the epistemological positions about the nature of knowledge in English. Thus, the standards debate continues to stem from strongly held and, at times, entrenched, views about the function and purpose of English in the curriculum and what it means to be literate. Accordingly, we see debates between the ‘canon’ of literature and popular culture and media, between whole language and phonics, between free expression in writing and genre study, between investigative and embedded approaches to grammar and decontextualized learning of grammatical structures. These are epistemological questions which reflect the nature of knowledge and how it is acquired in English. For example, the debates about the teaching of grammar illustrate views that have become increasingly polarised between those who call for the systematic and prescriptive teaching of grammar and those who advocate a more embedded, language-centred approach. Beliefs in a static and correct form of English which can be assessed, like science, as right or wrong (Marenbon, 1994, cited in Brindley, 1994), can be recognised in the introduction of a controversial grammar test introduced in the summer of 2013 for all 11 year olds (Marszal, 2012), with very little preparation for schools or pupils. This particular debate is frequently played out in the media but Myhill (2011:75) notes that ‘within the profession of English teaching there is no consensus on the role of grammar in the curriculum’. Myhill (2011:75) summarises the professional debate as dividing:
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… those who see no place for grammar, because of no demonstrable impact on students’ learning, from those who believe that knowledge about language in its own right has a role in a language curriculum.
This divide, however, is more nuanced and complex than it might seem, drawing in issues of teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge and their epistemological beliefs (Myhill, 2011; Myhill, Jones and Watson, 2013). In this way, the standards debate is enacted in the everyday lives of schools and their teachers against a backdrop of published league tables, improvement targets and teacher performance judged through management tools and linked to pupil outcomes and pay structures.
In English, as in other subjects, we see a battle for the ideology of the subject but these battle lines are increasingly being constructed by the government, along the lines of theory versus practice and school versus academia. Thus we have a recent Secretary of State for Education in 2013 branding the 100 academic signatories of a letter questioning educational reform, as ‘enemies of promise’ and academic researchers in the educational field as ‘The Blob’ (Gove, 2013). There is governmental effort to move teacher training out of higher education and into teaching schools, with a previous Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove stating:
Teaching schools are leading the teaching profession. They are at the forefront of driving and delivering change. The best people to teach teachers are teachers. School-led systems put schools, school leaders and teachers firmly in the driving seat (Gove, cited in Elmes, 2013: online).
For English teachers, what does this change look like, that schools will be at the forefront of delivering? The current national curriculum (DfE, 2017) has a strong focus on literacy, Standard English and the reading of canonical texts – or what
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might be termed literarycultural heritage, an aspect of the current curriculum that has been fraught with contention. Simon Gibbons, Chair of The National Association for Teachers of English (NATE) commenting on the draft orders, noted his concerns:
Most importantly is the woeful undervaluing of oracy in the curriculum - good speaking and listening work should be at the heart of English given the links between language development and the development of thought and all forms of literacy. Aside from this it seems the English curriculum will essentially be devoid of important areas like drama, media, multimodal texts and creativity (Gibbons, 2013: no pagination).
The question that must be raised is whether this indeed is a curriculum for the 21st century that encapsulates evolving understandings of what it means to be literate in a global society and which draws in the many strands of literacy identified by UNESCO (2006).
For English teachers who will be charged with delivering this new curriculum and supporting the training of new teachers, there are also questions concerning the willingness to innovate and develop after many years of curriculum control and numerous revisions to statutory requirements. Goodwyn’s (2012a:46) view is that the past 25 years have brought about ‘passive conformity’ within the profession with only issues such as assessment now having the power to provoke reactions.
This has relevance for teacher educators supporting student teachers to manage the contradictions and tensions inherent in the subject. How far are student teachers aware of contention and debate? Are the changes affecting English departments destabilising for student teachers because of the uncertainty engendered? How far might the ‘passive conformity’ that Goodwyn (2012a) identifies, possibly translate into negativity and what might be the effect of this on student teachers?
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2.10 Competing and complementing discourses: developing subject knowledge