English From 5 - 16: Curriculum Matters 1: An HMI Series - Second Edition (Incorporating Responses)

Department of Education and Science
English
fromstoI6
Second Edition
(incorporating responses)
Curriculum Matters 1
AN HMI SERIES
LONDON· HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE

© Crown copyright 1986
First published 1984
Second Edition 1986
ISBN 0 11 270595 2
Contents Page
Foreword to the second edition v
English from 5 to 16
Introduction: the aims of English teaching
2 Objectives: at 7, 11 and 16 3
3 Some principles of English teaching 13
4 Some principles of assessment 16
5 Conclusion 22
6 References 23
English from 5 to 16: the responses

I The responses in outline 25
II Degrees of accord 28
III The objectives 31
IV Matters arising 34
V Conclusions 42
Appendix: Objectives for English 44
Foreword to the second edition
English is a key subject in the school curriculum. It is essential to the
development of pupils as individuals and as members of society. It is an
enriching and satisfying subject in its own right as well as a tool and a
channel oflearning in all subjects for all pupils in England and Wales. The
development of agreed national objectives for English teaching is therefore
a particularly important part of the Government's policies for raising
standards in schools, outlined in Better schools 1 •
The series of HMI documents entitled Curriculum Matters is intended to

stimulate discussion about the curriculum as a whole and about its
individual components. English from 5 to 16, the first in the series, deals
with curricular aims and objectives; it sets out views on the aims and
objectives of English teaching and on the related professional issues of the
principles of English teaching and the assessment of pupils' progress in
language. Like the other documents in the series, when it was first
published in 1984 it invited responses from readers. This second edition of
Englishfrom 5 to 16 incorporates an analysis ofthose responses and HMI's
commentary on them.
The intention is to carry forward a professional view about the objectives of

the 5 to 16 curriculum so as to advise and inform those concerned with
developing the policy statements which are to emerge. Another purpose is
to inform and stimulate further discussion focussing on the purposes,
principles and objectives of English teaching. For, while national policy
statements will set out broadly agreed objectives, the professional debate
about the objectives and approaches advocated and about translating them
into practice must continue - among teachers above all, but also among
parents, employers, elected members and governing bodies.
The responses to English from 5 to 16 made clear that a prerequisite to a

national policy statement about the teaching of English is agreement about
what all our children should be taught about the English language and how
it works. Such agreement is necessary if they are to grow up to be informed,
effective and sensitive users of our language: in control of it, rather than at
its mercy and open to manipulation by those who use language to persuade
and to confuse. Without such agreement and without some generally
accepted ways to talk about the workings of our language, we are not in a
position to determine what pupils and teachers need to know or how to set
about teaching it.
1. Cmnd 9469, HMSO, 1985.

It is essential that this document should be read as a whole, since all
sections are interrelated. For example, the lists of objectives must be
seen in relation to the defined aims and to what is said about the
principles of English teaching and assessment.
ENGLISH FROM 5 TO 16
1 Introduction: the aims of English

teaching
1.1 Achieving competence in the many and varied uses of our language is
a vital part of the education of pupils in our schools. All teachers, whatever
their other responsibilities and whatever age groups they teach, have a
contribution to make to this process, since (where English is the only or
principal medium of instruction) all areas of the curriculum involve
teachers and pupils in using English: the teachers' responsibility lies in the
models of language they provide, in the ways they require pupils to use
English, and in the attention they give to the language aspects of pupils'
performance.
1.2 However, in every school there are teachers who have direct
responsibility for the development of their pupils' competence in English.
This paper is principally addressed to them; but also to heads of schools,
LEA advisers and officers, and those responsible for initial and in-service
training of teachers. It is hoped that the paper will also be of interest to
parents and employers.
1.3 The way in which the teaching of English is organised (and even
what it is called) varies with the type of school. In most primary schools it
is usually in the immediate charge of the class teacher, who takes a class
throughout the school day and teaches English both as a distinct aspect of
the curriculum and as part of other areas of work. In many primary
schools there is also an English or Language 'consultant' whose role is to
advise and assist class teachers over the teaching of English. In secondary
schools, English is usually separately timetabled, and taught by designated
teachers who in most, but by no means all, cases have specialist
qualifications in the subject. In middle schools, older classes are
sometimes taught by specialists, and younger ones usually by class
teachers. Despite these different organisational patterns, however, the
aims and principles of the teaching are, or should be, the same; and the
development of pupils' ability to use their language should be continuous
and progressive throughout the years of schooling.
1.4 All who teach English are explicitly concerned with every aspect of
the growth of their pupils' command of language; and this is a complex
matter because language is complex. It is the principal means by which we
think, define what we experience and feel, and interpret the world in
which we live; and the principal means by which we communicate with
other people. Very often, as in a discussion, the definition of ideas
develops in the process of communication. We use language in many
different ways for many different purposes, for it is essential to most
human activities.
1.5 Before starting school, most children already have considerable

experience in and command of at least spoken English (though this will
not necessarily be true of those Welsh children and those from ethnic
minorities for whom English is not the language of the home: their oral
command and competence will be in languages other than English. These
pupils may need special provision). The subsequent development of this
competence in English takes the form of:
an increase in the range and variety of purposes for which pupils can
understand and use language;
correspondingly, an increase in the range and variety of appropriate
forms, techniques and styles of language that they can respond to
and use.
These principles apply throughout the primary and secondary phases of
education and apply to all four modes of language - speaking, listening,
reading and writing.
1.6 Those four modes constantly interrelate. As the Bullock Report puts
it
... language competence grows incrementally, through an interaction of
writing, talk, reading, and experience, the body of resulting work forming an
organic whole. 1
The promotion of that interaction should be a basic principle of the
teaching of English. It is nevertheless helpful to consider in terms of each
of those modes what the aims of English teaching should be. We suggest
the following:
• Education in the spoken word should aim:
to develop pupil's ability to speak
with confidence, clarity, fluency and in appropriate forms of
speech,
in a variety of situations and groupings for a variety of audiences,
for a range of purposes of increasing complexity and demand;
and correspondingly to develop their capacities to listen with
attention and understanding in a similar variety of situations and for
a similar range of purposes .
• In the area of reading, the aims should be to enable pupils:
to read fluently and with understanding a range of different kinds of
material, using reading methods appropriate to the material and the
purposes for which they are reading;
to have confidence in their capacities as readers;
to find pleasure in and be voluntary users of reading, for
information, for interest, for entertainment, and for the extension of
experience and insight that poetry and fiction of quality afford;
to see that reading is necessary for their personal lives, for their
learning throughout the curriculum, and for the requirements of
living and working in society.
2
• As to writing, the aims should be to enable pupils:

to write for a range of purposes;
to organise the content of what is written in ways appropriate to the
purposes;
to use styles of writing appropriate to the purposes and the intended
readership;
to use spelling, punctuation and syntax accurately and with
confidence .
• There is a fourth aim which applies over all the modes of language. This
is to teach pupils about language, so that they achieve a working
knowledge of its structure and of the variety of ways in which meaning is
made, so that they have a vocabulary for discussing it, so that they can use
it with greater awareness, and because it is interesting.
1.7 It is likely that there will be little disagreement about these broad
aims, with the possible exception of the last. They need, however, to be
translated into objectives. Some objectives will be constant throughout the
period from 5 to 16, though applied to increasingly demanding purposes.
Others become appropriate as the pupil grows older. What follows is an
attempt to define objectives in terms of what may reasonably be expected
of most pupils at the ages of 7, 11 and 16; briefly to suggest some
principles of teaching by which the objectives may be attained; and finally
to suggest some means by which progress may be assessed.
2 Objectives
2.1 Objectives in English are more difficult to define than objectives in
some other subjects. Any use of language, oral or written, involves the
complex interplay of many variables, and its success as a piece of
definition and communication depends upon that interplay.
The objectives that follow, therefore, are not offered as sets of discrete
sub-skills to be taught and tested in isolation through 'exercises'. They are
aspects of language competence which should occur in the pupils'
experience of using language for the range and variety of purposes referred
to in paragraph 1.5 above. As the Bullock Report says it is not the case:
" ... that language abilities can somehow be extracted from context, taught in
the abstract, and fed back in . . . the handling of language is a complex ability,
and one that will not be developed simply by working through a set of
text-book exercises".2
The Report goes on, however, to emphasise the responsibility of teachers
for ensuring that pupils' ability to handle language is progressively
improved and extended:
" ... we have equal lack of sympathy with the notion that the forms of
language can be left to look after themselves. On the contrary, we believe that
the teacher should intervene, should constantly be looking for opportunities to
improve the quality of utterance."
3
Essentially, then, the objectives can best be attained by setting tasks which
require communication for real or realistic purposes and in which
particular skills need to be used.
2.2 Of course we have to accept that pupils vary in ability, in motivation,
in the support their backgrounds afford, and in many other ways.
Differences of ability must be taken account of. In some subjects this may
be done by setting out objectives in an ascending scale of difficulty, or by
defining a limited range of skills and content that most pupils should be
able to master and then adding others which are suitable only for the abler.
This is not appropriate in English. Since the various aspects of
competence intermingle in various combinations in any utterance, all
those defined in the following lists of objectives are necessary and are
therefore targets to be aimed at by most pupils. Differentiation according
to ability will occur in two ways: in the difficulty of the tasks to which the
skills are applied, and in the degree of success achieved by individual
pupils in carrying out those tasks. For example, most 16 year olds should
be able to read and understand a wide range of reading matter, but the
difficulty of the texts presented to them must be matched to their various
abilities. And whereas most 11 year olds should be able to explain a
process, some will do so more clearly and effectively than others. Of the
objectives defined, none has primacy and none should be neglected in
favour of any other: the aim should be for each pupil to achieve the highest
level of performance of which he or she is capable in every aspect of
language use represented in the lists of objectives. Some teachers may, at
first sight, find the scope of the objectives formidable; but it is better to
seek to equip pupils as fully as possible with the rage of competence in
language that they will need in actuality than to limit objectives to an easily
attainable minimum.
Objectives for 7 year old pupils

2.3 When children first embark on the period of compulsory schooling
they are likely to differ considerably in their pre-school experience of
language. For example, their experience of listening and speaking at
length will vary; some will have had books read to them and may have
begun to read, while others will not. Their teachers, therefore, face a
formidable challenge in enabling all or most of them to achieve the
objectives set out below. Nevertheless, it is vital that firm foundations of
competence and of interest are laid in the early years of schooling. If they
are not, the effects may be long lasting, or even permanent. If a basic level
of literacy and articulateness is not attained by the age of 7, it becomes
very difficult to achieve competence in other learning, much of which
relies on the ability to read, to discuss, and to record in writing. The
effects may persist, and become increasingly disadvantageous, throughout
the primary stage and beyond. It is often the case that children of normal
intelligence who have reading difficulties at the end of the primary phase
are seriously under-achieving at 16.
4
2.4 At the age of 7, therefore, most children should be able to:
Listening
Listen to simple instructions and carry them out accurately
Comprehend the main ideas in simple items of information or explanation
given orally
Listen actively, so as to be able to ask questions, make comments, and
respond in other relevant ways to what they have heard
Maintain their listening attention for a reasonable length of time when
their interest is engaged
Follow an uncomplicated plot in a story and recall the main events
Listen responsively to the language and the patterns of sound and rhythm
of rhymes and poems
Speaking
In all oral activities, speak sufficiently clearly and audibly to be
understood
Narrate simple experiences and series of events
Explain what they are doing when involved in a task
When taking part in a group task, discuss it constructively with the other
children
Express their feelings to known adults and to other children
Ask relevant questions
Describe what they have observed
Converse confidently in social situations
Speak in role in dramatic play
Use gesture and movement in association with the voice when effective
communication demands it
Reading
Read and understand labels, simple notices and written instructions
Read with understanding simple stories, rhymes and passages of
information, to themselves and aloud
Know the alphabet, and apply their knowledge of alphabetical order when
consulting simple dictionaries and other reference books
Have sufficient fluency and motivation to become engrossed in books
because of the interest and enjoyment they derive from them
5
Objectives for 7 year old pupils - Continued
Use books as sources of information to support aspects of their work in the

classroom
Writing
Write legibly
Write about personal experiences in prose and in poetry
Associate their writing with pictures, graphs, plans and diagrams
Record simple investigations and other practical experiences accurately,
and comment on the results
Write simple stories of reasonable coherence
Write informal letters to relatives and friends
Set down directions and instructions when there is a clear purpose for
doing so
Write descriptions in which the salient features are conveyed clearly
Use a sufficiently wide vocabulary for the purposes of their writing
Use a sufficient variety of sentence structures to express not only sequence
(" ... and . .. then" etc) but other relationships between events,
experiences and ideas (" ... when ... because ... if", etc)
Use full stops and capital letters appropriately.

2.5 At the end of the primary phase of education, most children should
have reached a level of competence in English which will allow them to
embark upon secondary schooling, in all aspects of the curriculum,
without hindrance or handicap; and which will assist their personal and
social development as they move from the world of childhood into the
exciting but often stressful and confusing world of adolescence.
2.6 By the age of 11, therefore, most children should be able to:
Listening
Listen to fairly complex instructions and carry them out accurately
Comprehend the main ideas in information conveyed orally
Follow the plot of a story or a broadcast play written for this age group
Listen responsively to poetry and verse
Follow a speaker's line of argument
6
Listen with patience, attention and understanding to other speakers in a

discussion
Speaking
Speak clearly and audibly, with appropriate expression and with
sensitivity to the response of the listener or audience
Have some ability to match vocabulary, syntax and style to the
requirements of different situations and listeners, and be aware of the need
to do so
Converse confidently and pleasantly in social situations
Participate courteously and constructively in discussions
Frame pertinent questions
Make clear statements of fact
Describe in appropriate terms what has been seen or experienced
Explain a process accurately
Give instructions or directions clearly and succinctly
Make confident and effective use of the telephone
Narrate a story or experience in such a way as to hold the listener's
attention
Express feelings and ideas accurately
Put a point of view and sustain it in discussion
Show imagination and adaptability in improvising language in imagined
situations
In all speaking, make appropriate use of eye contact, gesture, facial
expression, pause, tempo, and intonation
Reading
Have formed the habit of voluntary and sustained reading for pleasure and
for information
Know how to fmd books they need or want in a library
Use a variety of strategies to establish word meaning
Follow the gist of a story or shorter narrative passage so as to be able to
recount it and discuss it
Select, interpret and collate evidence gathered through reading and apply
it to a particular enquiry or task in hand
Read aloud prose and verse so as to communicate the meaning of the text
effectively
7
Read critically, distinguishing fact from opinion

Be able from a text to draw inferences, make predictions, and form
judgements
Follow a series of written instructions or directions
Use a dictionary, an index, and general reference books such as
encyclopaedias, atlases and gazetteers; and other informational matter
such as timetables, catalogues and brochures
Interpret non-verbal information, such as maps, signs and symbols,
associated with the texts they read
Distinguish between the literal and the figurative
Writing
Write clearly about personal experiences and the thoughts and feelings
generated by them
Write stories and poems, using where appropriate descriptive or figurative
language to make the reader imagine the experience vividly
Record experience and events accurately
Explain processes such as how to make something, how to playa game, etc
Frame instructions and directions clearly
Write accurate descriptions of people, places and things
Write in order to persuade the reader to the writer's point of view
Write informal and formal letters for a variety of purposes
Make notes as an aid to learning, as a prompt for the memory, and as an
aid to planning
Have some ability to adjust the form, content and style of writing to the
nature of the task and the needs of the reader
Exercise sufficient control over spelling, punctuation (at least the full stop,
question mark and comma), syntax, and handwriting to communicate
their meaning effectively
Use and control not only simple and compound sentences, but, where
appropriate, complex sentences, in which ideas are linked through the use
of main and subordinate clauses
Organise material into paragraphs
About language
They should know:
The rules of spelling
8
The difference between vowels and consonants

The functions and names of the main parts of speech (noun, pronoun,
verb, adjective and adverb), and be able to identify these in their own
writing for the purpose of discussing what they have written
The difference between statements, questions, commands and exclama-
tions
The terms 'subject' and 'object' and be able to identify them in their own
writing
That a sentence has a subject and a verb, and that the two must agree
That word order determines meaning.
They should:
Be aware of differences between tenses, and recognise when the past,
present, or future tense is being used
Know that language can be literal or figurative, and be aware of the
difference when they use or respond to language
Be aware of some of the ways in which written language differs from
spoken language

2.7 At 16, pupils have reached the end of the statutory period of
schooling. Some will continue their school education to a higher level;
some will enter further education or training; some will enter the world of
work, and some, sadly, will fail to do so. All, whatever their educational or
vocational future, will face the personal and social demands of adult life.
For all these purposes, they need competence in a range of uses of English.
2.8 At 16, therefore, most pupils should be able to:
Listening
Listen to instructions of some length and complexity, ask relevant
questions to elucidate them if necessary, and carry them out accurately
Comprehend information conveyed orally
Listen with concentration to extensive exposition or discussion, noting
down the salient points
Listen critically to attempts to persuade them, so as to recognise specious
arguments and 'loaded' language
Speaking
Describe clearly experiences they have undergone
9
Give instructions or directions so that they may be understood and carried

out by someone else
Clearly explain a process of some complexity
Narrate, with some feeling for the shaping and delivery of the narrative
Engage in cooperative discussion in order to clarify or explore a matter or
to produce an agreed outcome
Argue a case
In discussion or argument, be sensitive to the language limitations of
others and able to accommodate to them
Be sensitive to the listener's reception of what is being said, and ready to
elucidate, amplify or rephrase as necessary
Make and take telephone calls, giving and receiving information
accurately
Give short talks on matters of which they have knowledge
Be aware of the need to match the way one speaks to the purpose, context
and audience; and be able to do so in a range of situations, social and
otherwise (ie use the appropriate 'register' of language)
Be aware that spoken language differs from written language in important
ways, and requires different strategies (such as emphasis, pause,
repetition) to achieve clear communication
Use the grammar and vocabulary of Standard Spoken English where
necessary or appropriate
Speak clearly, audibly and pleasantly, in an accent intelligible to the
listener(s)
Read written material aloud so that its meaning is fully expressed
Use the resources of the voice (modulation, tone etc) expressively
Use and be sensitive to non-verbal accompaniments to speech, such as eye
contact, facial expression, gesture, stance, and the manifestations of
responsiveness to other speakers
Reading
Read and understand a range of reading matter including literature (prose,
poetry and drama), and information materials in a variety of formats
(books, newspapers, documents, leaflets, official forms, material in
graphic form, timetables, etc). The range should take account of all the
likely reading needs and interests that pupils will have after 16, in their
personal and social lives, in further or higher education, and in
employment
10
Read whole books of some length and requiring some persistence

Recognise and distinguish between explicit and implicit meanings in what
they read
Read newspapers, magazines and advertising material critically so as to
distinguish between unbiassed information and attempts to manipulate
the reader; and apply similar critical attitudes to television reporting and
advertising
Have some awareness of the relevance of imaginative literature to human
experience; recognise some of the ways in which writers of fiction, poetry
and plays achieve their effects; and have some ability to judge the value
and quality of what they read
Have some ability to apply similar judgements to entertainment in other
media - theatre, cinema or video films, television and radio
Have experienced some literature and drama of high quality, not limited
to the twentieth century, including Shakespeare
Above all, regard reading as a normal and habitual source of pleasure,
interest and information
Writing
Write clearly and perceptively about personal experiences and their
response to them
Use writing to explore an issue and arrive at a conclusion
Write imaginatively in prose and poetry, with some awareness of structure
and stylistic effects
Write accurate descriptions of people, places and things
Write direct and reported speech as appropriate
Record experiences and events accurately
Explain processes clearly
Frame instructions and directions clearly and succinctly
Write to request something
Write in order to persuade the reader to the writer's point of view or to a
course of action
Write personal and formal letters for a variety of purposes, including
applications for employment
Compose a curriculum vitae to attach to a letter of application for
employment
Expound an argument or thesis
11
Make notes of material heard or read as an aid to learning, as a prompt for

the memory, or as an aid to planning
Summarise the salient points of material heard or read
Adjust the form, content and style of any piece of writing to the nature of
the task and the needs and expectations of the reader
Exercise control over spelling (including the apostrophe), punctuation (at
least the full stop, question mark, comma, and quotation-marks), and
syntax
Paragraph, and organise paragraphs into passages of appropriate form and
length
Set out written material in tabulated form when appropriate
About language
They should:
Know the functions and names of all the main parts of speech (noun,
pronoun, adjective, article, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction) and be
able to identify them in their own writing or in what they read, for the
purpose of discussing language
Be able to distinguish between sentence, clause and phrase in what they
write or read
Be aware of differences in usage, eg between formal and informal modes
Recognise differences between standard and dialect forms of the language
Be aware that language embodies values, conveys attitudes and defines
relationships; and that it is by no means always concerned with the
objective transmission of information
Be aware of 'register' (the use of different styles of language for different
purposes)
Be aware that meaning is not confined to the content of what one says or
writes: it is determined by how one says or writes it. The 'how' will affect
the listener's or reader's understanding and response
Recognise that language is a spectrum which ranges from simple factual
statements to complex uses of the sound and texture of words, of rhythm,
of imagery and of symbol; and that such effects are not confined to poetry
but occur in daily life (eg in advertising)
Have a vocabulary for discussing stylistic effects, including 'simile',
'metaphor' and 'cliche'
Recognise that we constantly use figurative expressions; that alertly used
they are a great help to expressing meaning; but that thoughtlessly used
they impede meaning and indicate slovenly thinking.
12
3 Some principles of English teaching

3.1 Teaching English well is a complex and demanding art, and there is
much more to be said about it than this brief document can encompass. It
is suggested, however, that teaching should be based on the following
salient principles.
3.2 Teaching English at any level needs to be founded on understanding

of the nature of language and the way in which it is acquired and
developed. The teacher must have a clear grasp of the range of purposes
for which we need and use language. We need it for the transactions of our
everyday lives. We need it for personal and social relationships. We need it
for reflecting on and understanding our experiences, for responding to the
world about us, and for understanding and sharing the experience and
insights of others. We use it to resolve problems, to make decisions, to
express attitudes. Part of the skill of the teacher is to show how the various
uses of language illuminate each other: how, for example, the language
resources used in a poem differ from and complement those used in a set
of instructions for carrying out a process. Good teaching of English, at any
level, is far more than the inculcation of skills: it is an education of the
intellect and the sensibility.
3.3 In infancy, we begin to acquire language because we need it, both to

make sense of our world and to communicate. The same principle holds
good throughout and beyond the period of schooling: the most effective
way of developing language competence is by applying it to an increasing
range and variety of real needs and real purposes, in which something of
genuine interest is communicated. The teacher's responsibility is to devise
programmes of work appropriate to the age and stage of the pupils in
which such needs and purposes arise.
3.4 Schools must ensure that progress in the pupils' learning takes place.
This requires schemes of work which deal with aims, objectives and
methods, planning of programmes of work, assessment, recording, and
re-adjusted planning in the light of what the assessments show.
3.5 The planning of programmes of work and the assessment and

recording of the progress of individual pupils should be continuous
throughout the primary years as pupils pass from class to class. This
requires liaison between class teachers under the leadership of the head
and/or the language consultant. In secondary schools these responsibilities
lie with the English department.
3.6 It is no less essential that there should be adequate curricular liaison
between contributing and receiving schools when pupils pass from the
primary to the secondary phase of education. There should be agreement
between the schools about what pupils should be expected to have learnt
13
and experienced by the time they transfer. Records in agreed form which
contain reasonably full assessments of the individual child's progress in all
the language modes should be passed to the receiving school and used
there as the starting point for further development. The secondary school
must in turn ensure that programmes of work are progressive and that
careful assessment and recording of the pupil's development take place.
3.7 Learning about language is necessary as a means to increasing one's

ability to use and respond to it; it is not an end in itself. It should arise
from the activities of talking, listening, writing and reading for real
purposes; and take the form of encouraging children's curiosity about
language.
3.8 There is much confusion over whether grammar should be explicitly

taught. It has long been recognised that formal exercises in the analysis
and classification of language contribute little or nothing to the ability to
use it. One consequence of this, however, is that many pupils are taught
nothing at all about how language works as a system, and consequently do
not understand the nature of their mistakes or how to put them right. We
suggest that if some attention is given to the examination and discussion of
the structure of the language pupils speak, write, read, or listen to for real
purposes, their awareness of its possibilities and pitfalls can be sharpened.
In the course of this, it is reasonable that they should learn such
grammatical terminology as is useful to them for the discussion of
language. But what and how much terminology they should be taught at
any given stage must depend on how much they can assimilate with
understanding and apply to purposes they see to be meaningful and
interesting. The least able at using language are the least likely to
understand the terminology, let alone apply it in any useful way. As the
Bullock Report 3 remarks:
Explicit rules and facts about language ... have direct practical value to a
pupil when
(a) they solve particular problems in the tasks he is engaged on, or
(b) he is able to reconstruct for himself the analysis that led to the rule
3.9 Punctuation needs more attention in English teaching than it

sometimes receives. It is a systematic aspect of the written language and
essential to meaning, for it performs two vital functions. One is the
grammatical function of making clear the relationship between parts of
sentences and of paragraphs. The other is the rhetorical function of
indicating tone, attitude, feeling and emphasis. In speech, both these
functions are carried out by such means as pause, pitch, pace, intonation
and volume, often accompanied by facial expression and gesture. In the
written language, accurate punctuation is the necessary substitute for
those resources.
3.10 Language exercises from text-books or work cards are not effective
means of initiating the learning of language skills. Such learning arises
14
from the purposeful use of language. An exercise may be a useful way of

helping a child to reinforce something he has learned through using
language; but it should relate to an identified need.
3.11 Talking, listening, reading and writing should constantly and

naturally interrelate. The time available for teaching English, whether
throughout the curriculum in a primary school or as a specialist subject in
a secondary school, should be so used as to ensure that all four modes
occur in appropriate proportion.
3.12 The language children bring with them from their home back-
grounds should not be criticised, belittled or proscribed. The aim should
be to extend their language repertoires. This should include enabling them
to use the grammar and vocabulary of Standard Spoken English when that
is appropriate if they do not already do so.
3.13 Accent or pronunciation is a different, though related matter.

There is a rich and fascinating variety of English accents related to
localities and regions not only in the United Kingdom but elsewhere in the
world where English is the native language. Moreover, in any region,
there is a range of accents related to social status, education and other
factors such as vocation. No one form of English accent, however, is
inherently superior to any other. What is necessary is that pupils should
learn to speak clearly and intelligibly; and if their accent is difficult for
those outside their speech community to understand, they should be able
to modify it when necessary.
3.14 Drama, ranging from the role play of infants to improvisation and
the scripting of plays by older pupils, is an important means of extending
the pupil's language repertoire, his confidence in speech, and his
awareness of how other people speak and behave. It is an essential part of
language teaching in primary and secondary schools. If in the secondary
school there is a separate drama department, its work should be closely
related to that in English; if not, drama work should be part of the English
programme.
3.15 In both primary and secondary schools, the reading habit should be
fostered by providing time for 'private reading' , a suitable range of books,
advice on what to read, and, especially in primary schools, an environment
which encourages reading as a pleasurable activity.
3.16 The ability to read responsively and critically should be fostered by

group attention to a range of reading matter. This should include fiction,
poetry and plays; but it should also include reading for information and
for the understanding of public affairs.
3.17 The teacher's guiding principle in helping children to progress as

15
writers is to start with what they want or need to say and then to help them
to say it more effectively. Few adult writers are satisfied with the first
drafts they produce: they redraft to ensure that they have said as well as
possible what they mean. The same principle should apply to children's
writing. Constructive discussion of what they have written, of how far
they have succeeded and of how they might do better still is of
fundamental importance.
Whatever the language task, its purpose and requirements should be

discussed with the pupils in advance so that they understand both what
they are to do and why they are doing it.
4 Some principles of assessment

4.1 It is desirable that assessment of pupils' progress should take two
complementary forms: continuous assessment of day to day work and, in
the junior and secondary stages, periodic testing.
4.2 Periodic testing is a valuable means of assessing progress across a

class or year group and, for the staff concerned, of checking that criteria
and standards of judgement are shared and common. The tests, however,
should involve realistic tasks based upon curricular objectives. The range
of tests developed for the Assessment of Performance Unit's (APU)
language programme, and described in their primary and secondary
language surveys4 and other documents, affords valuable models because
they are based on the range of language activities which occur in good
practice in schools, and, indeed, particularly in the case of oracy, point to
ways in which practice may be improved. Although these tests were
devised for purposes of national sampling, the principles and techniques
involved could be adapted for the purpose of schools; and we commend
them to the attention of teachers.
4.3 However, periodic tests are inevitably limited in scope: they cannot
assess performance in all the activities that occur in the teaching and
learning of English; and there is inevitably some degree of artificiality
about them since they are in the nature of special occasions.
4.4 It is essential, therefore, that in the day to day work of teaching

English the progress of pupils towards attaining the defined objectives
should be continuously and methodically assessed. The following princi-
ples of assessment are offered as guidelines for this process.
4.5 Any piece of language production or reception involves a complex of

activity, and the relationship of the elements which produce meaning
varies with the nature of the utterance. It is consequently never possible to
16
arrive at a precise objective measurement of success in a piece of English

work; attempts to do so usually concentrate on obvious surface features
and ignore more important and complex elements. Assessment of work in
English is not a matter of precise measurement, or, usually, of simply
marking things as right or wrong. It is a matter of the application of
judgement, based on experience and knowledge of what to look for and an
awareness of the whole as well as the parts. It is subjective; but subjective
judgements based on professional knowledge and experience and clearly
stated criteria are far preferable to the spurious objectivity of assessing the
few aspects of English work that can be mechanically marked and ignoring
the far more important ones that cannot. It is impressionistic - but good
impression marking involves awareness of the elements that contribute to
the success of an utterance or a response. This principle holds good for
assessment in all language modes - the spoken word, reading and
writing.
4.6 Moreover, language is always about something. It follows that

assessment is not merely of a pupil's success in operating the 'skills' of
language; it is inevitably and properly concerned with the quality of what
is said - with the depth, validity and perspicacity of the writer's or
speaker's thoughts, with the logic of their development, with the aptness
and truth of his or her perceptions and the sincerity of his or her feelings.
In teaching English we are teaching pupils to think clearly, to be self
aware, and to be responsive to their experience of the world of people and
things about them. We must therefore assess their progress as people
using language for the purposes necessary to people, not as mere language
operators.
4.7 The assessment of a particular piece of work should relate to the

purposes it was meant to achieve. For example, writing a set of
instructions demands different skills from writing a story. The teacher
needs to decide what the requirements of the task are, and to assess how
far they have been met.
4.8 Assessment should establish and make clear to the pupil what has
been successfully achieved, as well as what has not been. It is all too easy
to notice obvious errors such as spelling mistakes, and fail to notice that
the sentence in which they occur is otherwise successful in conveying a
thought in apt vocabulary and well handled syntax.
4.9 When pupils are unsuccessful, and particularly when they make
recurring mistakes, the nature of their difficulties needs to be identified so
that corrective action can be taken. General instructions such as "Improve
your punctuation" are useless; the pupil needs to have a clear indication of
what is wrong in order to put it right.
4.10 Assessment needs to be longitudinal. This involves reviewing all of

17
Assessing performance: suggestions - Continued
the pupil's work over a period of time, such as a term. It is then possible to
see in what ways progress has been made and in what ways it has not,
which enables future work to be planned.
4.11 Assessment must be followed up, so that it leads to improvement.

Strengths should be built on by being applied to more demanding tasks.
Weaknesses must not be allowed to persist: the pupil should be shown
how to do better and should be expected to do so.
4.12 The following suggestions may be useful in considering perform-

ance in the different language modes.
The spoken word

• Whatever the task, the main criterion for assessing pupil's competence
in speaking is the communicative effectiveness of what they have said.
Different tasks make different demands. What needs to be assessed,
therefore, is the pupil's success in achieving the purposes for which he or
she is speaking. This is best done by impression marking based upon
awareness of the elements involved in effective use of and response to the
spoken word.
• It must be recognised that spoken language differs in significant ways
from written language. Even a prepared and scripted speech has to take
account of the fact that listeners cannot refer back as readers can, and that
what is said must consequently be less compressed than it could be in
written form; that the syntax must be less complex; and that repetition
and recapitulation will be necessary to get points across. In the much more
usual situation of dialogue, the speaker must constantly monitor the
response of the listener and adjust to it. This can involve repetition,
rephrasing, deliberate hesitation to allow time for response: such speech is
more like thinking aloud than the 'finished product' of a piece of writing.
The listener, too, adopts different strategies from the reader. The listener
may ask questions; may prompt reformulation by indicating, in words or
by facial expression, that he or she has not fully understood or accepted
what is said.
• Probably the easiest aspect of assessing pupils' listening is their
response to some exposition, explanation or set of instructions given by
the teacher or another pupil. They can be asked questions which reveal
their understanding: these should not be limited to those requiring brief
factual answers, but should include questions requiring pupils to respond
in their own words at some length. But, also, questions from the pupils
should be invited; and these will reveal how far they have understood and
assimilated what has been said. If the exposition has been in preparation
for a task, the pupils' success in carrying it out will reveal their
understanding of it.
18
• More complex, however, is assessing performance when the pupil is a

participant as both listener and speaker in a discussion. What needs to be
noted in assessing performance in his listening role is:
Whether he listens with attention and patience to other speakers, or
is simply waiting his turn to speak. What he says when he does speak
will probably reveal this
Whether his demeanour encourages the speaker, ie does he look
responsive, inattentive, or impatient?
Whether his own contributions take account of what others have
said, whether by agreement, disagreement, requests for further
information or explanation, pertinent questions, or developing and
taking further the ideas he has heard; and whether they are relevant
Whether he responds courteously, reasonably and, if necessary,
tactfully
• In assessing pupils' utterances, the elements to be borne in mind are:
audibility and intelligibility
the relevance and cogency of what is said
the appropriateness of the organisation and sequential structure of
what is said
the appropriateness of the choice of words
the clarity and coherence of the syntax and its appropriateness to the
needs of the listener
fluency
awareness of the listener and sensitivity to whether he or she is
"getting the message"
use of the register (style) of language appropriate to the situation and
the relationship between speaker and listener
appropriateness of tone, intonation, use of pause, emphasis, tempo
etc
use of non-verbal features (gesture, posture, eye contact, facial
expression)
confidence and conviction
Reading
• 'Reading' is a simple word for activities ranging from the decoding of
print to critical appreciation. Whatever the level, however, it must involve
the understanding of meaning: simply voicing words is not reading. As
was said in Language performance in schools. Primary survey report No. 14 ,
reading is as complex a process as thinking; and assessment of it needs to
19
recognise this and to assess the reader's full response, not just, for
example, his understanding of individual words or phrases. Thus,
assessment of reading is also a matter of impression marking.
• There are several ways by which reading, after the earliest stages, can
be assessed, which may be used separately or in combination, ie:
By asking pupils to read passages aloud, having given them time to
read them silently and consider them. This is not the same as the
kind of "hearing children read" which simply checks whether they
recognise and voice the individual words on the page. The purpose is
to determine from their expression of what they read how far they
have understood and responded to it. This form of assessment can
encompass at one extreme the 6 year old making sense of a simple
sequence of sentences and at the other the 16 year old interpreting
with his or her voice the nuances of demanding works of literature
By asking questions, to be answered orally or in writing. Questions
should not be limited to localised features of the text, but should
require understanding of and response to extensive passages or the
whole text. They should not be confined to literal understanding,
but should direct attention to the writer's purposes and the range of
ways by which these are achieved
By setting written work in which the pupil writes about what is read
By written or oral tasks which involve pupils in reproducing the
meaning of the original in a different form
By tasks which involve selecting and re-ordering information from
one or more pieces of reading matter
• The abilities to be looked for through such tasks are indicated in the
lists of reading objectives in paragraphs 2.4, 2.6 and 2.8 above. What we
wish to stress here is that, once fluency is achieved, assessment should be
based on what pupils are actively reading for real interest and real
purposes, rather than on exercise material. It is all too common to find
that the progress of primary pupils is assessed by how far they have got
through a graded reading scheme, rather than by their understanding of
and interest in material read for a purpose, for curiosity or because it is
enjoyable. It is all too common to find that the reading of junior and
secondary pupils is assessed in terms of their ability to perform
'comprehension exercises' on out-of-context passages in text books or on
work cards, rather than on their response to, say, the class reader, to
newspaper and magazine articles, or to informational material, such as
brochures, of the kind that they do or will need to use.
• Finally, where a pupil is found to have difficulties with reading, it is
essential to diagnose the particular nature of the difficulty and provide a
specific remedy for it.
20
Writing
• In the early stages, children's written language has a close affinity with
their spoken language. As they progress, however, they should develop
control of written modes appropriate to an increasing range of purposes.
As with the spoken word, the main criterion for assessing writing is
whether or how far it achieves its purpose. Different purposes require
different styles and make different demands on the writer's competence.
For example, reporting a series of events demands less complex
grammatical structures than deploying an argument; ana writing a
business letter requires greater conciseness than writing a story.
• However, as is said in the APU's second report on language
performance in secondary schools: 5
The ability to write, although dependent on separable skills, consists not
merely of the mastering of techniques (such as spelling, sentence division or
punctuation), but of their incorporation into a complex of cognitive and social
abilities. Because writing is not simply a hierarchy of skills, but one of the
means by which we make sense of the world and communicate it to others, the
assessment of children's writing needs to go beyond a consideration of basic
skills; the ability to organise thought, to control the expression of feeling or to
sustain a viewpoint for a particular readership are aspects of writing which
assessment cannot afford to overlook.
• The best form of assessment of writing, therefore, is impression

marking, which assesses a script as a whole communication, not as a
summation of discrete performances in a set of skills. But impression
marking can sometimes be unduly influenced by obvious characteristics
such as poor spelling and weight these disproportionately to the qualities
of the composition as a whole.
• Therefore, the teacher needs to have in mind what the main elements
of writing are, both so that the overall assessment will be a balanced one
and so that particular strengths or weaknesses in what has been written
can be identified and discussed with the pupil. We distinguish the
following elements:
Content: the nature and quality of what the
pupil says and its approprietness and
relevance to the task.
Organisation: the ordering and sequencing of what is
said, and its suitability for the task.
Appropriateness and style: the choice of vocabulary and sentence
structure suitable to the kind of task
being done and the intended read-
ership.
Grammar: the relation of words to each other in
accordance with the accepted usages of
Standard Written English (unless writ-
21
ing in a non-standard form for a

specific purpose).
Punctuation: which supplements grammar in deter-
mining the relationship of words,
phrases, clauses and sentences.
Spelling: which is certainly a matter of conven-
tion, but not therefore to be regarded
as unimportant, since inaccurate spell-
ing can obscure meaning.
• Consideration of these elements must, of course, be related to the stage
of development of the pupil. But whatever the age and stage of the pupil it
must also be related to the nature of what is being written. The point is
most clearly exemplified in imaginative writing, particularly but not only
poetry, where grammar may be, as it were, bent to achieve particular
effects and punctuation may be omitted to produce, quite deliberately, the
possibility of alternative relationships between ideas. Creative uses of
language may sometimes reject accepted usage and forge their own
disciplines, and it is legitimate and desirable for young writers to
experiment in such ways. But such liberties with language need to be
accompanied by clear awareness of how and why accepted usage is being
rejected and of what is needed in more utilitarian communications.
5 Conclusion
This paper has been, of necessity and by design, brief and
unelaborated. It has put forward suggestions and assertions which in a
longer document would be the outcome of extended exposition. It is
hoped, however, that it will at least provide a framework for general
agreement about the aims, objectives and general principles of English
teaching - or an incitement to others to provide a better framework. For
present practice in the teaching of English in our schools varies greatly,
and such agreement is urgently needed.
22
6 References
'A language for life. Report of the Committee of Inquiry appointed by
the Secretary of State for Education and Science under the Chair-
manship of Sir Alan [now Lord] Bullock FBA. HMSO 1975. Para 1.lO
2 Ibid. Para 1.lO
3 Ibid. Para 11.1
4 Assessment of Performance Unit reports:-
a. Language performance in schools. Primary survey report No.1. HMSO,
19~1.
b. Language performance in schools. Primary survey report No.2. HMSO,

1982.
c. Language performance in schools. Secondary survey report No. J.
HMSO,1982.
d. Language performance In schools. Secondary survey report No.2.
HMSO,1983.
e. Language performance in schools. 1982 primary survey report. DES,
1984.
5 Para 4.14 of reference 3d, above.
23
English
from5toI6:
the responses
24
THE RESPONSES IN OUTLINE
I The responses in outline

1. English from 5 to 16* caused a great deal of interest both within and
outside the teaching profession. Responses were seldom from individuals
speaking for themselves-most were the results of considerable discussion,
often by large groups. These provide a record of a great deal of activity in
the months between publication and the deadline for receiving responses.
The document was clearly successful in promoting discussion. It seldom left
readers indifferent; it prompted many respondents to express matters of
belief, principle and practice which were close to their hearts. The responses
received were placed in the following categories:
(a) Primary and middle schools 310 responses
(b) Secondary schools and sixth form colleges 330 responses
(c) Local authorities 62 responses
(d) Further and higher education 59 responses
(e) Representative bodies (other than c and d) 63 responses
(f) Individual members of the public 89 responses.
TOTAL: 913.
2. To identify clear general approval or disapproval for the document as a
whole was difficult, especially given the carefully detailed nature of most of
the responses. However, in rounded figures, approximately 30% of the
responses broadly approved of the paper, 20% generally disapproved of it,
and 50% fell between such clear positions and expressed reservations. This
last group shaded from the largely approving to the largely condemnatory,
with the greatest weighting towards the critical end of that spectrum.
3. There was general welcome for the fact of a document about the English
curriculum from HMI. One of the clearest statements of this kind came
from the University of Southampton:-
"It is excellent that we have a document of this kind and length to discuss and
use as a basis for development. In spite of the criticisms that may be made of
details, the general intentions are most worthwhile and the role of such
statements in establishing a common language for the discussion of curriculum
issues, and an agreed agenda of key items, is crucial."
Few comments were so clear or emphatic as this, but it fairly represents one
of the strongest and most positive veins of response. It is manifest, in this
and similar responses, that the attempt to establish common ground is widely
felt to have been an important and worthwhile venture. However, this
welcome was frequently qualified by anxiety, and sometimes suspicion, from
many within the profession. In this regard, the themes which chiefly
* 65,000 copies were distributed free
20,000 copies have been sold by HMSO.
2S
ENGLISH FROM 5 TO 16: THE RESPONSES
emerged were fears about centralisation and the professional integrity and
independence of teachers and comments about a 'lack of realism' which was
widely felt to characterise both the nature and the demands of the objectives.
4. The main sections of the document evoked differing responses. Broadly,

there was a good deal of approval for the aims, principles and assessment
sections, though with regard to assessment there was clear professional
dissent from the notion of periodic testing which was viewed as time-
consuming and as an externally imposed process. The character of this
cautious support can be gauged in several ways, not least by noting that
many responses (wrongly) suggested two hands to have been at work in the
document-one writing those sections they liked and another those which
they disliked.
5. Responses from the public, category (f), and from institutions which
were not directly representative of teachers, were often at variance with
those from the profession. Seventy-four per cent of the letters from the
public were unreserved in their approval of the paper, but it was clear also
that some 20% of these respondents were reacting to a specific report in one
daily newspaper and not to the document itself; indeed only 11 % of the
letters in category (f) dealt with each of the document's sections. Many of
these particular respondents wrote as if declining standards in English were a
proven fact and they called for rigorous and prescriptive teaching on points
of usage, many of which are themselves matters of dispute. From industry
and the world of work there were disappointingly few responses and they
varied in emphasis according to the specific activities of particular
industries. In general, they evinced a concern with writing, chiefly spelling
and punctuation, and some urged schools to pay greater attention to letter
writing. Others, taking a broader view, suggested expansions of the
objectives in ways which stressed the active and responsive use of language
by young people. Thus, among the suggestions of the Institute of Personnel
Management were such additions to the objectives as:
"Listening: listen to dialogue or conversation in order to be able to contribute to

the development of argument ... About language: be aware that language is a
living entity: it grows and develops. New usages are constantly being
introduced ... "
It is clear that much mutual benefit might derive from a dialogue between
industry and the teaching profession. Crucial to such an exchange would be a
discussion of the roles of education and training and the differences between
them, of the perspectives they share about the development needs of young
people and how schools might be assisted to develop more work which has
the "real or realistic purposes" for language activity recommended in
English from 5 to 16.
6. Not only did the public and the profession respond, but the document
26
THE RESPONSES IN OUTLINE
was widely reported in the daily press in articles which were lively, variously
informed, partial, superficial and mischievous in their representation of its
contents. The press in general displayed an eagerness to use the document to
criticise teachers and the standards achieved by pupils and there was much
rosy sentiment about the past. The headlines in particular were unhelpful;
they concentrated upon the issue of 'knowledge about language' which they
reduced to 'grammar', and dubbed the recommendations as a call for the
restoration of practices which were clearly and specifically criticised in the
document itself.
"GOOD ENGLISH TO MAKE A COMEBACK

Back to basics in schools. Schools are being urged to go back to basics by
reintroducing traditional lessons on grammar, spelling and punctuation.
This controversial call is made in a report released yesterday by the
Government's inspectors of schools. Its aim is to tighten up on sloppy thinking
and writing among children of all ages ... " (Daily Express 3.10.1984)
"SCHOOL INSPECTORS SEEK OLD-STYLE READING AND WRITING

The teaching of two of the three Rs-reading and writing-will revert to the best
of tried and true principles of 30 years ago if recommendations by the
Government's school inspectors are adopted.
They want children to receive more teaching of the rudiments of grammar,
punctuation and spelling, how to speak and express themselves properly ... "
(Daily Telegraph 3.10.84)
There were many similar headlines and the small team which read the
responses formed an impression that such press reactions may have hardened
teachers' criticisms; responses which arrived several months after the press
reports were often more circumspect about the document in general and the
language issue in particular than were those which followed hard upon them.
7. In brief there was wide welcome for the publication of a document on

the English curriculum, though different groups welcomed the paper for
often contrasting reasons, with varying degrees of warmth and with
emphasis upon the relative merits of quite different items. The objectives
however evoked widespread disfavour, especially from the profession, and
those which related to the fourth aim ('knowledge about language'), were
strongly criticised. The responses also focussed on a number of specific
matters raised in the original document upon which further discussion or
clarification is called for. In the second part of the present paper, the broad
areas of agreement and disagreement will be explored further; in the third
part the objectives will be more fully discussed and in the fourth a number
27
of the specific issues raised by respondents will be dealt with. The paper will
conclude by highlighting and summarising those central matters which the
responses have shown to be important for those with responsibility for the
shaping of future policy with regard to the teaching of English in our schools.
II Degrees of accord
8. The respondents were drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds and
interests: even the majority group, the teachers, represented both differing
phases of education and contrasting experiences and philosophies. From
their varied viewpoints, however, respondents found much in the introduc-
tory discussion of aims upon which they were in broad accord with what had
been suggested in the paper. Specifically, the clear recognition of the
complexity and the responsibility of the English teacher's role was warmly
endorsed (paragraph 1.4), as was the firm reiteration of the key principle of
the inter-relatedness of the four language modes (talking, listening, reading
and writing) and the clear statement that "the promotion of [their]
interaction should be a basic principle of the teaching of English" (1.6). The
model of developing competence in English as growing to match an
expanding range of language uses (1.5) was also generally accepted. The
first three aims (1.6) were also generally endorsed, though not always
without qualification (see below).
9. There was a measure of division about the title of the document and
what it was taken to imply. Some regretted that 'English', as distinct from
'language', was the specific point of focus and asked if this signalled the end
of attention to the pupil's development in 'language across the curriculum'.
Others, taking a directly opposite view, welcomed the focus on English
urging that responsibilities in this subject were already quite large enough.
The first group may be answered by noting that Curriculum Matters No.2,
which discusses the curriculum as a whole, refers to more general language
matters, but that it is the intention of the other volumes to focus aims and
objectives for the individual subjects and aspects which make up that whole.
10. The fourth aim, as predicted, prompted a good deal of disagreement

and division; it will be discussed in paragraphs 37 to 39 below. There was
also some unease about what was felt to be the infusion of a narrowly
functional view of language in the statements of objectives; this will also be
discussed below in Part IV. Some teachers in urban primary schools
challenged the statement that "before starting school most children already
have considerable experience in and command of at least spoken En-
glish ... " They seldom cited the obvious example of pupils for whom
English is not the home language, but referred instead to widespread
disadvantage among indigenous children, which they felt had been under-
estimated.
28
DEGREES OF ACCORD
11. The arguments concerning objectives will have a separate section of

their own, Part III. Many respondents from schools, local authorities and
higher education, however, made points concerning the tone, layout and
location of the objectives. They regarded them as being given greater
prominence than the more important section on principles and in their
'peremptory' tone, and in many points of detail, they viewed them as
inconsistent with the points of principle which they applauded. Many
readers read messages in the positioning of objectives before principles and in
their checklist layout. They saw this as a down-grading of principles and as
part of a headlong rush to effect change at the surface, with little regard for
the 'deeper structure' of English teaching.
12. For most of Section 3, on principles, there was clear support. That
there was substantial accord and that it represents an important develop-
ment which holds promise for the further progress of pupils in schools is well
worth recording. And it is all the more important to do so given the natural
tendency of many of the respondents to discuss only briefly the points they
agreed with and to handle at greater length and in detail those which made
them either anxious or angry. Among the specific points from Section 2
which were strongly and widely commended at meetings of teachers around
the country were the following:
i. the clear understanding that: "the most effective way of developing
language competence is by applying it to an increasing range and variety of
real needs and purposes, in which something of genuine interest is
communicated" and that it is "the teacher's responsibility to devise
programmes of work ... in which such needs and purposes arise". (3.3)
ii. the firm assertion of the importance and complexity of the teacher's
role: "Good teaching of English, at any level is far more than the inculcation
of skills." (3.2)
111. the strong support for drama as: "an essential part oflanguage teaching
in primary and secondary schools". (3.14)
iv. the clearly stated understanding that: "Language exercises from text-
books or work cards are not effective means of initiating the learning of
language skills." (3.10)
v. the unambiguous endorsement of the longstanding recognition that:
"formal exercises in the analysis and classification of language contribute
little or nothing to the ability to use it." (3.8)
vi. and that: "The least able at using language are the least likely to
understand the terminology ... " (3.8)
Similarly, there was particularly strong support for the document's emphasis
upon the importance of drafting in the writing process; it is not widely
practised and this accord might be a prelude to significant progress.
29
13. The brief discussion of the use of drama to assist learning was given
general welcome and support. Drama specialists underlined the endorsement
of their subject as "an essential part of language teaching in primary and
secondary schools". Several other respondents regretted its brevity and a
number urged an emphasis on the place of drama as a subject in its own right
in the curriculum, in addition to its use in mediating other learning. A
separate and more detailed discussion of drama may appear in the
Curriculum Matters series in due course.
14. Section 4, on assessment, also prompted a largely favourable response

and was widely regarded as helpful and humane. Two items in particular
were strongly commended:
" ... few aspects of English ... can be mechanically marked. It is impressionis-
tic-but good impression marking involves awareness of the elements that
contribute to the success of an utterance or response. This principle holds good
for assessment in all language modes ... " (4.5)
... "assessment is not merely of a pupil's success in operating the 'skills' of
language; it is inevitably and properly concerned with the quality of what is
said ... We must therefore assess (pupils') progress as people using language for
the purposes necessary to people, not as mere language operators." (4.6)
These, along with additional emphasis on seeking positive achievement (4.8)

in pupils' work, were felt to hold important implications for teachers and
examiners, especially with the inception of the General Certificate of
Secondary Education (GCSE).
15. The suggestion of periodic testing was very widely rejected. An

externally imposed national monitoring apparatus which used simplistic
objective tests was envisaged and deeply distrusted. The apprehension was
that such tests would inevitably determine the curriculum and in a narrow
and mechanistic fashion. Disappointingly, few respondents appeared to be
aware of the work of the Assessment of Performance Unit (APU)1 referred
to, which in no sense matches the feared models. Nor was it seen that
periodic tests might be of a school's own devising and planned both to assist
the assessment of individual progress and measure the effectiveness of the
school's curriculum and delivery.
16. There were few other detailed or general comments on assessment,

except for the warning that non-verbal features (gesture, posture, eye
contact, facial expression) in relation to the spoken word differ according to
culture and may need great sensitivity. There was also the observation that
assessment in the spoken word, especially across the wide range of aspects
set out, would be a new experience for most teachers who would, therefore,
require specific training.
17. The brevity of English from 5 to 16, mentioned in its conclusion,

I Details of APU's work and publications are available from APU, Room 4177A, Elizabeth
House, York Road, London SEI 7PH.
30
THE OBJECTIVES
prompted many comments about matters of emphasis and omission. Several

of these receive attention in Part IV of the present paper, but one of the
commonest does not. The detailed discussion of methodology is beyond the
scope of the Curriculum Matters series of essentially short papers, though
this does not preclude its discussion in other HMI publications.
III The objectives

18. The bulk of comments on the objectives were strongly expressed and
either critical or anxious. Several clear strands could be discerned:
1. some were opposed to statements of objectives in any form;
ii. many were fearful of centralisation and saw this as being associated with
the listed objectives;
lll. many viewed the objectives in the document as prescriptive and as
narrowly drawn and functional in character (and also as potentially
dangerous in their curricular consequences or in the hands of those outside
the teaching profession);
iv. there was a widely expressed feeling that there were too many
objectives;
v. allied to (iv) was a particularly well-argued case that the objectives were
too heterogeneous in character, that they embraced matters of widely
differing orders of importance and that the assertion that among the
objectives "none has primacy" was indefensible;
vi. above all, there was a clear belief among the great majority of
respondents that the objectives were age-related targets for attainment by
'most' pupils. Within this very large group, all but a handful viewed the
objectives as too inflexible and demanding to be applied to most pupils.
Many also argued that the very process of attempting to define age-related
targets for attainment was an unsafe exercise in view of what is known about
language development. During the rest of this paper each of these points will
be addressed either directly or indirectly.
19. Those who opposed objectives in any form were a very small minority,
but many others urged the much greater importance of the matters of
principle and practice which they had welcomed. Still in a minority, but
echoing the fears of a wider group who had expressed anxieties about a thrust
towards centralisation, were those who were opposed to any model of
objectives emerging from HMI or the DES. These wider anxieties often
derived from a fear that the interests of pupils would be prejudiced by what
they saw as a diminution of the teachers' exercise of professional judgement
on curriculum matters. Others welcomed the offering of objectives as being
of assistance in shaping their own curricula. Together, the responses ranged
from the sharply hostile to the adulatory, but the majority were critical or
wary of what were offered as objectives.
31
20. The great majority of readers responding to such phrasing in the text as
'most pupils should be able to' saw the objectives as standards of attainment
which most children should be able to reach by the ages specified. There
were two main strands of reaction to this: most said vigorously that they
were too demanding and referred both to the widely varying rates of
development of individual pupils and to the greatly differing circumstances
which can affect the language performance both of individual children and
of whole school intakes. Others, taking this view a step further and referring
to A language for life and the detailed investigations upon which it was based,
concluded, with Bullock, that:
... "it is certainly unrealistic to attempt to tie particular competences to given

age-points," (paragraph 11.22, p. 172, A language for life HMSO, 1975).
They believed that this was what had been attempted and that, as should
have been anticipated, the attempt had foundered. What such responses
make clear is the need for a better shared understanding of the meaning and
tolerances of objectives for individual subjects. There are important matters
here which will be explored further below:
i. the age-related character of objectives which is common to the
Curriculum Matters series as a whole;
ii. the dual nature of the objectives in English from 5 to 16 (ie as including
kinds of language experience and expectations);
111. the degrees of specificity with which expectations may be discussed at
different levels in the education system.
21. There is force in many of these criticisms and it is plain that what was
being sought in the discussion of objectives was often misunderstood. It is
accepted that the original paper did not set out its concerns in this regard
sufficiently clearly.
22. The age-related nature of the objectives is a characteristic of the

Curriculum Matters series as a whole; the age-points suggested encompass
the years of compulsory schooling and are those at which most, but not all,
children might expect to change school. It is hard for those involved in
education to argue on grounds of principle against an attempt to define in
broad terms, what might be achieved by pupils at key points in their
education. However, it is clear that though the arguments advanced in
paragraph 20 are powerful they are answerable if the dual nature of the
original objectives is acknowledged and adjustments made accordingly. The
objectives of English from 5 to 16 embraced kinds of language experience
which pupils might be expected to have been given by common age points
and expectations with regard to performance. The arguments of respondents
suggested that more common ground might be achieved by a threefold
process of adjustment: the overall list of objectives could be reduced in
32
THE OBJECTIVES
number and broadened in character; objectives for experience could be

sharply separated from objectives with regard to expectations; expectations
might be redrawn in more general terms to accommodate the great diversity
of children's abilities and rates of progress, as emphasised by respondents,
while still providing teachers with indicators as to progression. Illustrations
of a process of revision which could be more fully carried out on these lines
are offered in the Appendix.
23. A reduction in the numbers and a widening of the objectives as noted

above would accord well with the intention of seeking "broadly agreed
objectives" which need "not mean that the curricular policies of the
Secretary of State, the LEA and the school should relate to each other in a
nationally uniform way". It would also accommodate "healthy diversity"
and leave room for "liveliness and innovation" (Better schools HMSO, 1985,
paragraph 37-this White Paper appeared after the publication of English
from 5 to 16). It would be particularly appropriate with reference to the
kinds of language experience which children should be offered and would
also answer some of the other criticisms offered by respondents (see
paragraph 25 below). Such a re-casting in more general terms could both
provide guidelines for and accommodate diversity of practice.
24. It will now be clear that it was the objectives relating to expectations of
performance which prompted the strongest dissent. The criticisms were both
practical (especially of the objectives failing to match teachers' experiences
of all but the very ablest pupils), and theoretical, not only with reference to
Bullock (paragraph 20 above), but to the concept of the task-specific nature
of performance emphasised by the APU. This suggests that the way a
particular task is set is a significant determinant of a pupil's response; it
weakens the force of generalisations about language performance which can
be made in isolation from responses to known tasks. However, these are not
arguments against the attempt to discuss expectations; rather they reinforce
the twofold need for a clear understanding of the limited tolerances of the
generalisations that can be made and of the roles of the different partners in
education of the nation's children. Thus, although the expectations of pupils
which can be set out in a national document can certainly be founded upon
suggestions for broad categories of language experiences which most pupils
should have been offered by certain ages, they must allow for a range of
performance if they are to recognise the diversity of ability and rates of
development which obtain among children. Within the broad brackets which
can be offered in this way, however, schools and teachers, familiar with their
intakes and with particular pupils, can and should be much more specific
about expectations and differentiate tasks accordingly. The model for
drawing up revised objectives for English which is illustrated in the
Appendix and which has been assisted by the responses makes two further
assumptions: that it is possible for the profession to agree the broad
categories of language experience which should be offered to pupils and that
these experiences will be delivered in lively and interesting ways. With these
33
points in mind, the discussion of expectations is possible in one way at

national level while at school level it can and should be finely tuned to
accommodate particular classes and indeed pupils. This is not to suggest that
such documents as those of the Curriculum Matters series, or their
successors, either could or should take over the curriculum planning roles or
responsibilities of schools or English departments; they are frameworks of
thinking to assist schools in that essential and necessarily unending process
of defining and clarifying their intentions for their pupils and in doing so
from a common starting point.
25. The arguments made against the view that all objectives were equally
important were convincing, the following being a particularly forceful
example:
"The worst feature of these miscellaneous objectives is that they lump together a few essential
aims ... with many desirable but comparatively minor skills ... Some of the objectives are
major aims that will underline the whole of a pupil's school career, others will only be
introduced briefly at a particular moment; some are only slightly dependent on the teacher,
others heavily so" (Response by Dr Robert Protherough of the University of Hull, printed in
The Gadfly 1985.)
This is accepted, but endless and sterile debate about the placing of
individual items must be avoided. Moreover, most of the criticisms made by
Dr Protherough could be eliminated or substantially minimised by revised
objectives of the kind suggested above and illustrated in the Appendix. It is
in the spirit both of the document and of the series as a whole to invite
teachers and others to establish their own hierarchies. They might also wish
to make additions and substitutions-again, this would accord well with the
spirit in which the list was offered.
IV Matters arising
26. Distinct from the broad trends handled in the previous sections,
respondents raised a number of important specific issues to which attention
should be drawn. Some represented polarities of viewpoint, while others
raised matters upon which the further comment which follows may suggest
greater accord.
Narrow functionalism
27. Many readers felt that both the objectives and the document as a whole
were narrowly functional. At least in part, such perceptions may lie in what
is brought to the reading of a text-by fears, special interests or misleading
press publicity. Certainly, the purposeful uses of language received strong
emphasis in the document. They did so because, though not new in
34
MATTERS ARISING
themselves, they remain insufficiently explored in the generality of practice:

a wide range of language tasks which acknowledges purpose, readership or
audience and in which pupils are helped to make appropriate responses is not
yet characteristic of most classrooms. A balanced curriculum includes all
these aspects and is in no sense incompatible with literature, the aesthetic or
the affective. To achieve better balance will make new demands of many
teachers. The answer does not lie in finding room at the expense of literature
or other work designed to promote personal growth (of which it might form
a part) but in an overall re-appraisal of what is done-in short of aims and
objectives. And such an appraisal should include a closer scrutiny, at school
level, of the specific language diet offered to pupils and in particular of the
place accorded to drills and to course book exercises, and their actual, as
distinct from supposed, effectiveness.
Standard English
28. A number of critics, chiefly from urban areas, suggested that the paper
had paid only lip service to non-standard forms of written and spoken
English by talking of "not belittling or proscribing" the language children
bring from their homes (3.12) instead of openly welcoming language variety.
Others, with similar views, suggested that the paper had overvalued standard
forms and still others suggested that this was to the particular disadvantage
of children from families of Caribbean origin. Another group took exception
to the phrase "Standard Spoken English" holding that it was a term not
recognised in linguistics, that it implied an unwelcome imposition of 'middle
class' forms and aspirations upon the majority and that it was in any case
unrealistic.
29. The term 'Standard Spoken English' was used in an attempt to
distinguish between written and spoken forms. Some linguists will, no doubt,
wish to continue a debate concerning its necessity, but the paper made it
clear (3.13) that 'accent' or pronunciation was not an aspect of the concept.
What is left is the grammar and vocabulary of Standard English-exactly
those features of the language which, irrespective of a specific accent or
pronunciation, characterise the wide range of formal and semi-formal uses
for which it is employed in so many countries around the world. What is
reassuring is the finding of the 1982 APU secondary survey of language
performance in schools' which discovered that "all of the pupils in this oracy
survey were able to adopt standard usage and a widely intelligible accent in a
situation which they interpreted as requiring them to do so" (page 19-our
italics). This is precisely what was sought in English from 5 to 16 and
substantially rebuts the claims of those critics who suggested that the paper
was being unrealistic and over-demanding in this regard. It will be noticed
that neither the APU quotation nor the discussion paper either mentioned or
urged the use of Received Pronunciation (RP) and there is no intention of
urging it here.
1 Language performance in schools: secondary survey report No. 1 HMSO, 1982.
35
30. "Standard English dialect (remember we are referring to patterns of grammar

and vocabulary but not to pronunciation) has no local base. On the contrary it is
accepted throughout the English-using world. And it is spoken with any accent.
Consequently it is the only dialect which is neither localised in its currency nor
paired solely with its local accent ... There are remarkably few variations in
grammar in Standard English, whether the writer comes from Britain or Ghana
or Canada or Hong Kong or India or the United States. There are a number of
variations in vocabulary ... but they are quickly learned and rarely cause more
than momentary hesitations in comprehension." (Peter Strevens: 'Standards and
the Standard Language' in English Today Vol. 2 April 1985).
In its extraordinary currency, its homogeneous form and in the wide range of
uses for which it is employed, lies the importance of the Standard English
dialect, and there can be no doubt that ease and familiarity in using and
responding to it must be central to the work of all English teachers. In an
English speaking country to deprive pupils of such ease and familiarity with
standard spoken and written forms is to deny some of their rights as citizens.
This is not to say that non-standard forms are inherently inferior, or limited
in their capacity to convey meaning; in some respects indeed they may be
'superior'-it has long been recognised that non-standard dialects can
embrace some kinds of activity and feeling with a force which may be lacking
in standard forms and usages. A well-devised language education will
recognise these aspects of standard and non-standard. It will also recognise
the importance of repertoire. Confidence and encouragement lie at the core
of a child's language development in school and for many pupils the most
effective route toward a grasp of standard forms may well be through the
non-standard. This is to reinforce long-standing educational principles
concerning the development of competence and understanding by working
from the familiar to the less familiar.
The spoken word

31. Many readers perceived in English from 5 to 16 what they regarded as a
strengthened emphasis upon the importance of the spoken word. It was a
point they welcomed and about which there were few, if any, dissenting
voices. This consensus is a matter of the greatest importance and should be
borne in mind when matters of reservation are dealt with below. Despite the
welcome for the paper's discussion of the spoken word, the responses seldom
added suggestions for its development and some noted that it was an area
upon which teachers would need assistance. The in-service trammg
implications of making widespread advances in this respect may be
considerable.
32. There were however three strands of criticism.

i. It was widely suggested that the 'standards' implied by the spoken word
objectives were too high, especially those for seven year olds-it was roundly
asserted that few of us attain them in real life; as one primary school noted:
36
MATTERS ARISING
"Very few adults can 'listen' with patience, attention and understanding to other
speakers; Members of Parliament certainly cannot! How can we say children
should be able to?".
ii. It was also suggested that the objectives betrayed a restrictive and
socially weighted model of language which was itself inadequate for some
important social situations-the expression of 'passionate dissent', the
'assertion of threatened rights' and the 'resistance of oppression' were among
the points urged.
lll. Some noted that in the objectives section talking and listening were
handled separately: they were keen to stress the inter-relatedness of the two,
the artificiality of their separation, and its ineffectiveness for developing
active understanding. This important qualification is wholly accepted: it was
indeed embodied in the principles section and is carefully discussed in the
work of the APU from which English from 5 to 16 drew much of its
framework on this issue.
For the classroom teacher, the important points to carryover into daily
practice are that: the spoken word should feature as a natural and substantial
part of learning; that both talking and listening should occur and that they
should usually be integrated; that they should frequently occur in
conjunction with the other language modes (reading and writing) and that,
wherever possible, they should be employed for "real or realistic purposes"
in the curriculum, as commended in the original document.
33. The criticisms of (i) and (ii) above centred upon what was felt to be
the restrictive nature of the objectives and what were seen as reasonable
expectations. In effect what was proposed in English from 5 to 16 was a
substantial increase upon much current general practice, of attention to the
spoken word and of the variety and flexibility with which it is handled in
most schools. This could go a long way to broadening the range of purposes
in ways hoped for by many readers of the original paper. It would be an
appropriate development and might well embrace additional uses of
language. However, two further and perhaps cautionary points should also
be made. The spoken word will be least effectively developed if
improvements in speech or listening (or their assessment) are themselves at
the forefront of classroom activity instead of their purposeful, integrated and
well contextualised use. This applies as much to any broadening of the
spoken word objectives (as in (ii) above) as to the original list. Secondly, the
items of (ii) in the form in which they were sometimes expressed implied a
particular political agenda for education. Nevertheless, in so far as those
respondents can be interpreted as calling for a widening of the spoken word
objectives to embrace more fully such issues as the presentation of and
response to argument, reasoning and the use and validity of evidence, and
the development of personal and social skills in speaking and listening across
a broad front, their case is strong.
37
34. The criticism with regard to excessive expectations is in part allied to

that concerning narrowness. Both are capable of resolution by the adoption
of the different model for the drafting of English objectives which was
discussed above in Part III. Such a reworking would underline the
fundamental agreement which exists on matters of principle in this area and
examples of a possible format are offered in an Appendix.
Literature
35. On the importance of literature, there was probably more agreement
between English from 5 to 16 and most respondents from the profession than
was noticed by some readers and this paper provides the opportunity to
clarify the matter. Some readers, detecting what they see as a growing
neglect of literature in schools, and of poetry in particular, had hoped for
greater emphasis and a more active advocacy of the case for literature than
they found. As noted above, others felt the paper to be narrowly functional.
Such perceptions are often highly reader-dependent, as are matters of
emphasis. A properly functional view of language embraces the full range of
its uses, including literature, the aesthetic and the affective domains which
these respondents felt were missing or were insufficiently emphasised. There
is no question of HM Inspectors supporting the relegation of literature to an
inferior position in a brash new pecking order, as the gathering of references
which follows will, it is hoped, make clear. With regard to aims for reading,
English from 5 to 16 suggested firmly that pupils should be helped "to have
confidence in their capacities as readers; to find pleasure in and be voluntary
users of reading, for information, for interest, for entertainment, and for the
extension of experience and insight that poetry and fiction of quality afford;
and to see that reading is necessary for their personal lives, for their learning
throughout the curriculum and for the requirements of living and working in
society." (1.6). Among the reading objectives proposed for 16 year olds are
items which, for all their restraint of expression, might well be used as
rallying calls by the critics on this matter. There is the clearly stated belief
that pupils should be assisted to "have some awareness of the relevance of
literature to human experience", to recognise some of the ways writers
achieve their effects, to develop an ability to judge the value and quality of
what they read and "above all" it was suggested that they should come to
"regard reading as a normal and habitual source of pleasure, interest and
information". Similar comments may be found elsewhere in the document;
together, they show a substantial understanding of the importance of
literature in the English curriculum.
36. English from 5 to 16 recognised the importance of literature; the claim

of literature for a place at the heart of the English curriculum, which was
made by some of the most passionate and articulate respondents, is also
supported. Literature offers pupils the experience of books and the
extension of their experience through books. Only in literature will they
encounter language at its most highly wrought, capturing, shaping and
38
MATTERS ARISING
combining experience, thought and feeling. Part of the affective domain, it

has also long been recognised that literature has a central role to play "in the
development of each boy and girl towards maturity" (Schools Council
1965).1 Literature can both extend pupils' understanding and sympathies
and contribute to the development of their judgement and discrimination. If
it is well taught, both will occur but, for a variety of reasons, the danger, in
general classroom practice, is that these two strands may not be held in
balance and that superficial, premature and secondhand written judgements
will be developed to the detriment of genuine personal response.
Knowledge about language

37. Nothing divided the respondents more than the issue of knowledge
about language. Colouring the whole debate were the experiences, recalled
by many teachers, of exactly the old style of grammatical analysis headlined
in some press reports. Those sit firmly in the memories of the majority as
being "tedious and useless" and research findings were invoked to reinforce
the point. What was not widely noticed, however, was that the original paper
also explicitly excluded this line of approach (3.8).
38. The case for teaching about language was variously viewed as
unjustified, justified on weak grounds (as an aid only to performance in
writing) and as understated-the latter point being offered by those with a
professional interest in linguistics. Cumulatively, the case for the aim was
strengthened by the deployment of additional arguments among which were
the following:
a. such teaching about language as occurs in schools at present is both
chancy and incoherent;
b. language is one of our chief defining characteristics as human beings; it
is a major aspect of the environment we create for ourselves; it has as rightful
a place in the curriculum as any other field in the humanities and sciences in
none of which is it argued that their terminology should not be taught to
pupils;
c. teaching about the nature of language might help pupils to understand
where English fits in the map of languages spoken in the UK (150 mother
tongues) and beyond. This might assist in the promotion of linguistic and
racial tolerance, the self-esteem of pupils for whom English is not the
heritage language and motivation for foreign language learning as well as
providing a number of insights of use in development.
39. In a general letter to recipients of English from 5 to 16, it was asked

what teachers should be expected to know about language and about
language development in children. It was generally agreed that teachers
should be well acquainted with these matters in order to assist their pupils.
I English: a programme for research and development in English teaching. Schools Council
Working Paper No.3. HMSO, 1965.
39
Some noted that a substantial in-service programme would be needed to

prepare teachers to handle the listed objectives. Others suggested that there
had been a failure to implement the Bullock report's recommendation with
regard to instruction in language for all prospective teachers. As for what
should be taught, either to teachers or pupils, while there were a few
individually helpful contributions, there were no clear trends except for the
widespread and vigorous rejection of grammatical analysis and of teaching
the terminology listed in the objectives. The situation is one in which the
case for the aim has been somewhat strengthened by some of the responses,
but the proposed objectives substantially minimised or rejected by the great
majority. This suggests that there may be some grounds for believing that
there may be wide accord with the aim though there is little agreement, as
yet, about alternative objectives. There is also a clear need and some growing
willingness to settle an agenda and ultimately a curriculum for this aim, but
it is also plain that it will be a long time before the professional unity
required to implement a policy can be arrived at. The growth of a stronger
accord might be assisted by an enquiry to focus attention on the matter, with
the ultimate object of drawing up recommendations as to what might be
taught to intending teachers, to those in post and to pupils in schools. It
should also be understood that further developments in this field are likely to
entail considerable costs for curriculum development, dissemination and
initial and in-service training.
English in a multi-ethnic society

40. A number of correspondents held that English from 5 to 16 had
underemphasised the needs of pupils for whom English is not the mother
tongue. The point to be made most emphatically is that whatever the
reader's views of any particular set of aims and objectives there can be no
question of suggesting separate ones for minority communities if the
children of those communities are to occupy an equal place in an English-
speaking society. The Swann Report states plainly that:
" ... the key to equality of opportunity, to academic success, and more broadly, to
participation on equal terms as a full member of society is a good command of
English" (Education for all, Cmnd 9453 HMSO, 1985, Page 407, our italics.).
It is right to scrutinise any set of objectives proposed to bring about such a

"good command of English ... ", but it is unacceptable to propose separate
objectives, for that is to propose separate development, with all the
associations carried by that phrase. As suggested in paragraph 24 above,
specific differentiation according to the needs of individuals or particular
groups is the proper province of the teachers. This is not to imply that less is
to be expected of the pupils concerned.
41. Matters of methodology and resources, which may well need to be

enhanced for children learning English as a second language or
40
MATTERS ARISING
consolidating their command of it, were excluded from the original writer's
brief, but it was clearly acknowledged that "these pupils may need special
provision". It can be added here that such 'special provision' should not be
thought of solely in terms of isolated small group teaching and that it would
be appropriate to include teaching materials and approaches which both
recognise and draw upon the cultural backgrounds of the pupils concerned.
Indeed, a fuller acknowledgement and utilisation of cultural diversity,
suitably mediated, could enrich English teaching in general. Nevertheless,
the kinds of development in English which should be sought for linguistic
minorities are not distinct from those for mother tongue speakers of the
language: if each is to progress towards equality both need to be helped to
grow:
" .... in the range and variety of purposes for which [they1can understand and
use language ... "
and correspondingly, each should:
" ... increase in the range and variety of appropriate forms, techniques and styles
of language that they can respond to and use." (1.5).
42. Some critics called for mother tongue instruction for pupils for whom
English is not the home language. It has to be said that a short document on
the teaching of English, addressed chiefly to teachers of English, was not the
right forum for entering that debate. The Swann Committee hearings and
subsequent report were appropriate and a recommendation upon that issue
has been offered. It can be added, however, that a public discussion of what
might be taught 'about language' in the English class (see above, paragraphs
37 to 39) might well embrace matters of interest to those who have pressed
the case for bilingualism in schools; that discussion, which is certain to raise
the topic of standard and non-standard forms, may also be of support to
speakers of dialects and creoles.
Information technology (IT)

43. A strongly expressed, but not widespread, criticism of English from 5 to
16 related to a lack of comment on the use of the computer. With regard to
English it is clear that, far from reducing demands, IT may increase
requirements for literacy, including writing, (though not perhaps for hand
writing). However, aims and objectives for English are not made substan-
tially different by IT, though they may be made more urgent and their
fulfilment may also be assisted by the provision of 'work stations' in
sufficient quantities to make IT a substantial and integral part of the daily
curricular experience of all children. The potential for methodological
development in English however is great. It is already plain that IT offers
important potential to the teacher for motivating pupils. It can also support
individualised learning and permit access to ever-increasing banks of
41
information both within and outside the school. The technology is

enormously flexible allowing information to be handled and displayed in a
wide variety of ways, including through word processing. Thus, drafting and
the associated positive teacher intervention can be assisted, 'real' acts of
communication may be promoted by electronic means, individual research
can be supported and a variety of co-operative teaching and learning
approaches can also be assisted.
Media education
44. Groups with specialist interests in media education expressed general
welcome for what was said about the various media (film, television and
video, audio, and non-book print), but suggested that it did not go far
enough. They called for closer engagement with the social significance of the
media and of language in general and urged the case both for media
education in its own right and for a more full and circumspect use of the
media in English and other subjects. Like 'knowledge about language', media
studies require wider debate and are likely to call for substantial in-service
training. The aims and objectives of media education need to be arrived at in
respect of all the subjects of the curriculum. If an agreed curriculum on these
matters is not arrived at, diverse and hidden ones will inexorably emerge.
v Conclusions
45. English from 5 to 16 was the first and to date the most controversial
publication in an HMI series which breaks new ground both by being subject
specific about aims, objectives and principles and by inviting response. The
exercise has been most fruitful: it has shown much about the state of opinion
on the central matters raised in the original discussion paper. In turn, these
findings may be used to help to draw up an agenda for those concerned with
national policy developments in the subject.
• The clearest gain, which augurs well for the development of the subject,
lies in the strong and wide endorsement for the aims with regard to the
spoken word, reading and writing (Section I) and for the principles of
English teaching (Section 3) set out in the original document. It is plain
that these should form the basis for the curriculum, for class work and for
examinations in English.
• There were widespread expressions of support for increased attention to
the spoken word (speaking and listening), but few suggestions as to how
improvements might be achieved. This suggests that a national develop-
ment project could be timely and if launched would go with the grain of
identified need.
• The frequent rejection of the objectives, in the context of the general
welcome accorded to the aims, principles and assessment sections,
42
CONCLUSIONS
suggests both that for most readers the objectives were misaligned and
that accord might be possible with substantially realigned objectives cast
in broader terms.
• The discussion of: 'knowledge about language' has revealed a number of
important trends: first and foremost there was substantial, though
certainly not unanimous, agreement that children should learn something
about their language and how it works. Beyond that agreement fades.
There was strong hostility to formal grammatical analysis-on practical
and theoretical grounds; deep divisions upon matters of principle, practice
and content; from groups with a particular interest, a reinforcement of
arguments for the 'fourth aim' (the need to teach pupils about language);
quite widespread expressions by teachers of a willingness to know more
about language for themselves, but few suggestions as to what they or
their pupils might be taught. The analysis offered in the original paper
which suggested that "many pupils are taught nothing about how language
works as a system" remains true and may be a consequence of the strong
feelings and divisions revealed. Whatever the causes it appears to be true
that there exists a gap between intent (to teach all children about the
language) and the means to bring that about (agreement about what
should be taught and how). It is a matter in need of resolution if national
policy is to address the matter with any hope of constructive action. It
may be that a concentrated and thorough public discussion of the issues is
needed; perhaps even a national enquiry is required to focus opinion and
guide policy formation about what should be taught about our language
and what needs to be known by teachers and pupils. It is likely that the
findings of such an enquiry would need to be followed up by a substantial
investment in initial and in-service training and in the development of
suitable teaching materials.
• Although English from 5 to 16 can be defended against accusations of
narrow functionalism and eroding the status of literature, the strong
expressions of concern and fear regarding these matters should be seen as
part of the climate of opinion which those concerned with forming policies
will need to take into account. They emphasise the strong commitment of
English teachers to a broad interpretation of their subject as a humane
discipline within which literature holds a key position.
• Similarly, the multi-ethnic dimension has been raised as a topic about
which there are strong emotions. Separate objectives for different groups
are unacceptable, but the case for recognising ethnic diversity in English
within the framework of commonly agreed objectives has been strength-
ened by the responses.
• Those who raised the topic of media education emphasised the
pervasiveness of the media in all our lives and the subtlety of the ways
they shape attitudes and opinion; their case for more explicit attention in
schools to the media and to key ways in which they influence and impinge
upon our lives is strong but not confined to English.
43
Appendix
Objectives for English
What follows is a selection of illustrative examples of how, taking account of
the reasoned responses to the original document, the objectives for the
teaching of English might be recast. A number of general differences from
the earlier pattern will be immediately obvious, as will many points of detail.
In particular, the descriptions have been reshaped to distinguish more fully
between suggestions for the experience of language use and expectations of
performance. Both have been cast in broader terms: broad indicators are put
forward both as a basis for the more detailed planning which schools and
teachers need to undertake (in the light of their knowledge of intakes,
individual pupils and particular tasks) and for discussion by the other parties
to the education of our children. In response to the guidance offered by the
respondents the expectations of pupils are not set out rigidly as staging posts,
but are described in terms of the qualities, attitudes and skills which pupils
should be seen to be acquiring at the age points given. This approach allows
for the existence of wide individual variations among pupils while
maintaining the expectation that high aspirations are appropriate for all
pupils.
The spoken word

Objectives at the age of 7
By the age of 7 all pupils should have had extensive experience of a wide
range of situations and activities planned to develop their confidence in
talking and listening.
All children should have been encouraged to talk and listen to their peers and
to adults in a wide range of groupings including:-
pairs
small groups of varied size
whole class groups
groups larger than the class.
For all pupils the range of general purposes and activities should have
included:-
collaborative and exploratory play
imaginative play and improvised drama
listening to well-chosen and well-read stories, rhymes, poems, plays
and other writing (with participation where appropriate)
listening to and narrating unscripted stories
44
APPENDIX
sharing experiences (gained in and out of school)

asking questions
answering questions
giving and receiving explanations
collaborative learning and problem-solving activities (getting some-
thing done together)
using a tape recorder.
For all pupils the activities should be planned and conducted to be enjoyable
and to engage their interest. The teaching should be designed to develop, by
informal and indirect means, children's powers of attention and their grasp
of turn-taking as well as to assist them in gaining and holding the attention
of their listeners.
Across the range of activities listed above, it is also important that children
should be helped, informally and indirectly, to extend and adjust their ways
of speaking (eg in their choice of words, forms of address and degrees of
formality or informality and non-verbal features) and oflistening, according
to purpose and context.
The activities should have been conducted with a view to developing a grasp
of sequence, cause and effect, reasoning, a sense of consistency and
inconsistency and the relevant and purposeful use of powers of prediction
and recall.
Expectations at the age of 7

By the age of 7 all children should have gained experience as talkers and
listeners across the range of activities listed above and most should have
gained confidence across the bulk of that range with variations between
individuals and according to different tasks.
By this age, all pupils should have been helped to regard the spoken word as
a normal, natural and necessary part of school life and classroom activity and
as one in which they are ready to take part.
All children by this age should also be accustomed to working with others
and to have had such experiences of talk and listening as to regard them as
interesting and enjoyable.
Most children should be able to vary the way they speak to meet most of the
demands of the situations listed above, with differences according to task
and individual ability.
With appropriate support if necessary, most children should be able to vary
pitch, intonation and enunciation and non-verbal features to deliver their
meanings clearly.
45
Writing
By the age of 7 all children should have had experiences of writing and
teaching designed to develop their confidence as young writers and to assist
them in finding purpose and pleasure in the process of writing. They should
be helped towards an implicit understanding that the written word differs
sharply from the spoken in its procedures, conventions and demands. It
should be an objective for the work of all children that close links be
established between experience (both direct and indirect) and writing and
that talk and reading should be customary preliminaries (and/or accom-
paniments) to writing. It would also be appropriate that various forms of
narrative should feature most prominently and might embrace at least:
accounts of experiences;
the writing of stories;
accounts of something the pupils have learned or read about or of
learning activities in which they have taken part.
Within these types of narrative it is important that children should be helped
to begin, informally, to perceive that stylistic variations according to purpose
and readership are customary and to make some response in their own work.
This also applies to the letter writing to relations, friends and sympathetic
adults which might also form part of the writing experience offered to most
pupils at this age. Pupils should also be offered encouragement and support
in writing poems and descriptions, expressing feelings, recording and
commenting on investigations, offering simple explanations in which reasons
are given and preparing instructions and directions for credible identifiable
purposes.
Children should also have had extensive experience of the teacher's attention
and support, individually and in groups, which has included, generally and in
relation to specific tasks, both diagnosis and assistance with the development
of: clear handwriting, a grasp of spelling patterns, the establishment and
extension of simple written sentence patterns and their elementary
punctuation. This attention embraces the assumption that drafting (as
distinct from simply preparing fair copies) should be a normal part of the
writing process for most pupils.

By the age of 7 all children should have been led to see writing as an
important, purposeful, interesting and enjoyable process, to view themselves
as capable of communicating on paper and to regard revision as a normal and
unthreatening aspect of the writing process. In addition, most pupils should,
with varying degrees of fluency and control, be capable of writing and
punctuating simple connected sentences across the range of assignment
46
APPENDIX
categories listed for them above, of using appropriate vocabulary and of

showing in their writing their growing control of spelling. Most should also
be expected to be beginning to show in their writing a tacit appreciation that
variations are required for different tasks and readerships.

In addition to the objectives for 7 year olds, which now imply both
substantial and varied reinforcement and a wider range of experiences (both
direct and indirect), most children by the age of 11 should also have had
additional and purposeful opportunities in which to write:
descriptions and accounts of personal and of vicarious experiences
which embody both reflection and the expression of feelings;
verifiable accounts or descriptions in which they record accurately what
they have observed;
short notes recording points from reference books and points made
orally or undertaken to assist thinking and planning; (it follows that,
most children by this age should have been given assistance and
instruction in various forms of note-making, including diagrammatic
and semi-diagramatic forms for a variety of purposes);
to persuade;
to request;
to explain and give reasons.
Note: At this age, it is personal and imaginative writing which should still
form the bulk of the writing tasks undertaken. The additional purposes are
listed as indicators of the new strands which now need to be introduced; if
they are to be successfully handled by pupils the role and importance of
discussion and carefully organised experiences cannot be over-emphasised.
All children should also have had extensive experience of planned

intervention and support, in accordance with their individual needs and
related to appropriate tasks and contexts, with regard to the development of
their writing skills. In general these will encompass: handwriting, spelling,
punctuation, the development of sentence variety, control and organisation,
paragraphing, and the proof-reading, editing and re-drafting of some of their
own work.
Most children at this age might be assisted to begin to take some explicit
account of the need to vary their writing according to specific purposes,
contexts and readerships.

The expectations suggested for 7 year olds are subsumed within those
47
for 11 year olds, but now imply a greater range and higher demands with
developments in confidence and positive attitudes. Greater maturity and the
continuation of lively, supportive and purposeful teaching should also have
assisted pupils to begin to appreciate the place of writing in helping them to
fix and create meaning for themselves.
Most pupils should display in their writing evidence of an increased
awareness of the need to vary expression according to purpose and
readership. In addition, most pupils, with variations of competence
according both to individual ability and to the task in hand, should be
capable of attempting most of the general writing purposes suggested above.
For most pupils sentence control and fluency should have progressed to
encompass an increased repertoire of patterns, an ability to produce longer
and more complex sentences and to register sequence, cause and effect in
varied ways, and the beginnings of an ability to organise and juxtapose
sentences aptly in paragraphs. Most pupils should also have progressed in
their grasp of spelling, punctuation and the use of appropriate vocabulary.
For most pupils simple proof-reading and editing should have become more
habitual and have developed towards a greater self-sufficiency.
Reading
In addition to the objectives which would be listed for 7 and 11 year olds
most 16 year old students should have been offered a substantial experience
of:
pleasurable and sustained encounters with a wide selection of fiction,
poetry and drama (not confined to the 20th century);
talking about literature with adults and peers which has required: an
exercise of empathy with regard to a wide variety of human situations
depicted in writing from a variety of periods; experience of different
forms of writing occurring in a wide range of texts; the close
interrogation of texts;
a wide variety of writing activities requiring the close reading ofliterary
and non-literary texts, but undertaken for purposes other than
providing evidence of 'comprehension' as an end in itself;
group and individual reading activities which have included, where
appropriate, comparison, collation, the use of inference, assessment of
attitude and intention (implicit and explicit), evaluation of evidence,
and the implications of the selection, usage and ordering of words,
images, constructions and organisation (including where appropriate
the formal characteristics of verse);
in a variety of forms, the exercise of judgements and the reasoned
expression of views and preferences;
a wide range of activities in which reading, discussion and writing and
other media have been linked.
48
APPENDIX

In addition to the expectations which would be listed for 7 and 11 year olds,
most 16 year old students could be expected to have sustained the habit of
voluntary reading; they could also be expected to have developed tastes and
preferences for themselves and to have been so taught and assisted with
their reading development as to be receptive to suggestions for new and
wider reading. Positive attitudes to the reading of fiction, non-fiction,
poetry and drama should be expected to have been sustained by effective
teaching. Most 16 year olds should be capable of the fluent, silent reading of
a wide variety of texts, including literature and information materials in a
wide range of formats; they should be capable of sustained reading of
material requiring some persistence and also able, in varying degrees, to
adjust their reading strategies in accordance with the task in hand and the
character of the individual text. Most should also be well on the way to
becoming critical readers recognising: attitudes, intentions, bias, inference
and implication in the language and organisation of non-fiction texts, and
expressing reasoned views with regard to literary texts, encompassing both
what is said and how it is said. A similar critical awareness should be
developing with reference to other media. It is particularly important that,
by the end of their last year of compulsory schooling, the English teaching
of most students should have led them to an awareness of and
responsiveness to the relevance of imaginative literature to human experi-
ence, to some appreciation of ways in which writers of fiction, poetry and
drama express their meanings, to be receptive to what is new to them and to
have begun to be capable of discriminating with regard to what they read.
Printed for Her Majesty's Stationery Office by Linneys Colour Print, Mansfield, England.
Dd 739856 C70 10/8649011
Curriculum Matters: an HMI series
This series of HMI discussion documents is intended as a contribution to
the process of developing general agreement about curricular aims and
objectives.
Comments from readers on papers in the Curriculum Matters series would
be welcome and should be sent to:
HM Inspectorate
Elizabeth House
York Road
London SE 1 7PH

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Department of Education and Science

Department of Education and Science

LONDON· HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE

Foreword to the second edition v

3 Some principles of English teaching 13

4 Some principles of assessment 16

English from 5 to 16: the responses

III The objectives 31

The series of HMI documents entitled Curriculum Matters is intended to

The intention is to carry forward a professional view about the objectives of

The responses to English from 5 to 16 made clear that a prerequisite to a

1. Cmnd 9469, HMSO, 1985.

1 Introduction: the aims of English

1.5 Before starting school, most children already have considerable

• As to writing, the aims should be to enable pupils:

Objectives for 7 year old pupils

2.4 At the age of 7, therefore, most children should be able to:

Objectives for 7 year old pupils - Continued

Use books as sources of information to support aspects of their work in the

Objectives for 11 year old pupils

Listen with patience, attention and understanding to other speakers in a

Objectives for 11 year old pupils - Continued

Read critically, distinguishing fact from opinion

The difference between vowels and consonants

Objectives for 16 year old pupils

2.8 At 16, therefore, most pupils should be able to:

Objectives for 16 year old pupils - Continued

Give instructions or directions so that they may be understood and carried

Read whole books of some length and requiring some persistence

Objectives for 16 year old pupils - Continued

Make notes of material heard or read as an aid to learning, as a prompt for

3 Some principles of English teaching

3.2 Teaching English at any level needs to be founded on understanding

3.3 In infancy, we begin to acquire language because we need it, both to

3.5 The planning of programmes of work and the assessment and

3.7 Learning about language is necessary as a means to increasing one's

3.8 There is much confusion over whether grammar should be explicitly

3.9 Punctuation needs more attention in English teaching than it

from the purposeful use of language. An exercise may be a useful way of

3.11 Talking, listening, reading and writing should constantly and

3.13 Accent or pronunciation is a different, though related matter.

3.16 The ability to read responsively and critically should be fostered by

3.17 The teacher's guiding principle in helping children to progress as

Whatever the language task, its purpose and requirements should be

4 Some principles of assessment

4.2 Periodic testing is a valuable means of assessing progress across a

4.4 It is essential, therefore, that in the day to day work of teaching

4.5 Any piece of language production or reception involves a complex of

arrive at a precise objective measurement of success in a piece of English

4.6 Moreover, language is always about something. It follows that

4.7 The assessment of a particular piece of work should relate to the

4.10 Assessment needs to be longitudinal. This involves reviewing all of

Assessing performance: suggestions - Continued

4.11 Assessment must be followed up, so that it leads to improvement.

4.12 The following suggestions may be useful in considering perform-

The spoken word

• More complex, however, is assessing performance when the pupil is a

Assessing performance: suggestions - Continued

• The best form of assessment of writing, therefore, is impression

Assessing performance: suggestions - Continued

ing in a non-standard form for a

b. Language performance in schools. Primary survey report No.2. HMSO,

5 Para 4.14 of reference 3d, above.