Meeting the Standards in Secondary English

A Guide to the ITT NC

Michael Fleming, Frank Hardman, David Stevens, John Williamson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134568505
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Meeting the Standards in Secondary English provides detailed subject knowledge, including the detailed pedagogical knowledge needed to teach English in secondary schools, support activities for work in schools and self-study and information on professional development for secondary schools.This practical, comprehensive and accessible book should prove invaluable for students on secondary initial teacher training courses, PGCE students, lecturers on English programmes and newly qualified secondary teachers.

1	Introduction Welcome to Your Teaching Career JOHN WILLIAMSON

Teaching is without doubt the most important profession; without teaching there would be no other professions. It is also the most rewarding. What role in society can be more crucial than that which shapes children’s lives and prepares them for adulthood?

Teaching: A Guide to Becoming a Teacher (TTA, 1998, p. 1)

So, you have decided to become a secondary English teacher. You will, no doubt, have heard lots of stories about teaching as a profession. Some will have been positive, encouraging, even stimulating. Others will have been negative and pejorative. But you are still here, on the doorstep of a rewarding and worthwhile career. Without doubt teaching is a demanding and challenging profession. No two days are the same. Children are never the same. The curriculum seldom stays the same for very long. But these things are all part of the challenge. Teaching as a career requires dedication, commitment, imagination and no small amount of energy. Yet, despite this, when things go well, when you feel your efforts to help children learn have been successful, you will feel wonderful. Welcome to teaching!

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SECONDARY TEACHING

As with most things, the teaching profession is constantly buffeted by the winds of change. In particular, the last decade or so has been a time of great change for all involved in secondary education. At the heart of this change has been the Education Reform Act (ERA) of 1988. The act brought about a number of far-reaching developments, the most significant of which was the creation of the National Curriculum and its related requirements for monitoring and assessment.

Although there have always been guidelines from professional bodies (such as teachers’ unions), local authorities and even official government publications, until 1988 teachers generally had freedom to decide for themselves what to teach and how to teach. Different approaches to curriculum planning and delivery have proved influential at different times. There has been a series of reports over the last quarter of a century which have impacted on the teaching of English in secondary schools that have largely arisen from ongoing concerns in government and other influential circles about the quality of provision in a subject which is seen as being of the highest importance. The Bullock Report (DES, 1975) went into great detail about all aspects of English teaching at both primary and secondary level but, in spite of saying a great deal which is still of value today, its recommendations went largely unheeded because, unlike National Curriculum documents, it did not have statutory force. Concerns about English teaching persisted and HMI produced a booklet English from 5 to 16 (DES, 1984) which was the first of a series of important publications produced during the 1980s. Although this booklet was not universally welcomed by English teachers, it can be seen as the precursor of the first version of the National Curriculum. Another influence on the National Curriculum was the Kingman Report (DES, 1988) whose focus was ‘explicit knowledge of the structure of the language’ (p. iii). This has been a persisting theme running through the various forms of the National Curriculum for English. However, the most important work of this period was the Cox Report (DES, 1989) which laid out the framework for the first version of National Curriculum English (DES, 1990). This was generally, if cautiously, welcomed by English teachers but did not meet the demands of their political masters who set up a review chaired by Lord Dearing which led to the second version of National Curriculum English (DFE, 1995). In 1995, English teachers were assured that there would be no further curriculum changes for five years, an assurance which was adhered to quite punctiliously since 1999 saw the publication of the third version of National Curriculum English, which is the one which you will be implementing in (at least) the early years of your career. This brief narrative has been intended simply to help you place the National Curriculum in something of a historical context; the details will be explored in the following chapters of this book.

THE STANDARDS DEBATE

Parallel to the changing perspectives on curriculum has been an increasing emphasis on standards. There has, in essence, been a shift in perspectives from equality in education (as reflected in the post-war legislation of the late 1940s through to the 1970s) to the quality of education, the bandwagon of the 1980s and 1990s.

The term ‘standard’ is emotive and value-laden. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, among other descriptors of a standard, it is a weight or measure to which others conform or by which the accuracy of others is judged and also a degree of excellence required for a particular purpose. Both of these definitions sit well with the educational use of the term where it translates as acceptable levels of performance by schools and teachers in the eyes of the public and the politicians.

Over the last decade, the media has reported numerous incidents of falling standards and the failure of the educational system to live up to the degree of excellence required for the purpose of educating our young in preparation for future citizenship. We teachers have, purportedly, been measured and found lacking. It was this, in part, which was a major force behind the introduction of the National Curriculum.

In 1989, when the National Curriculum was introduced, the Department for Education and Science claimed:

There is every reason for optimism that in providing a sound, sufficiently detailed framework over the next decade, the National Curriculum will give children and teachers much needed help in achieving higher standards.

(DES, 1989, p. 2)

One of the major thrusts underpinning changes over the last decade or so has been the question of how we measure and judge the outcomes of the teaching and learning enterprise. To achieve the appropriately educated citizens of the future, schools of the present must not only achieve universal literacy and numeracy but also be measurably and accountably seen to be doing so, hence the introduction of league tables as performance indicators.

David Blunkett, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment at the time of writing, said in 1997:

Poor standards of literacy and numeracy are unacceptable. If our growing economic success is to be maintained we must get the basics right for everyone. Countries will only keep investing here at record levels if they see that the workforce is up to the job.

(DfEE, 1997a, p. 2)

While the economic arguments are strong, we need to balance the needs of the economy with the needs of the child. Few teachers are likely to disagree with the need to get the ‘basics’ right. After all, literacy and numeracy skills underpin much that we do with children in all areas of the curriculum. However, the increased focus on the ‘basics’ should not be at the expense of these other areas of experience. Children should have access to a broad and balanced curriculum if they are to develop as broad, balanced individuals.

All schools are now ranked each year on the basis of their pupils’ performances in standardised tests and external examinations (GCSE and A level). The performances of individual children are conveyed only to their parents, although the school’s collective results are discussed with school governors and also given to the local education authority (LEA). The latter then informs the DfEE which publishes the national figures on a school/LEA basis. This gives parents the opportunity to compare, judge and choose schools within the LEA in which they live. The figures indicate, for each school within the LEA, the percentage above and below the expected level – in other words, the schools that are or are not meeting the standard. This results in inevitable conclusions as to whether standards are rising or falling. Such crude measures as Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs) for comparing attainment have been widely criticised, notably by education researchers like Fitz-Gibbon (1996) who criticises the fact that such measures ignore the ‘value added elements’ – the factors which influence teaching and learning such as the catchment area of the school, the proportion of pupils for whom English is an additional language and the quality and quantity of educational enrichment a child receives in the home. Davies (1996) suggests that:

Dissatisfaction [with standards] is expressed spasmodically throughout the year but reaches fever pitch when the annual national test results are published. Whatever the results they are rarely deemed satisfactory and targets are set which expect future cohorts of children to achieve even higher standards than their predecessors.

(Davies, 1996, p. 162)

There are also targets for Initial Teacher Training (ITT) to redress the perceived inadequacies in existing course provision. These centre on a National Curriculum for Initial Teacher Training which prescribes the skills, knowledge and understandings which all trainees must achieve before they can be awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). It follows, therefore, that as a trainee for the teaching profession you must be equipped to deal with these contradictory and sometimes conflicting situations as well as meeting all the required standards. So how will you be prepared for this?

ROUTES INTO A CAREER IN TEACHING

To begin, let us first consider the routes into teaching open to anyone wanting to pursue teaching as a career. Teaching is now an all-graduate profession, although this has not always been the case. Prior to the 1970s it was possible to become a teacher by gaining a teaching certificate from a college of higher education. However in the late 1960s and early 1970s, following a sequence of government reports, the routes were narrowed to ensure graduate status for all newly qualified teachers.

For many teachers in the United Kingdom this has been via an undergraduate pathway, reading for a degree at a university (or a college affiliated to a university) which resulted in the award of Bachelor of Education (BEd) with QTS. Such a route has usually taken at least three and sometimes four years. More recently, such degrees have become more linked to subject specialisms and some universities offer Bachelor of Arts in Education (BA (Ed.) ) with QTS and Bachelor of Science in Education (BSc (Ed.) ) with QTS.

Many other teachers choose to gain their degrees from a university first and then train to teach through the postgraduate route. This usually takes one year, at the end of which the trainee is awarded a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) with QTS. In all cases, the degree or postgraduate certificate is awarded by the training institution but the QTS is awarded by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) as a consequence of successful completion of the course and on the recommendation of the training institution.

Whichever route is followed, there are rigorous government requirements which must be met by both the institutions providing the training and the trainees following the training programme before QTS can be awarded. In the 1970s and early 1980s, teacher training institutions had guidelines produced by a group called the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE). The guidelines identified key requirements that all Initial Teacher Training providers should meet to be judged effective in training teachers. Alongside the CATE criteria were systems of monitoring the quality of programmes.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were a number of government documents which have moved Initial Teacher Training in the direction of partnership with schools. This has involved school staff taking greater responsibility for the support and assessment of students on placements and a transfer of funds (either as money or as in-service provision) to the schools in payment for this increased responsibility. Along with this responsibility in schools, staff have increasingly become involved...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Series Editor’s Preface
• 1 Introduction: Welcome to Your Teaching Career
• 2 What Do We Mean by Secondary English Teaching?
• 3 What Do We Mean by Standard English and Language Study?
• 4 What Do We Mean by Grammar?
• 5 What Do We Mean by Teaching Literature in Secondary English?
• 6 What Do We Mean by Teaching Drama?
• 7 What Do We Mean by Media Education in English?
• 8 Assessment
• 9 Conclusion
• Appendix A English NC for ITT
• Appendix B Self-audits
• Appendix C Self-audit of Pedagogical Subject Knowledge
• Index