English teachers 'go back to basics': Report casts doubt on need for a curriculum shake-up
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Your support makes all the difference.ENGLISH teachers have gone back to basics and are using more traditional teaching methods, according to government-funded research published yesterday.
Results of a two-year study carried out at the University of Warwick show that the national curriculum has made English teachers teach the whole class more often, use the blackboard more and pay more attention to spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Teachers are spending more time on literature and in particular on Shakespeare. They are also teaching more pre-20th century works.
The news will be welcome to the Prime Minister and John Patten, the Secretary of State for Education, who both want to curb progressive teaching. However, the report's message that the present curriculum is working well is less comfortable for the Government, which a year ago demanded a complete revision of the English curriculum. Ministers said there was not enough emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar.
The researchers, Professor Bridie Raban, Urszula Clark and Joanna McIntyre, who visited 60 schools in seven local authorities, say more than half the teachers of 5- to 7-year-olds and nearly two-thirds of teachers of 7- to 11-year-olds believe they have changed their English teaching methods since the arrival of the national curriculum four years ago.
They also point out that teaching of reading by phonics, the system of sounding out words favoured by traditionalists, is common.
The researchers say that it is often national tests rather than the content of the curriculum which have influenced teachers' methods. Teachers worried that the requirement for children to write independently and punctuate some sentences correctly for the tests at seven meant pupils wrote less and in shorter sentences.
The report looks at the books, plays and poems which teachers ensure their pupils read. For 7- and 8- and 9-year-olds, this includes works by Roald Dahl such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Ted Hughes's The Iron Man and Clive King's Stig of the Dump. For 12- and 13-year-olds, Carrie's War by Nina Bawden and the Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler by G Kemp are books on their list. For 13- and 14-year-olds Robert Westall's The Machine Gunners and George Orwell's Animal Farm are favourites.
The report suggests there should be more practical guidance for teachers on both the teaching of reading and on how to help pupils' progress once they have acquired the basic skill. It says more help is needed with the teaching of spelling and handwriting.
Chris Woodhead, chief executive of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, said the report did not disprove the need for revision of the English curriculum, but 'there are aspects of the way the curriculum is structured about which we need to think again'.
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