English in the News

Below is a selection of articles which are archived online and may be of interest to NATE members. If you know of others please let us know. Keep up to date with our Twitter feed, too.

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• English and maths GCSE gap grows - BBC, Sunday April 9, 2006
  
  An increased proportion of teenagers in England who appear to have good GCSE grades do not have English and maths qualifications, research shows.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• English A-level 'should widen' - BBC, Tuesday April 19, 2005
  
  Teachers say pupils should be able to study both literature and language in A-level English.

  A report for the National Association of Teachers of English (Nate) [sic] challenges the tradition of A-level students only taking literature. Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here

• English 'must reflect technology' - BBC, Thursday October 13, 2005
  
  English in schools must adapt to reflect the use of text messaging and communication via new technologies, a report says. Research by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority says new skills are needed to keep pace with change. Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• English 'losing out' to literacy - BBC, Thursday April 9, 2009
  
  

  English lessons are dying out and being replaced by literacy, the leader of a teaching union claims.

  Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• England's school curriculum review sparks debate - The Guardian, Monday October 3, 2011
  
  New National Curriculum: draft programme of study for English delayed. Speaking and listening looked like it would have a traditionalist flavour, emphasising "standard English"Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• England's glory: why England needs Milton - The Guardian, Saturday December 6, 2008
  
  John Milton, who was born in London 400 years ago next week, was the greatest English poet after Shakespeare. This Milton anniversary year has of course been richly marked by lectures, discussions and exhibitions. The BBC - as national broadcaster - will rightly commemorate Milton this month with an extensive range of programmes on Radio 3, including a complete reading of Paradise Lost starting on December 22. All honour to all these efforts.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• England young 'among most tested' - BBC, Friday February 8, 2008
  
  Primary school children in England are subjected to more testing at an earlier age than many other Western countries, according to a study.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• England falls in reading league - BBC, Wednesday November 28, 2007
  
  The reading performance of children in England has fallen from third to 19th in the world in a major assessment.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Eng Lit 'dumbed down' - Times Educational Supplement, Friday April 22, 2005
  
  British teenagers can get a GCSE and A-level in English without having read Charles Dickens, Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte.

  The most popular GCSE exam in the subject, taken by nearly 400,000 pupils last year, offers questions on one of eight novels, including Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies and The Catcher in the Rye, but no 19th-century text.

  [This is a report on the recent QCA/Royal Society of Literature English 21 Event.]Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here

• End of coursework era - Times Educational Supplement, Friday March 31, 2006
  
  England's exam watchdog wants to scrap coursework in many GCSE and A-level subjects within four years, its head told The TES this week. Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, said coursework would remain only where it was the most reliable way of ranking pupils. Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• End league tables, say governors - BBC, Saturday November 17, 2007
  
  School governors are calling for an end to the current system of league tables and national tests in England.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• End exams for children under 16, says watchdog - The Guardian, Monday June 11, 2007
  
  SATs make English pupils most tested in the world.
  Parents sceptical of league tables, GTC study finds Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Empire edges out Austen in draft school curriculum - The Guardian, Friday June 30, 2006
  
  Pupils aged 11 to 14 will learn more about the British empire but will not have to study Jane Austen or swim during physical education, under new draft curriculum guidelines.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Embrace media studies or literature will die - Times Educational Supplement, Friday July 1, 2005
  
  The TES front-page story about the growing success of media studies and the potential harm being done to English literature (June 17) made for interesting reading. It appeared, coincidentally, the day after the final GNVQ media examination. If the switch is happening, and I believe that at the lower academic end it is and will continue to do so, then the AQA Anthology, aka "Death by Poetry", must bear a large part of the responsibility. Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Elite exam to rival A-levels approved - The Guardian, Friday April 11, 2008
  
  Critics fear disproportionate take-up by private schools Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Edwin Morgan, Scotland's national poet, dies aged 90 - The Guardian, Thursday August 19, 2010
  
  Carol Ann Duffy and others pay tribute to a 'generous, gentle genius' known for the variety and inventiveness of his workLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Education unions plan 2010 Sats boycott - The Guardian, Thursday March 26, 2009
  
  Testing must end this year, say NUT and NAHT - Conference votes follow scrapping of exams at 14Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Education secretary scraps modular GCSEs from 2012 - BBC, Sunday June 26, 2011
  
  Modular GCSEs are to be scrapped from September 2012 the Education Secretary Michael Gove has told the BBC.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Education secretary arranges boys' bookshelves - The Guardian, Wednesday May 16, 2007
  
  A list of more than 160 books, from Frankenstein to Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, has been published today in a bid to encourage teenage boys to read for pleasure. [The article includes a link to the full list]Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
• Education quango scrapped in Whitehall cull - Daily Telegraph, Thursday May 27, 2010
  
  

  The quango responsible for managing exams and the curriculum in England will be scrapped, the government announced today.

  Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here