Grammar has been identified as a likely candidate for change in the upcoming education reforms. Luke Pearce cautions that without taking into consideration the interplay between curriculum, assessment and incentives, we risk repeating the same mistakes of the last decade which have prevented teachers from appreciating the value of grammar in their everyday practice
As most teachers will have noticed, there’s a Curriculum and Assessment Review underway — a none too surprising development considering it’s been over ten years since the last major reforms. Last year, Professor Becky Francis led a ‘call for evidence’ and as of now, we’re still waiting for an official announcement of what changes will be made. Professor Francis, while not revealing many details, has signalled a certain tone: ‘evolution not revolution’ is the order of the day. Despite widespread criticism of the previous education reforms under Michael Gove, there doesn’t appear to be much appetite in government or the education sector for wholesale transformation by, say, fundamentally retooling the examination system. However, there is at least one topic over which there have been some ominous soundings.
Grammar on the chopping block
In March this year, an interim report hinted at what we can expect. In keeping with the cautious approach, the report didn’t reveal many specific areas for change, with a few notable exceptions – one such being the role of grammar in English. The report stated: ‘the standalone end of Key Stage 2 assessment on grammar, punctuation and spelling might lead to the teaching of textual features in isolation at the expense of a sound understanding of reading and writing.’ Here, the report did single out the current approach to grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) at primary level, specifically in terms of how it negatively affects the wider teaching of English. To be clear, this does not refer to general accuracy in written work (often referred to as SPaG), but to a more traditional concept that Gove (re)introduced back in 2014: namely, testing learners on ‘explicit grammar knowledge’ through ‘labelling the parts’ of sentences with terminology such as ‘subject’ or ‘fronted adverbial’ as part of the SATs exams.
Given the generally cautious approach of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, it’s a little surprising to see one area identified in this way. That said, the controversy and unpopularity of the role of grammar in primary English will not surprise many teachers or parents, especially in the context of the SATs. Public figures like Micheal Rosen have frequently railed against it on social media and in letters published in broadsheet newspapers. More recently, professional bodies, drawing on their own evidence reviews and members’ views, made their positions clear in anticipation of the upcoming reforms. For instance, the CLPE labelled the GPS content in SATs ‘too overwhelming and too disconnected’, and advocates for ‘an approach which allows effective knowledge of language and grammar to be explored through reading and writing.’
The UKLA called for the removal of the GPS test, and states, ‘teaching for the test frequently occupies a disproportionate amount of curriculum time’. The EA also demanded its removal, and instead espouses ‘better sequenced grammar over the curriculum.’ Most likely fully aware of this prevailing consensus, the Department of Education’s interim report stated that SATs will not be removed wholesale, but it does appear that some sort of major change to the GPS section is all but a foregone conclusion, whether that is by reform, reduction or complete removal.
For many, this will be a cause for celebration. But just how widespread is grammar scepticism, and what motivates it? These are questions I tried to answer through conducting an informal survey of parents and teachers as part of my work on the Englicious project at UCL. Unsurprisingly, there was a range of criticisms of how grammar is taught: too much focus on rules and terminology; too much breadth in content; too much time and energy spent on preparing for the stressful testing which in turn leads to ‘tick-box’ teaching, among many others. Respondents also commonly advocated for a greater role for creativity and expression, and a more holistic approach which can be termed ‘grammar in context’; that is, applying grammatical knowledge in reading and writing with a focus on effect on the reader, rather than only ‘labelling the parts’.
A missed opportunity
It’s likely that teachers and parents will be nodding in agreement with this appraisal. Even advocates for the Gove’s traditionalist reforms and explicit knowledge of grammar would probably admit that the scales need a little rebalancing. However, there is still a certain irony about these very reasonable complaints. During the formulation of the previous curriculum, expert linguists and educationalists were consulted and wrote a document that, in fact, already advocates a ‘grammar in context’ approach at both primary and secondary level. National Curriculum documents for Key Stage 2 state that pupils should ‘consciously control’ sentences in order to ‘build cohesion’ and ‘enhance effects’, rather than merely focussing on accuracy or labelling the parts. The Key Stage 3 document expects this approach to be built upon: ‘Pupils should […] consolidate and build on their knowledge of grammar…’ through ‘studying the effectiveness and impact of the grammatical features of the texts they read.’ Based on my Englicious report and anecdotally speaking with teachers, it doesn’t appear that many secondary teachers have been teaching their students to continue applying their knowledge of concepts like fronted adverbials or determiners in their textual analysis or creative writing.
Despite its inscription in the National Curriculum, it appears that this approach largely failed to materialise — but why? Most likely, it’s because — whisper it — what’s written in the National Curriculum doesn’t matter as much as we imagine. Schools are incentivised to prioritise the things on which they are observed, assessed and ranked, especially anywhere Ofsted is involved. This is why grammar is seen as intrinsically linked to the SATs and ‘tick-box’ teaching at primary, and often forgotten and even dismissed at secondary, rather than as part of a broad and creative English curriculum as originally intended.
Next steps
After reforming the National Curriculum back in 2014, the Conservative Party somewhat undermined their own changes by furthering the process of academisation. These institutions which have come to dominate in England are not required to follow the National Curriculum, unsurprisingly weakening the document’s role as an educational lodestar. Many of the criticisms of how grammar has been taught over the last decade are perfectly valid, and hopefully the new curriculum will address these issues.
Grammar’s close association with SATs meant that it was consistently tarred with wider criticisms of primary-level assessment, while the updated terminology flummoxed progressives and traditionalists alike. The ultimate irony is that, for the last ten years, there has been a perfectly good guide to teaching ‘grammar in context’ written in the National Curriculum, but schools on the whole have not been supported or incentivised to pursue it, meaning this approach has fallen to the wayside while schools and teachers understandably prioritise exam results, observations and a hundred other things.
Recently, the Department of Education announced that academy chains will soon have to follow the National Curriculum like their state-maintained cousins. However, as we have seen, having a well-written curriculum is not always enough. Schools and teachers will be motivated by where they are held accountable and that will tend to be in the results of summative assessments like SATs and GCSEs. To truly achieve a curriculum (and actual day-to-day teaching) that is broad, creative and knowledge-rich, teachers will need further training and support so that including grammatical knowledge alongside literary devices and persuasive features becomes second-nature, whether or not pupils are tested on recalling that specific knowledge. Armed with the same grammatical knowledge, primary and secondary teachers would see opportunities for making the most of this powerful knowledge in both language and literature classes, as well as in learning foreign languages and simply appreciating the quirks and complexity of English from a linguistically-informed perspective.