During the last year the Director of the English Subject Centre, Ben Knights, made contact with a large number of those who teach English on PGCEs. This contact resulted in some initial meetings. These notes have been included as an example of work in progress, and constitute an invitation to further correspondence.They summarise the findings of meetings held in spring 2004 at Durham Stockton Campus and at Bedford Square, London.There was warm support for this initiative by the Subject Centre, including a number of supportive e-mails from colleagues who could not attend the actual events.
Ben began by outlining the brief of the Learning and Teaching Support Network / Higher Education Academy and of the English Subject Centre, and sketching a context for these meetings. As part of its brief, the Subject Centre had identified what was widely acknowledged to be a serious rift between English as practised in schools and that studied in higher education. It was therefore seeking to support moves to improve dialogue between the communities of those who teach at secondary and tertiary levels. The Subject Centre was well aware that other bodies and informal groups were at work in this terrain and was seeking to identify a complementary role. There was a further motive for holding these consultations: English Staff in Education departments – apart from constituting an important ‘go between’ group – were themselves part of the higher education English community and therefore should in their own right come within the Subject Centre’s remit.
Widespread concern within English departments about student preparedness for university study, about low expectations of reading, and strategic learning habits constituted a subset of a larger problem about the differences between English in school and at university. The Subject Centre itself had a potentially important role in feeding back into English Departments knowledge about the school curriculum and assessment regime and the constraints under which secondary teachers operated. It should be in a position to facilitate crossphase dialogue between teachers. To be able to do this effectively it needed to start with its own dialogue with teachers, and English in Education lecturers were obviously well placed to enable such communication.
Rich and wide-ranging discussions followed this initial scene-setting. Only those elements most directly relevant to the Subject Centre initiative are noted here. Participants were responsive both to the analysis of the situation and the historical forces that have produced it. They noted how much they valued this opportunity to meet, and engaged in a vigorous debate over ways of influencing the emerging shape of English.While some felt that Higher Education departments had given no clear picture of what English should be (and had in any case lost their historic link to the examining boards), in the view of others, English Departments were the last people to be entrusted with the future of the subject. Some argued that English in Education lecturers themselves had failed to seize the opportunity to shape the subject – though that opportunity might not be irrevocably lost. There was some evidence that as subject-specific questions moved up the policy agenda there might be an opportunity to articulate a vision for English, though that would itself require them to attain a shared view which at the moment was lacking. As so widely in education, there was much silence and much compliance. It was however possible that English in Education lecturers themselves might be able undertake small scale initiatives in initiating genuinely interested higher education English department staff into the day-to-day realities of life in schools. The dominant communications paradigm of English (based on a narrow linguistic model) meant that basic questions for English teachers (what should we read?) were going unanswered. With the limited exception of the A/AS curriculum, texts studied in school were untouched by curricula or debates within higher education.This situation went back well before the National Curriculum or Literacy Strategy, though was being exacerbated by the wholesale anthologisation of the curriculum, and the penetration of the assessment regime and learning objectives into all corners of the life of schools. (The liberating effects for Independent Schools of not being subject to SATS was ruefully remarked upon.) Given the shock immersion in strategies experienced by many English graduates entering their PGCE, they needed to be helped to hold on to their subject knowledge and a sense of its relevance.
Outcomes
• There is a clear imperative to carry on dialogue with PGCE and other English in Education staff; to build on the conversations that are already happening, and on the research on transition being carried out by Andrew Green for the Subject Centre, by Chris Hopkins at Sheffield Hallam and by Peter Childs at Gloucestershire.
• Those who took part in the meetings would themselves welcome being involved in a continuing dialogue with the Subject Centre.
• Further regional consultations between the Subject Centre and English in Education staff should take place, and the Nottingham area was mentioned as a fruitful possibility.
• English students who go into teacher training (or who are thinking of doing so) should be identified as themselves a ‘transition’ group worthy of Subject Centre attention.
• At Durham / Stockton a day event would be trialled involving PGCE students, their lecturers and school mentors, together with one or two sympathetic Higher Education English staff. (This event took place on November 3, and was dedicated to the theme of ‘using your subject knowledge’) One suggestion was that Teacher Training Agency funding might be available to support such an event. It was also noted that such an initiative could well find favour with OFSTED.
• The Subject Centre should research good practice among those English departments which still hold 6th form conferences, and explore the nature of their school links.
• The Subject Centre should advertise on its website and Bulletin its role in relation to English and Education staff, and liaise with the NATE (National Association for the Teaching of English) Initial Teacher Training committee and others about its mailing list.
• Ben was invited to and attended the NATE Initial Teacher Training committee meeting.
• If the Subject Centre through the Higher Education Academy does possess a voice in policy discussions, then it should seek to influence debates on English in schools, for example in the wake of the Tomlinson 14 – 18 recommendations.
