No subject in the National Curriculum has been the source of more controversy than English. It has been at the heart of fierce debates in the political arena, amongst the policy makers responsible for the National Curriculum, in the academic world and in the media. Underlying these arguments have been, on the one hand, an agreement that English is a subject of special importance in the curriculum and, on the other, often profound disagreements about what the nature of that subject ought to be. At the same time, there has been a tendency for policy to be made without reference to evidence about the necessity, the feasibility or even the desirability of the proposals being put forward. In the main, the work presented in this submission provides evidence relevant to the National Curriculum for English as it has developed over the last six years.

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