On March 5th, Ofsted published a new document entitled Telling the story: the English education subject report. The stated aims of the report are:
[to] evaluate the common strengths and weaknesses of English that we have seen in schools across the country. We recommend ways for school and subject leaders to further improve their English curriculum.
Any report from Ofsted is bound to generate strong reactions (which are easily found on social media). In this post, I’m going to look at the report from a particular angle based on my area of work. Since 2019, I’ve been working at UCL on a project called Englicious. The aim of this project is to use expertise from the Survey of English Usage to help schools and teachers with the grammar requirements of the national Curriculum (2014), the most impactful of which have been the primary-level Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling SATs tests. This post will draw from what Ofsted has stated in this report regarding grammar, the curriculum and CPD with some personal comment based on my own views and experiences, and the wider political context – please feel free to comment and correct as needed!
Primary Grammar
The report frequently refers to grammar as part of ‘foundational knowledge’.
Knowledge of language, including vocabulary, grammar and syntax, is part of the foundational knowledge needed for reading, speech and writing.
It notes how schools teach grammar explicitly, which is unsurprising given that explicit knowledge of grammar is tested in the primary SATs. However, it identifies some shortcomings regarding the teaching of writing and error correction:
[…] pupils do not always get enough practice to secure this knowledge. […] Pupils’ books show that fundamental errors go unnoticed and persist over time.
[…]
Even when errors are addressed, especially in foundational knowledge such as grammar and punctuation, they sometimes persist. This means that mistakes can be embedded in long-term memory and become more difficult to unlearn.
From my experience working in and with schools, this has often been the case. Especially given the SATs testing, a great emphasis is placed on have the declarative knowledge of the grammatical terminology that allows learners to ‘label the parts’ and achieve higher scores in assessments. However, teachers are less likely to help learners apply that knowledge in practical ways that would help with their written production. Grammar can often been seen as a distinct domain which is addressed through decontextualised worksheets/online exercises.
The report goes on to recommend an approach that puts the grammatical knowledge to use in aiding leaners to achieve effects in their own work:
For example, they should make sure that their materials help teachers to know how to identify the grammar and vocabulary that pupils need to be taught, and to consider how tone, register and syntax differ, depending on the form chosen (my emphasis)
This approach, as we will see more of later, is fairly uncontroversial.
One aspect that does seem unusual to me, is the frequent association of grammar and ‘oral composition’:
In this report, oral composition refers to pupils practising composing sentences orally. This helps pupils to develop their knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure, and so prepares them for written composition.
[…]
For example, oral composition is rarely used to practise using grammatical conventions and different sentence structures.
[…]
Schools visited make some use of oral composition as part of writing lessons. […] This means that pupils at the earliest stages of learning to write have limited opportunities to practise, which in turn affects their ability to write coherently. This is because they are not given sufficient time to plan and consider sentence construction, grammar or vocabulary orally before being asked to write.
Before adding my opinion, I should add the caveat that I am not a primary school teacher, so these views are based more generally on my knowledge of literacy and pedagogy. There has been a recent push for a greater role for oracy in education. I imagine most teachers would agree that learners’ having a voice and taking part in discussions is to be welcomed in the classroom, and that, as stated in the report, oral production should not be dismissed because it cannot be as easily recorded as its written counterpart. However, this close association with oral composition and grammar should be treated with some caution. Of course, oracy should play a role in writing lessons: leaners can try saying sentences out loud to ‘get the feel of them’ and have discussions on how to rearrange and finesses their sentences, ideally making use of grammatical and English subject terminology!
The worrying aspect is the close association between oral production and and expectation to always speak with accurate grammar or in Standard English. Spoken language is different from written language, and it’s not realistic or beneficial to expect learners to always produce spontaneous spoken language in a ‘coherent’ fashion or ‘using grammatical conventions’. This misapprehension has already been seen in some schools which push for zero-tolerance policies on leaners’ speech containing any kind of fillers, hesitations, ‘slang’ words etc. which are all natural parts of spoken language. It would be acceptable to expect this in planned spoken language such as speeches, but it can have a restrictive effect if applied in a blanket fashion. Elements of this can be seen in the report’s approving description of one school’s approach to spoken language:
They considered how pupils might select and use the appropriate grammar and register for their audience and purpose, including standard English, as necessary. This included reframing pupils’ spoken language and asking pupils to repeat this reframing.
The references to ‘appropriate’ grammar as opposed to ‘accurate’ and ‘standard English, as necessary’ are welcome. The risk is that teachers and schools apply a broad understanding to what ‘as necessary’ means, which could be viewed as any time a pupil is speaking at school.
Secondary Grammar
From my experience working in schools and running training courses for teachers around the country, one common remark I hear is that there is not a strong enough connection between the grammar taught at primary level and the secondary curriculum. Primary and secondary teachers often lament this, while some of the latter actively tell their pupils to disregard the grammar they learnt in before as it’s no longer relevant. This shortcoming is recognised in the report:
In a small number of schools, leaders have carefully considered how to build on the curriculum from key stage 2, especially in terms of grammar and punctuation. These are not considered in the curriculum planning in many secondary schools though, and opportunities to retrieve this knowledge and apply it are not always clearly identified.
This point is reiterated in more detail in the section relating specifically to writing at secondary level:
Pupils need to be taught about sentence construction, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. This will allow them to write with confidence and increasing flair.
However, most schools do not carefully consider what pupils have learned in the primary phase and do not check and revisit key knowledge and skills. This is particularly evident in grammar and writing, where it is often assumed that pupils know or can do things, but schools fail to identify when these should be revisited, practised and developed over time.
[…] in many secondary schools, teaching focused too heavily on extended writing without securing pupils’ knowledge of important components such as knowledge of the topic they are writing about or knowledge of grammar.
Although leaders and teachers have a clear understanding of the relationship between the texts pupils study and the development of writing, in some schools their understanding of which specific elements they want to draw out for pupils to emulate, especially in syntax and grammar, was less clear. As a result, there is rarely a sense of this building on what has been taught before.
This chimes with the previous point made at primary level: that grammar is still seen as somewhat separate from the practice of writing. Teachers (influenced by the system they work in) often conceive of grammar purely in terms of accuracy i.e. how well a learner has achieved in SPaG, rather than as a resource that can be put to use in creative and meaningful ways. Ideally, teachers would be helping learners draw on the grammatical knowledge they gained at primary, and explaining and modelling how to use grammatical structures to achieve effects, such as writing in a formal register. This disconnect is unsurprising considering the historically underdeveloped role of grammar in the curriculum over the last half century or more. The majority of teachers will not have studied grammar formally and not be confident in teaching it explicitly, so will often instead rely on their ear for ‘what sounds right’.
Assessment
Regarding assessment and grammar, the report makes reference to issues related to both formative and summative assessment. The use of formative assessment as a learning tool is commonplace in schools. The report raises the issue that some grammatical errors that learners commit become second-nature for the learner, echoing the much cited Doug Lemov quote, ‘practice makes permanent’:
Even when errors are addressed, especially in foundational knowledge such as grammar and punctuation, they sometimes persist. This means that mistakes can be embedded in long-term memory and become more difficult to unlearn.
[…]
Evidence in books shows that pupils are often repeating the same errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar. Teachers do not carefully identify misconceptions and errors carefully [sic] enough and consider how to ensure that these are rectified.
It could be that regarding grammar, some teachers view formative assessment more as a way of tracking learner progress rather than as a teaching tool. At secondary level, some learners are seen as beyond hope if they are still struggling with grammatical issues in their wiring. If teachers are unconfident or lacking in grammatical knowledge, they will be less likely to plan interventions based on this kind of feedback. The report for its part does little to suggest how the curriculum aids teachers in achieving this approach beyond the need to check ‘carefully’ and ‘rectify’.
The report also has much to say on the negative side effects of summative assessments. One of its main recommendation for assessment is for schools to:
ensure that statutory tests and exams do not disproportionately influence decisions about curriculum and pedagogy
This is another way of expressing a common axiom in education and research: ‘Measure what is important, don’t make important what you can measure’. For teachers reading the report, they may find this advice a little galling. The recent history of English schooling has been dominated by trends of school league tables, Ofsted inspections, and high-stakes exams, all in the name of accountability. For schools hoping to reach a higher grade in their next inspection, achieving well in the criteria that the government has legislated they are to be measured on is an incentive that’s impossible to ignore. This approach has been frequently decried by many teachers who claim that it has reduced English Language and Literature teaching to ‘tick box exercises.’ These sentiments, somewhat ironically, are echoed in the report:
In most schools, summative assessment unhelpfully informs the design of the curriculum and how it is taught. Schools told us that they work towards national curriculum test assessments and moderation. In many schools, this process takes the form of writing or reading rubrics that pupils are assessed against. This presents a challenge, because curriculum planning does not identify the building blocks that pupils need in order to become proficient in those areas. Instead, pupils are expected to get better at the assessments merely by doing more of them
Statements like the above may be accurate, but appear to be eschewing the wider context. Many government policies over the last two decades have surely contributed to this outcome. Issues such as underfunding, low pay, and high workloads lead to poor teacher retention which in turn means experienced and knowledgable staff leave the sector. Pressure for schools to perform well in league tables and Ofsted inspections means it’s no surprise that school leaders focus on short-term ways of improving results, rather than on training new teachers more on their pedagogic and subject knowledge.
The report recognises that the statutory summative assessments are the ones that warp the teaching of English most:
In some primary schools, the demands of moderation result in pupils being asked to produce overly manufactured portfolios of writing that may not reflect what they can do independently.
[…]
Pupils, including very young pupils, talk clearly about their learning. However, most pupils refer to the skills they acquire in English so they can complete the national curriculum tests, rather than the stories, plays and poems in the English curriculum.
[…]
In some primary and secondary schools, preparation for external assessments distorts the curriculum. For example, at key stage 3, schools often encourage excessive practice of a narrow range of writing structures to prepare pupils for GCSEs.
I’m sure these kinds of practices will be familiar to many teachers. From talking to teachers when running English grammar training, it is clear that many see grammar as something required to pass the SATs tests with little other application, and, as we have seen, this view is often reinforced at the secondary level.
Based on my own experience in the classroom, ‘excessive practice of a narrow range of writing structures to prepare pupils for GCSEs’ is a sadly recognisable situation. I was often encouraged to use the assessment objectives from the specification as part of my teaching, even though these are taken from a technical document designed for teachers and assessors, not pupils. In the context of post-16 GCSE English Language resits, time pressures mean that ‘teaching to the test’ and coaching learners to get the best chance of securing a pass grade before they finish compulsory education are the norm.
Curriculum
The report emphasises the continued importance of the national curriculum:
All schools use the national curriculum as a basis for the writing curriculum.
The national curriculum occupies a somewhat ambiguous place in the English education system. Academies and free schools, whose rise has been overseen by successive governments, are allowed to deviate from the national curriculum. This is perhaps part of the reason why statutory assessments have had such an outsized influence, and why now Ofsted can question how so many schools seem to be diverging from the stated aims of the English curriculum.
Schools are sometimes confused about the purpose of English
English is not always valued as a subject in its own right. English has an important role as a distinct subject, as well as being a medium for teaching and serving other subjects. However, schools sometimes only focus on its supporting role, and this results in a weaker and less coherent English curriculum.
As we’ve already seen, the examination and inspection regime has an effect on what schools do. Again, it is not a little ironic that Ofsted is criticising schools for following the national curriculum in a way that they have been consistently incentivised to do:
Schools expect pupils to repeatedly attempt complex tasks that replicate national curriculum tests and exams. This is at the expense of first making sure that pupils are taught, and securely know, the underlying knowledge they need.
[…]
However, in some schools, completing national curriculum test and exam-style questions is the main, extremely limited, method of improving pupils’ reading fluency and comprehension.
[…]
In some schools, the curriculum is shaped by writing moderation and national curriculum tests. This leads to the weakest pupils rushing through foundational knowledge and not getting enough practice to become fluent in components such as transcription.
CPD
The importance of CPD for teachers is widely recognised, and is held up as a panacea for problems faced in schools. The report highlights CPD as a solution to one of the ills it previously identified: confusion over the role of English and its status as a subject in its own right.
Teachers’ content knowledge in English is fundamental to pupils’ progress. CPD should be relevant to teachers’ specific needs and capabilities, but it must also ensure that they understand the rationale for what they are being asked to learn.
Working on the Englicious project, I have seen first-hand how useful this kind of CPD can be for teachers. This is especially the case with a subject like grammar since many teachers lack expert knowledge in this area. The courses provided by Englicious address both aspects raised in the report: not only the ‘content knowledge’ (i.e. the English grammar concepts and terminology), but also the ‘rationale’ (i.e. how teachers can apply this knowledge of grammar to help their learners with analysing texts and creative writing).
In a section on recommendations for subject associations, the report explains the kind of approach they approve for teachers being trained in English instruction:
[…] help schools to understand the different components of written and spoken language and how to sequence, explicitly teach and assess them. For example, they should make sure that their materials help teachers to know how to identify the grammar and vocabulary that pupils need to be taught, and to consider how tone, register and syntax differ, depending on the form chosen
This summarises an approach which enjoys a consensus among teachers and academics regarding the role of grammar in education. Teachers should show learners how to identify different elements of grammar, but more importantly, how to use those elements to achieve particular effects in their own writing and in the analysis of others, depending on the context and genre. Another irony is that despite the broad agreement over this approach and a decade since explicit knowledge of grammar was reintroduced in the national curriculum, many schools are struggling to implement this. The report identifies a common pitfall:
In many schools, there is a lack of training and support to meet the national curriculum requirements. As a result, teachers are unclear about how to sequence the spoken language curriculum and receive little support with this. Teachers reflected that what is monitored is driving behaviour, for example, moderation of writing and preparation for national curriculum tests in reading comprehension and English grammar, punctuation and spelling (EGPS).
The lack of ‘training and support’ to meet the grammar requirements of the national curriculum is something that is apparent from working with teachers and schools around the country. Many teachers are motivated to have a better understanding of grammar, but there are numerous reason why this is not always straightforward. The report acknowledges one reason: the previously mentioned warping of teaching towards instrumental goals like passing tests. Again, this reinforces the idea that grammar is not seen as a core part of English as a subject. There are other reasons why training in grammar may not be prioritised: the broad workload of other requirements, the lack of teacher ‘buy-in’ to the value of grammar, changes in terminology and even political and ‘culture war’ biases.
Conclusion
In their report, Ofsted make some claims I would regard as largely uncontroversial. That grammar is one among several elements they refer to as ‘foundational knowledge’. That grammar is now taught explicitly, but errors are often overlooked in learners’ workbooks and can persist. And that one remedy to this would be a better understanding and application of formative assessment. The report also calls on schools to use formative assessment to make sure learners are secure in their foundational knowledge before they are expected to take on more challenging tasks such as extended writing. The report reflects a consensus among teachers and educators: that the main purpose of studying grammar is so that teachers can model the writing process for learners to emulate, and through this, select appropriate grammatical forms to achieve desired effects in their writing – and to analyse the stylistic choices of other writers. The report found that there is a lack of continuation in secondary-level approaches to grammar and a failure to build on prior learning, which has been borne out in my own professional experience.
Then there are some claims that may be challenged or need some contextualisation.
From my perspective, the frequent and close association between grammar and ‘oral composition’ came as a surprise although this may be due to my lack of experience in primary education. In regards to this link, I would underline the potential harm caused by expecting learners to produce spontaneous utterances that conform to strict grammatical conventions.
The report also reproves schools for allowing summative assessments to warp the curriculum. I would agree with them in their diagnosis of the problem as ‘teaching to the test’ appears to be the norm in many schools. However, the report fails to mention (and perhaps they would argue this is beyond their scope) the wider context: over two decades of education policies that have incentivised teachers and schools to behave in this exact way. I imagine most teachers would prefer the freedom to enact the alternative that Ofsted offers: for pupils to be taught a sequence of building blocks necessary for success, rather than near constant exam preparation drilling.
Lastly, the report notes a lack of training and support to meet the national curriculum requirements and equip teachers with the foundational knowledge and pedagogic rationale of domains such as English grammar. The historical context of the previous half century has lead to something of a perfect storm resulting in both a lack of knowledge and enthusiasm for English grammar as part of English as a school subject. It’s impossible to ignore the fact that this ‘lack of training and support’ is in large part due to government policies such as underfunding, the rise of academies and free schools, the regime of high-stakes exams all coupled with school inspections and rankings. Unfortunately, the report often gives the impression that the shortcomings lie with teachers and schools, rather than with those who inspect, regulate legislate for them.
To learn more about the Englicious project, visit the website here.
For more information on the Englicious English grammar CPD Courses, click here.
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