Raising Standards in English Teaching at Key Stage 2 — Teachers’ Perceptions of the English National Curriculum (1990‐1995) and the Relevance of This to the National Literacy Strategy (1998)

Abstract

A paper which explores the impact of the English National Curriculum (1990) on the work of teachers at Key Stage 2 based on their own experience of it, and derived from a theoretical template which set out to discover how English should be taught and learned, as well as what constitutes primary English subject knowledge. Issues emerged relating to each of the four language modes of English and the role which metacognition plays in learning English. The findings are reviewed against the background of the National Literacy Strategy (1998) in order to suggest what needs to be undertaken if standards are to rise to the proposed level of 80% of pupils achieving Level 4 by the year 2002.

Key words:

• Primary English
• key stage 2
• raising standards