The Challenge of English in the National Curriculum considers how particular aspects of a national curriculum can be reconciled with the best practice of the English teaching tradition. The authors are all practising teachers who look at the lessons of the past as well as their hopes for the future. Each chapter begins from a question raised by teachers when asked at in-service workshops about the issues which concerned them most. The chapters cover most of the more significant aspects of English within the National Curriculum and vary from John Johnson's survey of practical ways to raise the standard of oracy to Nick Peim's suggestions for coping with Key Stage 4 which leads him to a radical questioning of the whole nature of English as a curriculum subject.

The Challenge of English in the National Curriculum considers how particular aspects of a national curriculum can be reconciled with the best practice of the English teaching tradition. The authors are all practising teachers who look at the lessons of the past as well as their hopes for the future. Each chapter begins from a question raised by teachers when asked at in-service workshops about the issues which concerned them most. The chapters cover most of the more significant aspects of English within the National Curriculum and vary from John Johnson's survey of practical ways to raise the standard of oracy to Nick Peim's suggestions for coping with Key Stage 4 which leads him to a radical questioning of the whole nature of English as a curriculum subject.

For more than thirty years the solution to all Britain's problems has been better management. As a result management schools now dominate higher education and managers are at work everywhere developing 'strategies', delivering 'systems' and defining quantifiable 'outcomes'. The consummation of the process has been New Labour's 'rebranding' of Britain as afully manageable commodity.

Yet, strangely, things often seem worse organised than before. There are noe more managers on the rail network than train drivers, yet the benefits of modern management of railways, schools, hospitals, universitys, art centres, BBC, churches . . . are hard to find.

This is because there is one flaw in the great vision of a managed society: 'management' does not exist--the academic study of 'management science' and the assumtion that there are universal management skills are bogus. This book shows how modern managment practicea have all but destroyed politics, education, culture and religion--modern manaement is not the cure but the cause of many of our national ills.