Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that teachers of English in the new Key Stage 4 curriculum issued in July 2014 are as aware as their colleagues teaching maths and the sciences of the importance placed by the curriculum on vocabulary command in achieving precision and clarity of expression and of helping their pupils develop such a command.

The Department for Education wants all pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary and become competent in the conventions for reading, writing and spoken language. The Department’s new English curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils can write clearly and accurately and are competent in the arts of speaking and listening. The Government believes that it is important that schools take responsibility for their own improvement, including identifying what support their teachers need to ensure that they are teaching the new curriculum most effectively.