Catalogue description Department of Education and Science: Committee of Inquiry into English Language Teaching (Kingman Committee): Minutes and Papers

In the autumn of 1986 the Secretary of State for Education and Science, the Rt Hon Kenneth Baker, MP, set up a Committee of Inquiry into English Language Teaching, chaired by Sir John Kingman, Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University.

Its terms of reference were:

1. To recommend a model of the English language, whether spoken or written, which would: (1) serve as a basis of how teachers are trained to understand how the English language works; (2) inform professional discussion of all aspects of English teaching.

2. To recommend the principles which should guide teachers on how far and in what ways the model should be made explicit to pupils, to make them conscious of how language is used in a range of contexts.

3. To recommend what, in general terms, pupils need to know about how the English language works and in consequence what they should have been taught, and be expected to understand, on this score, at age 7, 11 and 16.

The Committee's Report was published in March 1988.