§ Mr. Win GriffithsTo ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will arrange for the key stage 3 English proposals of the Curriculum Council for Wales to be sent to all secondary schools in England.
§ Mr. ForthNo. The recommendations of the Curriculum Council for Wales (CCW) for the revision of348W the National Curriculum Order for English are addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. In most respects they are in agreement with the recommendations of the National Curriculum Council, which my right hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales adopted as the basis of the proposals which they published for consultation on 15 April. The CCW did, however, recommend certain differences which were indicated in my right hon. Friends' proposals. The chief of these were requirements relating to spoken standard English and the range of pupils' reading which were recommended by the CCW as more appropriate to pupils learning English in Wales. The CCW recommendations are therefore being circulated to all schools in Wales, to inform the consultation on my right hon. Friends' proposals in that country. Those proposals are for a single order, to apply to schools in England and Wales, but they raise the question whether the lists of required or recommended reading in the programmes of study should allow some variation for pupils in Wales to include appropriate representation of work in English by Welsh writers.