Contrary to what historians have habitually reported, our research is revealing that the radically new curriculum and pedagogy for the teaching of English that historians have habitually usually ascribed to the 1960s was already well under way in the 1950s. It seems to us that the origins of what is referred to as ‘The New English’ lie in the immediate post-war climate of democratic optimism and cultural renewal, one aspect of which was a breakdown of traditional deference. It is common, for example, to read about the way that certain members of the pre-war cultural elite were transformed by the democratising experience of teaching a variety of armed service audiences during the Second World War. In the aftermath of the War, existing hierarchies associated with Nation and Empire broke down as a consequence of deep structural changes – economic, demographic, and cultural. At the same time, existing class-based structures of social and cultural authority were challenged (as well as reasserted) during a period of national reconstruction. Corresponding patterns of social deference broke down under pressure of social and cultural change.

This democratising climate manifested itself in parts of the educational system in, for instance, a new tendency for teachers to form co-operative networks and associations and to take it upon themselves to promote innovations in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It was manifest as well in the students’ demeanour’.

In the context of post-war national renewal, English as a subject in the curriculum came under particular scrutiny as a potential source of cultural continuity. We are looking into teacher-led innovation in three secondary school English Departments that had a disproportionate influence on the way English teaching developed. Existing histories of post-war English draw their evidence from publications. Taking a different approach involving extensive use of oral history methods alongside other sources, we are conducting case studies of three London secondary school English departments (1945 -1965) using interviews with surviving teachers and pupils together with the study of documents such as school records, but especially student work, in an attempt to establish what went on in classrooms and what the experience of English was for both teachers and students.

 Drawing on mixed evidence from the three schools, this paper will present three areas in which a newly democratic and less deferential spirit appears to have had an impact on the realities of students’ education: the determination of some teachers to establish the validity of vernacular speech in English lessons in conjunction with a new hospitality towards ‘ordinary experience’; the impact teachers from the Commonwealth(especially Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Caribbean) during a time of teacher shortages; and the institutional battle by the London Association for the Teaching of English to reform the main public examination in English away from traditional elitist lines.

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