The destruction of good English teaching began with the move to comprehensive schooling beginning in 1967.
Sir,
I find the assertion of a link between comprehensive schooling in England and poor English language instruction wholly absurd. The two phenomena are correlated, but are obviously linked by time. The 1970s saw popularity of a number of alternative English teaching practices, which did not teach grammar explicitly, but also had other defects (such as not correcting spelling). However, I know that some schools continued to teach English in a more traditional manner until the introduction of the National Curriculum. It is possible that some managed to continue beyond that, but I do not know them.
I cannot see why you think comprehensive schooling caused so-called "trendy teaching". As further evidence, attainment statistics reportedly show a broadly similar change over the same period of time across both selective and comprehensive areas. From anecdotal reports, the same teaching methods seem to have been used in selective schools.
I apologise that this is now heading off-topic for the list.
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