Evidence-informed teaching matters, but research should not become a classroom rulebook. On teacher expertise, research fatigue, context,...

Photo by Allen Boguslavsky on Pexels.com For me, one of the most fascinating moments of England’s World Cup quarter-final victory over Norway happened in the minutes immediately after the mat…

Barbara Bleiman explores what the current momentum around oracy means for English classrooms, drawing together research, policy developments and classroom practice to highlight the big ideas teachers ...

Listen to the audiobook Classroom Talk, written by Rupert Knight, narrated by Gareth Richards.

Large meta-analysis shows how teacher talk relates to children’s language development. Why interaction quality matters more than word counts.

This blog is jointly authored by Victoria Crooks and Alex Ford. Check out to read more blogs from Alex. Photo by Vladimir Kudinov on Pexels.com Matthew is a fab beginning teacher.  He is highl…

Photo by Los Muertos Crew on Pexels.com Mentor meetings are the cornerstone of support for beginning teachers, shaping their early experiences and helping them make sense of both the theory behind …

The importance of spoken language in education for curricular, pedagogical and societal purposes is well established and sometimes articulated as oracy education. This article draws on Shulman's work....

The PM promised to prioritise oracy lessons, but has failed to do so. Set against tests and exams, it is seen as a luxury: in fact it is essential, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

Alastair Campbell and children’s author Michael Rosen among advocates calling for oracy to be in curriculum

Photo by Arul on Pexels.com One afternoon in June, at the dawn of the National Curriculum, a Year 8 pupil opened her history exercise book to find a handwritten note from her teacher which said:  ‘…

Adam Boxer recently posted on X: ‘To me, I/We/You is a powerful way to conceptualise teaching specific things. It is NOT a powerful way to structure lessons. It’s a cycle. And you could have …

Oracy: the politics of speech education, presented by Dr. Tom Wright

When teachers step into the classroom, we never act alone. There is no “I do”. Each of our actions is a response, a small arc, in a continual loop consisting of ourselves, our tools, and our students.

When was the last time you taught an individual lesson without using an interactive whiteboard, without PowerPoint, without pre prepared digital resources? When was the last time you did this for a…

Standardised curriculum packages are ‘imposed’, have ‘no meaningful workload gains’ and can lead teachers to quit, NEU report finds

The government have just announced that they are to make the Netflix series  Adolescence  free to show in all secondary schools . The move reflects a wider concern about the waves of disinformation...

On Tuesday morning I managed to set aside some time to read the DfE’s interim report of their curriculum and assessment review team . It has caused me to think a lot. Hell, it’s even made me find...

EMC's take on the what the interim report means for secondary English teaching

This month has seen the publication of We Need to Talk, the final report from the Oracy Education Commission. In this blog, I reflect on some immediate takeaway messages for primary schools. The work of the Oracy Education Commission has examined a mass of evidence over a busy six-month period. I’ve been fortunate to have ...

Here's what you need to know about the first report from the Francis review

Since my last post was about the phrase “women of a certain age”, I was intrigued to see a report in the Mail Online last week which claimed that Bristol University wants to ban it, along with othe…

If teacher expertise is the strongest determinant of student achievement, then how we think about expertise really matters.

Shifting and sometimes competing priorities are a daily reality for leaders trying to lead ethically, finds a new report