According to many experts, we are in the midst of a new public health crisis, the sleep crisis, a time of widespread poor sleep and chronic exhaustion. This project, a Wellcome Trust funded collaboration between literary and cultural studies scholar Dr Diletta De Cristofaro, psychologists at Northumbria University (Prof Jason Ellis, Dr Pam Alfonso-Miller, and…
How to use authentic speaking scenarios to teach discrete communication skills such as voice, structure, pace, pause, gesture and emphasis This workshop will explore how we can make sure talk opportunities in the classroom are relevant, realistic, and reflective of learners’ real lives and needs. We will consider how purposeful spoken language tasks can give…
Join us to reflect on and respond to the English Association’s State of the Subject Report 2025-26 by Antony Rowland We will use this online forum to hear your thoughts about English Studies in these difficult times. What do we learn about English Studies from this Report? What positive, practical steps are the subject community…
This webinar focuses on the potential for reading to support young people’s empathy There is growing interest in the relationship between reading and empathy, specifically understanding whether, how, and for whom, book reading fosters empathy. This webinar explores the potentially enriching effects of books, and other texts, to support empathy. The speakers will provide examples…
We teamed up with Inclusive Books for Children (IBC), who specialise in making it easy to source diverse children’s books, to find out what happens when inclusive books land in the classroom. Curated packs of inclusive books went to a sample of UK primary classrooms, and the case study explores the impact on children’s reading…
Practical strategies and teacher insights for bringing Shakespeare and drama to life through performance-based learning How can drama unlock deeper engagement and understanding in the English classroom? This interactive webinar explores practical approaches to using performance-based techniques when teaching Shakespeare and other texts. With input from a working teacher and the Head of Learning at…
The Davy Notebooks Project is a crowdsourced initiative to transcribe and study the notebooks of Sir Humphry Davy (1778–1829), revealing him as both a pioneering chemist and a poet, and showing how his ideas emerged through collaboration with friends, colleagues, and fellow experimenters. Volunteers worked together and with the project team to decipher words and…
What happens when we lose the spaces where people sit together and practice thinking collectively? For 25 years, Julia Bell has taught creative writing to working adults at Birkbeck, University of London. In her new book Between the Lines: Life Lessons from the Creative Writing Workshop (Simon & Schuster, May 2026), she argues that the…
An impressive book that charts the history of the train. We enter the age of the railway and meet Richard Trevithick, William Hedley’s Puffing Billy, and Stephenson’s Rocket. Then we move round the world to The Festiniog Railway, electric and diesel locomotives, passenger and express trains including The Flying Scotsman. I enjoyed the glamour of…