Twyford CofE Academies Trust partners with Oak National Academy

Twyford CofE Academies Trust are partners with Oak National Academy to create lesson resources to support teachers across the country. We are the subject lead for English secondary curriculum, to develop and produce high-quality resources for pupils in Years 7 – 11.

Oak National Academy was set up in April 2020 as a rapid response to the coronavirus outbreak to provide free and accessible electronic lessons for all and has become the new national body supporting curriculum. The government is making a significant investment in Oak to create national resources from KS1 – 4 in core national curriculum subjects over the next three years.

Matt Hood, chief executive of Oak National Academy, said: “Oak’s new curriculum partners will draw from and share with the sector their deep expertise whilst developing high quality curriculum resources for tens of thousands of teachers into the future.”

Dame Alice Hudson, CEO of Twyford CofE Academies Trust said, “Our English curriculum is built on a firm foundation of the most up to date research into reading and our commitment to make it accessible to all students. We are delighted to be partnering with Oak on this new venture which builds on the ambition of our talented staff and success of our students.”

Sam Barnsley has re-joined the Trust to oversee this exciting project and joins us as Project Manager in charge of the Oak National Academy Partnership. Sam spent nine years at the Twyford CofE Academies Trust, working at William Perkin in a variety of leadership roles. He joined the launch team in 2013 as Head of English, playing a key role in the development of the English curriculum. In 2017, Sam became part of the Senior Leadership Team, undertaking the role of Deputy Headteacher in charge of Curriculum and Assessment for three years. Sam has recently gained experience as Director of Learning in a training company that delivers Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training to global, corporate organisations.

On 1st September the Twyford Trust entered Phase 2 of their partnership with Oak National Academy. Eight English teachers from across the country joined the Trust’s first remote curriculum development team ready to embark on creating over 1000 online lesson resources which will be available for use by teachers across the country from later this year. The new team have been eagerly undertaking rigorous training, including a two-day residential hosted by Oak National Academy in Leeds and have just started creating their first lessons.

Senior Project Manager, Sam Barnsley, presented at ResearchEd, alongside Oak’s primary English curriculum partners, Fox Federation. Focusing on the transition between KS2 and KS3, the presentation explored how sentence level grammar has been used by Twyford trust schools to create coherence from KS2 to KS4.

Some of the secondary English modules went live on 12th October on Oak's newly designed platform.

The English content is a rich blend of the classic and contemporary. Texts from the literary canon, including Beowolf, Chaucer and Shakespeare, sit alongside contemporary writers Andrea Levy, award winning author of “Small Island”, and Winsome Pinnock, whose play “Leave Taking” has this year been added to the GCSE syllabus.  Particular care has been taken to ensure Oak’s English curricula represents the diversity of modern life. Over one in four authors in the secondary curriculum are writers of colour. It explores contemporary social issues, including women’s rights and immigration, alongside timeless themes such as nature, love and conflict. English also has a specific focus on developing pupils’ oracy - their speaking and listening skills. 

Progress Update - April 2024

Twyford Church of England Academies Trust is delighted to announce that over 500 English lessons have already been published for national use by Oak National Academy. The English lessons, which include slide decks, quizzes, worksheets and an accompanying video, have been inspired by lessons used across the four school’s successful English departments.

The publishing of these lessons means that the excellent curriculum Trust pupils follow can now be accessed by pupils across the UK. Units include KS3 schemes of work based on William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and a collection of Gothic extracts from the literary canon, as well as full schemes on GCSE texts such as ‘Macbeth’, ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’ Pupils in Y10 and Y11 at Twyford Church of England Academies Trust may find the video lessons useful when revising for their internal and external assessments.

These resources can be found at: https://www.thenational.academy/#pupils

Twyford CofE Academies Trust supporting Cam Academy

Following the ongoing success of the English project, Twyford CofE Academies Trust are delighted to announce they will be supporting Cam Academy Trust, as they partner with Oak National Academy, to produce MFL resources for release from October 2024. Sam Barnsley, who has led the English project and will be working in a consultant role with Cam Academy Trust, said “as an NCLE Language Hub, the Thames West Language Hub has demonstrated its commitment to high quality languages teaching that is accessible to all. I am really looking forward to sharing everything I have learned on the English project with Dr Rachel Hawkes to create a national languages curriculum that is research led, practice informed and content rich.”

Progress Update - June 2025

Our partnership with The Cam Academy Trust and Oak National Academy continues to go from strength to strength, with significant milestones achieved in recent months.

We are proud to now offer over 1,000 lesson resources available for download (https://www.thenational.academy/), spanning three languages at KS3 and KS4 and French and Spanish at KS2.

Each lesson is part of a carefully sequenced curriculum, underpinned by Language Driven Pedagogy. This approach ensures that all vocabulary featured on the AQA and Edexcel exam specifications is explicitly taught and revisited, guaranteeing full coverage by the end of Year 11 for those following the sequence in full.

All lesson resources include:

  • a comprehensive slide deck
  • accompanying worksheets
  • a detailed vocabulary list highlighting all new and revisited terms
  • starter and exit quizzes to reinforce learning

In addition, every lesson is supported by an accompanying video, delivered by a subject specialist. These videos are designed to support teachers in delivering the content effectively and can also be used directly by pupils in class or at home. They are especially valuable in the primary sector, where languages are often taught by non-specialists.

The final phase of development is now focused on Year 11 revision lessons. These exam-board specific resources guide pupils through exam-style tasks and ensure that all required vocabulary is thoroughly revisited in the crucial weeks leading up to their final exams.