Kelly Ashley

With over 20 years of experience in education, Kelly Ashley has worked in in the US and UK as a teacher, consultant, professional development facilitator and author. She currently works with schools and organisations across the UK, offering bespoke training and consultancy support on all aspects of the primary English curriculum. Kelly’s keen interest in vocabulary and language development led to the publication of her first book, Word Power: Amplifying vocabulary instruction (2019). 

Kelly has enjoyed opportunities to work with organisations through several large-scale, school improvement projects since commencing work as a freelance, English consultant in 2015. As a core programme facilitator for the Powerful Words project with schools across East Cambridgeshire and Fenlands, she supported over 40 schools to refine their approaches for strengthening KS2 pupils’ receptive and expressive vocabulary using her popular Word Power CPD. Word Power has also been used as a core programme for developing language in the Early Years and KS1 as part of the Boston Reading project (facilitated by LEAD Equate TSA, Connect TSA and the Boston Witham Academies Federation in Lincolnshire), the Real Writing project to develop vocabulary to support writing in science (facilitated by North Star TSA and Polaris TSA in North Yorkshire and Cleveland) and the Raising Achievement in Reading project (facilitated by Stockton-on-Tees Local Authority).

Between March and April 2020 and again in September 2021, Kelly enjoyed the unique opportunity to work with the Curriculum Foundation to craft a ‘text message curriculum’ for teachers and pupils in South Sudan. This challenging project involved creating a series of linked text messages for families, ensuring that learning continued at home during the global pandemic. In December 2020, she worked with a team to support English curriculum development work for schools in Ghana – supporting Ghanaian teachers with lesson planning.

Kelly is proud to support the work of CollectivEd based out of the Carnegie School of Education at Leeds Beckett University. Coaching is at the heart of her work with teachers and schools – the power of conversation a key element of the implementation process. She is a member of the CollectivEd advisory board, a CollectivEd Associate and she has also recently been awarded CollectivEd Fellow status.

Kelly is also an active supporter of the work of the UKLA – The United Kingdom Literacy Assocation. She serves as a regional representative for the Yorkshire and Cleveland area. Kelly also jointly runs one of Yorkshire’s ‘Teacher Reading Groups’, facilitated by the Open University and the UKLA.

Since September 2021, Kelly also works as an Associate Lecturer for Liverpool Hope University.  As part of the National Tutoring Programme, Kelly trains Academic Mentors across the UK as they support schools with targeted, in-house tutoring programmes to boost knowledge of the Primary English curriculum.

• PGCE Masters Modules, Carnegie School of Education