The Change Empower Include project aims to address educational inequalities related to spoken language (oracy) and writing skills in the Liverpool City Region. It highlights two main issues:

• Dialect Bias: There is insufficient guidance on teaching spoken language, particularly regional dialects, due to the curriculum’s strong focus on Standard English. This negatively impacts students who speak regional dialects, hindering their confidence, identity, and educational aspirations.
• Gender-gap in Writing: Primary education often holds gendered assumptions, particularly the stereotype that boys underachieve in writing. The project’s research indicates minimal gender differences in actual writing ability but finds significant impacts from these stereotypes on boys’ motivation and emotional responses to writing tasks.

The project addresses these inequalities by collaboratively developing teaching materials with local Merseyside schools, aiming to benefit teachers across the wider UK. This toolkit is designed to help reduce educational inequalities related to dialect bias and gender-based assumptions in language teaching.