Herne Hill School, London Herne Hill School, London
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The Balancing Act of continuously evolving our curriculum

Fulfilling our ambition of delivering leading Early Childhood Education (ECE) in order to best shape the futures of this generation of children requires us to continuously enhance and even reimagine our provision. Standing still is no option, especially in these fast-changing times.

Building Herne Hill School’s 50 years of ECE experience and focus, we therefore strive to regularly review and incorporate the latest research findings and best practice models into our curriculum, judiciously balancing this with the evolving societal demands and constraints of the current age.

In our endeavours, we are thrilled to have on board since 2025 Charlotte Hacking, herself a commensurate juggler of academic research and effective practice. Indeed, Charlotte has in each of the four ‘acts’ of her distinguished career thrived on living out this balance.

The first 12 years balancing hands-on teaching with teaching others

Having obtained in 2000 a BA (Hons) in Primary Education from Middlesex University and her Qualified Teacher Status, Charlotte spent her first twelve years perfectly split between being a classroom teacher for six years and working the other six for the London Borough of Haringey as an Early Years and Literacy Advisory Teacher. 

She started out as a classroom teacher in two schools, teaching over four years across all three Pre-Prep years of Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, before being selected by Haringey Council as a lead teacher whom they tasked with working with numerous schools to enhance their Early Years and literacy provision. 

Following two further years back in school settings as an Assistant Head, Charlotte was keen to engage further in research that develops best practice Early Years pedagogy.

The next 12 years conducting research and teaching

She applied to become the Primary Advisory Teacher at The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE), a UK based children’s literacy charity working with primary schools to raise the achievement of children’s reading and writing by helping them to teach literacy creatively and effectively.

She not only obtained the post but was soon promoted to become CLPE’s Learning and Programme Director, leading the development and delivery of teacher training courses, learning programmes and research. This included action research within schools, and it was in this role that she came to work alongside Professor Dominic Wyse of University College London’s Institute of Education. 

Co-authoring “The Balancing Act”

As Charlotte and Professor Wyse worked together, it quickly became apparent that they shared not only a keen interest in Early Literacy Development but also significant reservations about how phonics was being taught in English schools. They had observed that the approaches taken to teach phonics first and fast in Reception and Year 1 overly focused on teaching the skills and ‘mechanics’ of reading at the expense of also developing the children’s motivation to become readers who read for meaning, purpose and pleasure. Their work therefore set out to define a better balance to support children in becoming lifelong readers and writers, with the widespread benefits this brings.

Their results were the publication in 2024 of the seminal book “The Balancing Act – An Evidence-Based Approach on Teaching Phonics, Reading and Writing“ and the research paper “Decoding, reading and writing: the double helix theory of teaching”.

The latter won the prestigious Literacy Education Award 2025 bestowed by UKLA (The United Kingdom Literacy Association) Wiley Research on the best article in the Journal of Research in Reading (JRR) and Literacy in the previous year – both peer-reviewed journals with international reputations for excellence. The judges commented:

“Wyse and Hacking have provided a concise and important inquiry into the foundations of reading and built upon this to push forward the field with a new proposition. Their study provides a fascinating, comprehensive and accessible summary of a range of prevailing literacy learning models. The ‘seven components central to literary teaching’ they identify are of direct relevance to practitioners and researchers alike. Their cross-disciplinary perspective is unusual and yet much needed in the field.”

The Balancing Act has also received highly favourable reviews from education research centres around the world, as posted on the publisher’s website. Further to a request by Impact, the award-winning termly journal from the Chartered College of Teaching, Charlotte and Professor Wyse also published a useful summary of the book in autumn 2025, which we highly recommend perusing.

Balancing academia with effective teaching and curriculum development at Herne Hill School

Following the successful publication of The Balancing Act, Charlotte launched into her latest personal career balancing act in 2025. She now works part-time (50%) at Herne Hill School as a job-share classroom teacher and as the School’s Research & Curriculum Development Lead, straddling the HHS roles with being the Teacher Engagement Lead at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy, a research centre at UCL’s Institute of Education focused on children aged from birth to 11 years.

In the following short video, Charlotte explains how she resolved to choose this arrangement as the next step in her career step and how it provides synergies for all involved.

Play the video. Press escape when done.