As young people progress from primary school, through secondary, and, for many, on to university, they gain knowledge, develop skills, and learn to relate to others in ways that remain influential throughout their lives. Language is central to this process. At each educational stage, students need to understand and express new types of content to new audiences in new contexts. For some, this offers a rich opportunity for language growth. For many, however, academic language is a barrier that can seriously hamper their educational and life chances. Understanding language development at school and university is therefore central both to understanding linguistic, and sociocognitive development and to achieving a socially just education. This chapter reviews the contribution that corpus research has made and can make to understanding educational writing. It reviews the main foci of research, critically evaluates its methods, summarizes our current state of knowledge, and suggests directions for future work. It then looks in detail at one project, led by the author, that researched the grammar and vocabulary of children in schools in England. It highlights central findings and reflects on methodological strengths and weaknesses and on what lessons might be learned for future research.

This chapter will analyse and reflect upon the generation of impact from a learner corpus study of children’s writing. The study investigated how school students’ use of grammar and vocabulary develops through the course of their academic careers, from age five to sixteen. Findings had evident impact for the teaching writing across all age groups and disciplines. Specifically, they provided evidence which we used to (a) increase professional understanding of the characteristics of syntactic and vocabulary development in writing; and (b) develop professional practice in the teaching of writing. In the chapter, we first summarise previous relevant research on writing development before describing our own study, its key findings, and their implications for teaching practice. We then discuss how we reached a variety of education professionals in the UK and beyond. We emphasise in particular the key concrete steps in generating impact through workshops, online media, and professional publications, and we discuss the importance of partnerships with diverse stakeholders. Finally, we reflect on some of the challenges associated with developing impact from education research, particularly with regard to the ethics of working with government bodies and the difficulties of evaluating impact on educational practice.