Prof Arlene Holmes-Henderson is a language education specialist who conducts research, and provides training for schools and universities, in the UK and worldwide. In 2023, Arlene was awarded an MBE for Services to Education, and in 2024 she was elected a member of the Academia Europaea.
You can hear Arlene talking about her book, Forward with Classics: classical languages in schools and communities, in this Oxford University podcast.
Please see the training tabs for further details of the workshops and courses on offer.
She has a diverse range of interests which include: classical rhetoric, classical language education, language education policy, access, widening participation, language revitalisation, democratic education and innovative pedagogies. Since 2023, Arlene has been Chair of the Latin Expert Panel at the Department for Eduction (a ministerially appointed position).
Arlene is Professor of Classics Education and Public Policy at Durham University, teaching in the School of Education on the Latin with Classics PGCE course. Arlene is co-director of the Advocating Classics Education project with Professor Edith Hall, and is founding director of Durham’s new Centre for Classics Education Research and EngagementS (CERES).
Arlene collaborates with Professor Edith Hall on the reception of Aristotle beyond the Academy (1600-1922) funded by the Leverhulme Trust 2022-2025. In 2024-2025, this project is taking the study of Aristotle into young offenders’ institutions via collaboration with Novus Education.
Until 2024, Arlene held a British Academy Innovation Fellowship investigating ‘Levelling up through talk: how does oracy contribute to social mobility and employability?’. She was the principal investigator of the Classics in Communities project which investigated the impact of Latin and Greek on children’s cognitive development. She is a partner investigator on The Ancient Today project funded by the Australian Research Council.
Arlene is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies and at the School of Advanced Study where she engages with The London Research and Policy Partnership on issues relating to language, literacy and levelling-up across the capital. These conversations are enriched through collaboration with colleagues in the Institute for Languages, Cultures and Societies, the Institute for English Studies, The Institute of Historical Research and the Institute of Philosophy. She is also an Affiliated Researcher with the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge via which she is contributing to policy engagement nationally.
Arlene is the co-investigator on the AHRC-funded major inter-disciplinary and multi-institutional Speaking Citizens project which seeks to investigate the politics of speech education in Britain. She also leads an inter-disciplinary team of academics at Durham and Cardiff universities on the Shy Bairns Get Nowt project. As an AHRC policy fellow, Arlene is expert advisor to the all-party parliamentary group on Classics, all-party parliamentary group on oracy education and the all-party parliamentary group on political literacy. She is leading all aspects of stakeholder engagement. This builds on her successful leadership of the the AHRC-funded ‘Improving Access to Classical Studies in Museums and Schools’ project.
Arlene is the Outreach Officer, Council Member and Trustee of the Classical Association, the national subject association for Classics teachers and academics. She co-directs the Advocating Classics Education project alongside Professor Edith Hall (Durham University), with whom she is writing a book on the value of Classical studies in contemporary education. She chairs the Classics Development Group, a body which brings together learned societies and professional organisations in the field of Classics, to identify and discuss common issues. She is the representative for Classics on the British Academy’s National Strategic Committee for Languages, a committee member of the Roman Society, and a steering group member of the British Curriculum Forum. She also serves on the US-UK Fulbright Commission Alumni Council.
