My wife, Pat D'Arcy, who has died aged 73 of cancer, was an inspirational teacher of English whose insights into the use of language had an impact across the curriculum. Her influential book Making Sense, Shaping Meaning (1989) spelled out her basic philosophy on how writing, talking, listening and reading interrelate, rather than operate in isolation as separate skills.
Born in Yorkshire, Pat attended Bradford grammar school before gaining a first in English at Bedford College, London. She taught in primary and secondary schools, and was an active member of the National Association for the Teaching of English (Nate). In 1965 she was appointed director of the Schools Council project Reading for Meaning, and in 1973 joined its Language for Learning project, co-authoring the final report, Writing and Learning across the Curriculum 11-16. In 1977 she was appointed head of English at Stonehouse school in Stroud, Gloucestershire, and was the first woman and the first practising teacher to chair Nate.
Pat joined Wiltshire's education advisory service in 1979. She had a passionate belief that writing was more than mastering a code, and she continued to explore ways in which writing could influence and advance the learning process. She set up a network of teachers who shared ideas and visited one another's classrooms. Somerset schools joined the network and a series of more than 40 pamphlets under the title Learning about Learning was published as a result. She also set up summer institutes involving teachers from Wiltshire, Somerset and the US. What's Going On?: Language/Learning Episodes in British and American Classrooms, co-edited by Pat, was published in 1982.
She retired in 1992 to live an active life walking, painting, writing and, a particular passion, finding wild flowers. In 2000, enraged at the limited aims of Sats testing, she wrote a polemic, Two Paradigms for the Teaching and Assessment of Writing. She was a champion of "real" education who would not compromise her convictions.
She is survived by our children, Stephen and Sue; our grandchildren, Emma, Ella, Jessica, Danny and Nicola; and a sister, Margaret.