Join the Oak research panel
Your feedback is essential to help us understand the realities of teaching and learning. By listening to teachers like you, we learn about your preferences, challenges and needs, and can use these insights to shape Oak curriculum resources, lessons and tools.
Why get involved?
Help improve our website, resources and tools for teachers
Get early insight into new developments we are working on
Receive retail vouchers as a thank you for taking part
Who can join the panel?
We’re keen to hear from a wide range of teachers across the UK.
- Primary and secondary teachers at any stage of your career, including trainees and early career teachers.
- You don't need to use Oak resources to take part.
- We welcome teachers from all backgrounds, experiences and school settings, and want our panel to reflect the diversity of the communities you serve.
- Some studies may focus on specific subjects, roles or experiences. If that’s the case, we’ll always make this clear when inviting you to take part.
How does it work?
1Sign up
Fill in our sign-up form with a few details about you.
We'll email you if there's a research opportunity that matches your background and interests.
2Take part
You might be invited to share your teaching experiences, talk about how you use different resources, try out an early improvement idea, or give feedback on a topic we’re exploring.
Some common research activities include:
- Online interview – a discussion with Oak researchers about your experiences and views (30–60 minutes)
- Survey – a short online questionnaire you can complete when it suits you (10–15 minutes)
- Written feedback – reviewing early ideas and sharing your thoughts in your own time (30-60 minutes)
3What happens next
You will receive a retail voucher as a thank you for your time.
You will remain part of the research panel for 2 years after signing up, so you may be contacted for other research opportunities (max 2 per year) unless you tell us otherwise.
Can I ask for adjustments or support?
Oak is committed to running research that is accessible and inclusive. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to take part, and your feedback helps us shape curriculum resources, lessons and tools that reflect the diverse needs of teachers and the wider education community.
Before each session, you’ll have the chance to tell us about any adjustments or support you might need to take part — for example, short breaks or questions sent in advance. We’ll respect your preferences and do our best to accommodate them throughout the research process.
Our research team
Reka Budai
Reka is a user researcher with 15+ years' experience, having worked in various education, non-profit and tech organisations in the UK and internationally. She enjoys understanding the day-to-day realities of teachers through qualitative and quantitative research and exploring how we could make our resources and tools more suitable for their needs and their pupils.
Laura Benton
Laura is a user researcher with an academic background and 15+ years experience conducting qualitative research with teachers and pupils to inform the design of digital education tools. Since joining Oak she has led research around the pupil experience, SEND and AI, and is also responsible for building research collaborations with academic partners.
Frequently asked questions
If you take part in research, we typically collect the following data:
- Your name and email to be able to communicate with you throughout the research project and administer the voucher upon completion. We will only use your contact information to share updates related to the research project unless you explicitly agree to be contacted about future research opportunities.
- Your job role, school phase and optionally your school name and school’s postcode to check if you fit the research criteria and to ensure that we involve a diverse range of schools and teachers.
- In the case of interviews, you can opt in to recording the interview to support the analysis and the internal sharing of findings.
We invite our research panellists to join a maximum of two research studies a year.
We administer vouchers via a platform called Prezzee. After you have taken part in a research study, you will be emailed a digital gift card that can be spent at over 300 different retailers.
We’ll keep your personal information confidential and won’t share it outside Oak. What we share from the research will be aggregated and anonymous (including any quotes), and any recordings will be stored securely and deleted after a short period (max 3 months). For further information, please see our Privacy Policy.
We share research findings with teams across Oak to help improve our resources and tools and inform decisions about what we work on next. Findings might also be shared on Oak's blog, with findings remaining completely anonymous and aggregated.
It is your choice whether to take part in a research study, and it is always opt-in, so if it doesn't work for you, simply don't sign up. We will still send you invitations for future research studies (maximum 2 per year). If you decide you no longer want to be part of the research panel, drop us an email at [email protected] and we will ensure you are removed from the list.
To join an interview, it is best to have a laptop or desktop computer that allows you to access Zoom. For other studies, there are no special requirements.
Still have questions?
