I've never really liked creative writing. That's a lie: I've never really liked teaching creative writing. I've always enjoyed the process of writing myself, but I found teaching it so tedious. I stru...

As teachers, we're experienced essay-writers. We have degrees and trained at postgraduate level and are well-versed in the construction of extended pieces of writing. 16-year-old students are not. A g...

For the GCSE English Literature exams, students must be familiar with: A Shakespeare play A modern text A 19th-century text 15 poems The skills needed to analyse unseen poems When I say “familiar wi...

In the 2023 DfE Reading Framework document the word ‘talk’ appears 67 times. I’m not going to quote all 67, but here are some examples of how talk is mentioned: “Developing talk” in relation...

My year 11s have just done their English Language Paper 1 mock and whilst there were some real highlights, many of their responses to Q5 were in serious need of improvement. Since the beginning of my ...

I've decided to do a bit of a series on how I teach certain elements of the English curriculum. Having stepped down from a position with a TLR in order to focus on my own classroom practice, I've been...