Thinking AloudEnglish Blog

I remember when drama wasn’t something squeezed into an end-of-term production slot or a “practical enrichment” box on the timetable.  It was part of English, right there in the Key Stage 3 curriculum, alongside metaphors, Macbeth, and the Year 8 class jumping off the ends of their desks as Icarus tested his wings.  (Apologies to the Head whose office was below my classroom.)

TV's The (Celeb) Traitors - a masterclass in the need to plan an essay. With no spoilers! There’s something almost indecently satisfying about pulling off a plan.  The clean click of cause and effect.  The sly grin of inevitability.  It’s why The A-Team and every child of the 70s loved it when a plan came together.  And why The Traitors, especially last night’s celebrity edition, is the most exquisite piece of clockwork on television.

Free Masterclass: Tuesday 28 October, 6pm (UK): a free 30-minute masterclass to kick things off. If your teenager is muttering about daggers, witches, and the general futility of existence, it’s not just adolescence. Well, it could be. But it’s also Macbeth season.

You know the feeling, you’ve paid for the flights.  You’ve wrestled with SPF, exchange rates, suitcase weight limits, and the mysterious disappearance of all chargers.  And somewhere between the airport WHSmith and the sun lounger, your teenager did something unexpected: they started reading a book.

So, where do all the important characters go? Romeo’s parents.  When their son is busy running around with the boys, getting married at 16, killing his rival, and being banished from the city, where are Lord and Lady Montague?  Busy with dinner plans?  

This isn’t a reading list disguised as revision. It’s a summer-friendly mix of films, podcasts, and context boosters designed to help students feel confident come September and give parents a way into the texts that will dominate the conversation by mock season.

Welcome to the strange twilight zone that is mid-May - the middle of exam season.  You may be starting to feel like you live with a ghost who only emerges for snacks, sighs a lot, and occasionally mutters something about "how many exams are left?".   Days are counted in exam papers.  Life is looking endlessly bleak.  Hurrah, it’s the mid-point moan: the bit where adrenaline has worn off, motivation is flagging, and no one’s quite sure what day it is (without looking at an exa

There’s a reason An Inspector Calls  remains firmly entranced in the GCSE syllabus: it’s deceptively simple. A family gathered in an...

There are some decisions in life that require deep contemplation.  Applying for a job.  Choosing a partner.  Picking your Desert Island Discs.  And then, there’s naming a puppy. 

Easter is nearly upon us, hurrah, up to three weeks for your child to revise for their exams.  Are you ready?  Are they? 

Rejection: the gut-punch every writer faces.  History is full of books dismissed before becoming literary classics. 

Reading a book or watching a film and a dog appears, steel yourself. It is most likely about to be devastating shorthand for human despair.

Fear not.  Be it GCSE, IB, or A Level English Language and/or Literature, here are a few survival strategies... chocolate is involved.

In a world where the news reads like a rejected Black Mirror script, it’s no wonder dystopian fiction is having a moment.