Recently published

Welcome to Yorkshire’s Walkshire Blog

I contributed my piece ‘Follow The Forest Trail’ to the #walkshire campaign.

Ten Tips for Better Persuasive Writing

For Teach Secondary, I explored some really effective techniques for persuasive writing to transform students’ planning and to allow them to write compelling responses.

The Teacher Feature

Teaching English asked me to share my favourite books, culture and interests for ‘The Teacher Feature’.

RIP, PEE

By acknowledging the limitations of the PEE paragraph and allowing the students to become engaged by genuine personal response, we have an opportunity to make students apprentices in the discipline of writing. I wrote a feature for Teach Secondary about what makes great analytical writing.

A thematic curriculum for Key Stage 3 English

A thematic curriculum allows students to learn about the all important touchstones of literary study, but to cast the fundamentals of storytelling and language alongside the cultural totems of our own time. By helping our students to see the links between reading and writing and to understand the shared structures, motifs and tropes across a wide range of texts, we give them the capacity to find their own voice and to use it with confidence.

I wrote about the benefits of a thematic curriculum, a subject I’d blogged about previously, for NATE’s Teaching English magazine.