Articles

Advance information support for GCSE 9-1 exams

If you’re teaching GCSE students this year, you’ll know that exam boards recently released advance information for the exams taking place in summer 2022 to help address the pandemic’s impact on teaching and learning. This advance information provides a list of topics from the specification that will be assessed on… Read More

Scandal and storytelling in The Picture of Dorian Gray

‘The love that dare not speak its name’ is generally understood to be a euphemistic reference to homosexuality. The phrase is commonly associated with Oscar Wilde; indeed Wilde was cross-examined about it by the prosecuting counsel Charles Gill when he was put on trial in 1895. But the phrase has… Read More

Forging creative connections in King Lear

Any teacher introducing King Lear in the classroom, whether for the first, or even the 20th time, can’t but help feel daunted by the sheer philosophical and emotional heft of Shakespeare’s most-studied tragedy. How do we convey the significance and complexity of its over-arching themes, such as power, loyalty and… Read More

Secure Science for GCSE and get students back on track

Ever wondered how on earth you will fit all that science into the time you have left with Year 11? I had that same thought for years as a Head of Science, with the turbulence of the past couple of years proving this to be even more challenging. After multiple… Read More

Black history is British history

Simon Henderson and Teni Oladehin, authors of the new Collins Black British History KS3 Teacher Resource Pack, explore how you can integrate Black British history into your KS3 curriculum. Why is it crucial that all students learn about Black British history? Teni Oladehin: Any study of British history today… Read More

Exploring Childhood in Hard Times

‘If we can only preserve ourselves from growing up, we shall never grow old and the young may love us to the last,’ declared Dickens.  This call to protect the magic and wonder of childhood concluded his New Year’s Day essay, published in his magazine Household Words, almost exactly a… Read More

Considering Dracula and the supernatural: teaching tips

Gothic literary texts can take so many different forms, but they share a preoccupation with the crossing of boundaries: between life and death, the past and the present, ancient and modern, good and evil or more generally, between what is real and unreal. Gothic writers take their readers, then, across… Read More

Planning and implementing an effective primary science curriculum

And so another school year begins, one which we all hope will be much more settled that than the last. There have been so many challenges to face. Teachers have worked incredibly hard to ensure that children’s learning has continued through all the disruptions and difficulties the pandemic brought. Science… Read More

How to smooth the transition from Year 6 to 7 maths

It’s never easy for students to move from Year 6 to Year 7.  For the vast majority, they move from being the biggest fish in a little pond to small fry in what feels like an ocean!  Add to that the fact that their last two years of primary school… Read More

Is football coming home? A sociological question

From its humble beginnings to a now multi-million-pound industry, the ‘beautiful game’ is an economic asset, a cultural hallmark, a political (excuse the pun) football, and a social barometer. For these reasons, football and the recent Euros demand sociological analyses: they provide an extraordinary lens through which we… Read More