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120 Years of Tower Bridge

This year marks the 120th anniversary of the construction by the Victorians of one of London’s iconic landmarks; Tower Bridge. At the time it was another Victorian miracle of engineering and even today it’s a fascinating spectacle on the Thames. In these activities the pupils will gain an understanding of… Read More

The Horror Genre: Creating Atmosphere

by Naomi Hursthouse What is it about the horror genre that continues to grip teenage readers? Two hundred years ago the young Mary Shelley was so enthralled by the ghost stories she heard that her imagination gave birth to Frankenstein. And now, my students still flock to the horror section of… Read More

Revision timetables – success through planning!

No matter how many exams you have, a well-planned and workable revision timetable is the key to helping you manage your time effectively and efficiently.  Here are five top tips to guide you through… 1. Revise in the same order as your exams. Think about when your exams actually… Read More

Fun with Foreshadowing

By Cathy MacPhail You know the kind of stories I love? The kind of stories that begin like this: We all arrived at the lakeside cottage, my friends and I, for a weekend of fun. The lake sparkled in the sun; we could hear the birds singing… Read More

Reading Buddies

  I have two big problems with my reading lessons, at present. Firstly I am becoming increasingly frustrated by students saying ‘I don’t like ANY of the books in here!’ as they point vaguely at the library shelves containing hundreds upon hundreds of books. Next on my list… Read More

The influence of comics

When I started cooperating with my son Robbie on The Name is Kade and Gladiator, we were both aware that young readers now have a lot more competition for their time than when I was a kid in the Fifties… Read More

Writing ‘The Edge’ – Alan Gibbons

Writing about issues such as domestic violence, you always risk sounding preachy. It is easy to let your desire to do the subject justice take over the narrative. When I started writing The Edge, I knew that the story had to come first. Read More

Drawing Stories with Neill Cameron

A uniquely brilliant thing about comics is simply that they tell a story through drawings. This makes the experience of reading a comic a fantastic collaboration between the creator and the reader, who has to use their own imagination to join those pictures together into a story.    … Read More

Comics – the gateway to reading

Every single week when I was a child there was no other experience like holding in my own hand the latest and unread issue of my favourite comic. It was called Boys World, and that feeling of trembling excitement every Friday when it dropped through the letterbox was pure delight. Read More

Starting a Story – Catherine MacPhail

  It’s the simple things that give us the best ideas for stories. I was walking along the street and I heard a boy talking on his mobile phone. All I could hear him saying was, ‘I know, I know, this is my last chance.’ I thought, ‘Last chance… Read More