Why English risks becoming just a qualification rather than an entire discipline In many English classrooms, the coursebook (particularly the teacher coursebook) has gradually taken on a central role. Lessons are structured. Resources are ready. Students are busy. Work is completed. A coursebook sits at the centre of it all, and, on the surface, everything appears to be working. This, in itself, is not a problem: coursebooks in English do have their place. They can offer guid

"...the real purpose of studying English is to learn how to read the world." At the time of writing, there are 54 days until the IGCSE English examinations begin . This reflection began as a short post shared on Instagram earlier today. If you’d like to follow along with similar thoughts on literature, language, and studying Cambridge English, you can find Calliope English here: @calliope.english For many students, this means the familiar rhythm of revision: practising past p

World Book Day celebrates books and the simple but powerful act of reading. Classrooms fill with characters from favourite stories, and schools encourage students to pick up a book and lose themselves in it. But beneath the celebration sits a quieter question: what do we really mean when we say reading matters? Reading is often presented as the goal itself — the more books students encounter, the better. Yet in education, reading is only the beginning. What truly shapes intel

Stop teaching quotes. Start teaching ideas. “Bah! Humbug!” "We are members of one body." “Out, damned spot!” These lines are ingrained in my memory — not because they are the most conceptually complex moments in their respective texts, but because they were the quotations every pupil seemed to memorise. They travelled from revision guides into exercise books and then into examination scripts with remarkable consistency. For the first year at the start of my career, I encourag

Cambridge IGCSE First Language English (0990 / 0500 / 0524) remains one of the few Key Stage 4 English qualifications that includes coursework. That matters. Unlike exam-only specifications, Cambridge IGCSE coursework allows students to demonstrate sustained control of writing — not just what they can produce in a single pressured sitting, but what they can craft, refine, and take ownership of over time. Nowhere is that more evident than in Cambridge IGCSE Component 03 (0990

Romeo and Juliet. An Inspector Calls. Power and Conflict  poetry. All texts or anthologies firmly embedded in the mainstream literary canon in schools across the UK. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. They are great works of literature. They wouldn’t remain on examination syllabi year after year if they were rubbish, would they? The issue is not the texts themselves, but what happens to teaching and learning when a student sits in the same classroom, with the s

Cambridge coursework isn’t just marking grammar; it’s teaching students to take responsibility for their writing, and reading is what allows them to do that successfully. Cambridge coursework isn’t testing grammar. It’s testing independence. Well… yes. Of course it is  testing spelling, punctuation, and grammar. In fact, SPaG is one of the most significant elements of the mark scheme for Component 03 coursework if a student is aiming for the highest grades. It affects clarity