Back in 1983 my mum rented an Intellivision games console from Radio Rentals. She couldn’t afford to buy a console so she added it to the colour tv she rented. I actually wanted an Atari 2600 at the time but that wasn’t available from Radio Rentals. Some of the kids…
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Amid the controversy over poetry being made optional in the 2021 English Literature GCSEs, there’s been little mention that the examination of a Shakespeare play is the only non-optional component. It’s possible to trace this requirement back to the 1989 Cox Report which is when the first statutory requirement for…
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In 2008 – during the era of the various National Strategies – the Department for Children, Schools and Families in collaboration with organisations like the QCA and RSC produced Shakespeare for All Ages and Stages, not only a booklet giving guidance on the teaching of Shakespeare in schools but what…
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Mark Waid’s anti-superhero comic, Irredeemable ran from 2009 and 2012 for 36 issues collected into 10 trades. I’d read most of the series when it was first published in trades but – for some reason I can’t remember – never got round to reading the conclusion to the story. I’ve…
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I’m currently working my way through Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom series of pulp adventure novels. A Princess of Mars, the first of the series, was a surprisingly enjoyable romp reminding me of a mix of Gulliver’s Travels, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. While I’ve always been aware of John Carter,…
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Notes from Rosenshine’s Principles in Action (2019) by Tom Sherrington This is the first of my notes from three books about Rosenshine’s principles. The two most useful aspects of this book are the way in which Sherrington organises the 10 principles into 4 strands (though he rightly emphasises that the…
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