Just published, this is a stand-alone book or it can be purchased/used within the expansive GCSE English ‘package’ being offered by CUP for the AQA syllabus to be taught from September 2015.

This book, however, written by myself and Martin Phillips, is not tied to any particular examination board and focuses exclusively on Writing, treating students as writers and underpinned by the ethos that a priority regard for writing skills and experience above assessment objectives is the best preparation for the inevitable requirement that students will have two writing tasks in their final GCSE examination – whichever awarding body sets this.

The workshops aren’t intended to appear particularly innovative in such a text book – apart from excluding the clutter of constant references to AOs and similar – but instead offer straightfoward, tried and tested classroom activities that engage and encourage students as much as is possible in the writing process. That said, we think the stimulus and ideas provided also offer new and appealing material at this level.

Whether bought as a stand-alone or part of the larger ‘package’, there is considerable online digital and other supporting materials specifically for this text, as well as a dedicated, and detailed, teacher’s resource which I have written and will be available free online from, hopefully, April.

Those ‘specific GCSE skills’ are actually writing skills, but of course the latter informs the former: our ethos. Each workshop begins with – and the language is chosen purposefully – a ‘writing improvement focus’.