2021 May Newsletter

Recently the CEO of a major UK publishing house said in a radio interview that his company published a broad selection of views and it wasn’t their role to espouse a particular view.

The same can’t be said for Brilliant Publications, at least when it comes to education. We have very firm ideas about how children learn. Our mission statement says that we create easy to use resources, with engaging approaches to learning, so as to inspire and motivate pupils across a wide range of curriculum areas. These values underpin everything that we do.

Our recent title

Our most recent title, How to Achieve Outstanding Writers in EYFS and Key Stage 1 is an excellent example of how we put our mission statement into practice. The National Curriculum puts grea

Exciting grammar

Is it really possible to make English grammar exciting, fun, enjoyable, and varied?

By and large, English grammar tends to get a bad press.

For a lot of everyday speech, and indeed a fair amount of contemporary literature, tends to play fast and loose with correct grammar which can make children wonder why they have to learn any grammar at all.

After all, most of us can speak and be understood…

However, as many people do come to realise, if we want to be listened to and have our written communications read and understood, we need to express ourselves both clearly and in an interesting way.

Thus, perhaps more than with any other subject in the curriculum, the image of grammar really needs to be changed.  The only question is, how to do it?

This is the task the author of “Getting to Grips with English Grammar” has put at the forefront of her course; a course which covers English grammar from year one to year six in

One man, two people, accessible to all

What is the most effective way of allowing lower ability students the chance to fully appreciate Jekyll and Hyde?

Jekyll and Hyde is a story that appeals to vast numbers of teenagers, not least because so many of them find the notion of becoming someone else an incredibly exciting idea.

For such a vision allows them to imagine that they are not trapped by their current circumstances but could change themselves into something and someone totally different…

However, many lower ability students never get to appreciate the story because of the difficulties they have with reading.  Which is why we have produced a Graphic Revision Guide to The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Indeed, this Graphic Revision Guide not only gives the students immediate access to the book, it also prepares them for their forthcoming assessments. 

The graphic sheets enable the students both to grasp the story and its themes, and to underst

Creative Writing: Cracked

What is the most effective way of encouraging all children to explore and experiment with creative writing?

The aim is something that we can all aspire to: to make creative writing an enjoyable activity for all children.

But how?  Especially with KS2 children who proclaim that they hate writing and can’t do it, and indeed don’t know what to say.

One particular approach that appeals to many is the sense of the utterly absurd – as with a request to write out the differences between a bicycle and a banana.

When an activity like this is then accompanied by instructions which seem contrary to the normal approach to writing (such as “write quickly” rather than “plan carefully”) suddenly the whole meaning of creative writing is changed.

And not only is the child’s vision of creative writing changed at this point, but the child also starts to understand that not all writers work in the same way. For while some do indeed spen

How to create a whole-school Grammar and Punctuation Programme

What is the most effective way of creating a whole-school Grammar and Punctuation programme?

Schools that adopt a whole-school Grammar and Punctuation Programme typically find it easier to respond to the demands of the English Programmes of Study. For not only does it make it easier to have a unified approach to tracking pupils’ progress, but it also ensures that everyone knows what has gone before and what comes next.

However, what can be challenging when creating a whole-school Grammar and Punctuation Programme is knowing which resources will be most suitable. For the resources need to, for example:

• meet the requirements of the English Programmes of Study
• be consistent throughout the programme
• exercise differentiation
• be age-appropriate and highly engag