The past couple of weeks have been exciting ones in Cheltenham thanks to the Literature Festival taking place in the centre of town. I was sorry to miss Jessie Burton (sold out) but thoroughly enjoyed Utopia day on the Thursday, the Jane Eyre discussion with Tracy Chevalier on Friday morning and Akala on Friday evening.

Today I am mostly wondering about the speaking and listening element of the gcse exams...Now that they are no longer an integrated part of the English Language gcses they have become nothing more than a hoop to be jumped through. When spoken assessments could be completed instead of written coursework they were of huge benefit to dyslexic candidates in particular and they enabled weaker students to use their spoken skills to boost their gcse grades in a way that validated th