Literature in English: the skills we teach

Below are the core skill areas for Literature in English. The exact papers, question types, marks and word guidance differ by board and syllabus version, so we teach those specifics from the board's official syllabus and cite it. In every area, your child works one-to-one with an experienced teacher who reads their work closely and shows how to improve it.

Reading for meaning and feeling; writing about imagery, form and structure.

Theme, character, narrative voice and structure in novels and stories.

How a play makes meaning in performance as well as on the page.

A repeatable method for an unseen poem or passage under time.

Building an argument, embedding quotations, analysing rather than narrating.

Each board assesses Literature in English a little differently. These pages set out what each board's papers ask and how we teach them, with the assessment facts traced to the board's official syllabus:

You may also find qualifications we teach and original practice tasks useful. Next, visit our paper-by-paper guides to see how each paper is assessed. Our Literature in English tuition page explains how lessons run. When you are ready, the paid one-hour trial is the first step.