This course was written in response to a JACT (Joint Association of Classical Teachers) survey of over 100 schools. It offers a fast-track route to GCSE for those with limited time. It is based on experience of what pupils find difficult, concentrating on the essentials and on the understanding of principles in both accidence and syntax: minor irregularities are postponed and subordinated so that the need for rote learning is reduced.

It aims to be user-friendly, but also to give pupils a firm foundation for further study. The course has been tested and refined in 15 schools over the last three years. Part 1 covers the basics: the main declensions, a range of active tenses and a vocabulary of 275 Greek words to be learned.

Pupil confidence is built up by constant consolidation of the material covered. After the preliminaries, each chapter concentrates on stories with one source or subject: Aesop, the “Odyssey” and Alexander the Great. Part 1 is self-contained, with its own reference section.

‘I lived alone in this cottage for five years, summer and winter, with no transport, no phone. This is the story of those five years, where I lived and how I lived. It is the story of what it means to live in a place so remote that you may not see another soul for weeks on end.

And it is the story of the hidden places that I came to call my own, and the wild creatures that became my society’. “Touching. Through Ansell’s charming and thoroughly detailed stories of run-ins with red kites, curlews, sparrowhawks, jays and ravens, we see him lose himself …in the rhythms and rituals of life in the British wilderness”.

The Queen is a succinct and intimate biography of Elizabeth II, who has managed to remain enigmatic yet is the most recognized woman in the world. For more than thirty years Robert Lacey has been gathering material from the members of the Queen’s inner circle – her friends, relatives, private secretaries and prime ministers – and the results are distilled in this elegant, small format hardback, at under GBP10 contrasting deliberately with the other weighty and expensive Jubilee tomes. Tracing the Queen’s life through its major stages, and uncovering her greatest personal loves, and trials, The Queen offers the freshness of the first-hand insights and compelling story-telling for which Robert Lacey’s best-selling biographies are famous.

A brand new picture book starring Paddington, the classic bear from Darkest Peru, as he takes part in a local family sports event, with hilarious results! When Paddington attends a local family sports event with the Brown family, he can’t wait to try his paw at as many activities as possible. But, as always, when Paddington is around, things do not quite go according to plan… with outrageously sticky results. And as Paddington soon finds out, it’s not winning that counts, it’s the taking part…

Will Paddington go home with any prizes?