Join Explorers or Boy’s Messing About?
A self-paced one-week pre-recorded class for IGCSE/GCSE students
Printable resources
Worksheets and activity sheets to print for every lesson.
Video lessons
Pre-recorded lessons to watch whenever suits — as many times as you like.
Watch any time
Instant access on any device — pause, rewind and rewatch at your own pace.
The book we’re reading
Steven Morris's Guardian article (2003) reports on British adventurers Steve Brooks and Quentin Smith, whose small single-engine helicopter crashed into the sea off Antarctica, triggering a costly nine-hour rescue by the Royal Navy, the RAF and a Chilean naval ship. Beneath the factual account, Morris builds a pointed argument: the very title pits "explorers" against "boys messing about," and through irony, loaded quotations and the reminder that taxpayers footed the bill, he steers the reader toward seeing the pair as reckless rather than heroic. It's an ideal text for analysis skills — students can see exactly how a writer shapes opinion while appearing to simply report the news.
Class contents
Background and context
PowerPoint walkthrough of the article
Video examples of teens' GCSE text analysis
