We've caught up with Youtube English teacher sensation Mr Salles on the Brummie Mummies podcast to ask him how we can help our kids get amazing grades in their GCSEs. If you’ve heard of Mr Salles then you’ll know you’re in for a treat. If not, look him up as he's sure to be helpful for your kids leading up to their exams.

Father-of-two Dominic Salles started putting videos online as a way of helping his pupils with their homework. Those videos - and many more - have now gone on to have millions of hits on Youtube.

He sits the exams himself to figure out exactly what kids need to do to get the top grades. Then he tells them how to do it. It’s as simple as that. So, if you have a child who hates English or feels they aren’t good at writing, they need to watch Mr Salles and read his books, especially his Guide to 100 per cent in the AQA English Language exam.

Read more: 10 game-changing revision tips your child needs to know about for their GCSEs

Listen to Mr Salles' top tips on the Brummie Mummies podcast:

"Most teachers assume because they are experts in the subject that their instincts about the exams will be right but, unless you’ve sat the exams yourself, you don’t realise how much of it is nothing to do with English and everything to do with the peculiarities of this particular exam," said Mr Salles.

"With English, the assessment criteria is so open to subjective interpretation and far too complex. I spend a lot of time thinking about what you actually have to do so that the examiners can’t disagree on your mark.

"I've realised it’s a test of character, awfully, I hate that and English shouldn’t be, but it is. It's just a case of how much you can write and can you just keep going?

"My son said to me 'Dad, English is number nine on my list for revision so I’m only willing to give it four hours.' But I found I could teach him in four hours so it is doable, even if you don’t like it."

Mr Salles' top tips for GCSE English exams

  1. Just do practice exam papers - if you get a result you don’t like, do the question again. Research shows if you revise in this high stakes way, you replicate the exam and you’ll learn more
  2. About 30 per cent of the marks comes down to writing speed. If you have a question worth eight marks, can you make eight points, writing around 300 words in 12 minutes? If you can, it’s going to be impossible to get less than a grade seven
  3. Question five is worth 50 per cent of the marks on each paper. So do it first to make sure you don’t run out of time. Plan a story in advance and memorise descriptions of negative and positive settings and characters. Ensure it has the vocabulary, sentence structure and punctuation you need and you’ll tick off the assessment objectives as you blend it into whatever the question is
  4. Let go of the idea your handwriting needs to be super neat. Sacrifice neatness for speed
  5. Don’t sit and think. Writing is thinking so just get straight on with answering the question. If you're writing something that doesn’t work, you’ll instantly spot that and come up with a new idea. Each new paragraph of the text gives you something new to write so write something about each paragraph
  6. Examiners never take away marks for something that’s rubbish. In English you can write a paragraph that scores no marks at all and the examiners will just ignore it. It's volume that really counts
  7. For literature, narrow down 10 to 15 quotes on any text that will fit all of the theme ideas. This will then fit any question that comes up. Embed short quotes. Build an argument that shows how the journey of the text builds the author’s ideas. That’s easy - just follow the text chronologically as this gives you an inherent structure and will almost guarantee you a grade seven or higher
  8. Write about the first and last paragraphs of a source to show the examiner you have read the whole text
  9. Start each sentence with a different word, that will improve your writing by two grades because you’ll automatically start using subordinate clauses and connectives without focusing on it - that’s like a super power of writing
  10. For persuasive writing, think about the long term consequences of your argument rather than just focusing on today

Education podcasts

Hear lots more Mr Salles tips on our Brummie Mummies podcast and watch his videos on the Mr Salles Teaches English Youtube channel. His books on Shakespeare, poetry, English Language and English Literature and more are available on Amazon.

Brummie Mummies is a Laudable production, produced by Matt Millard. You can download or stream new episodes every fortnight on all major podcasting platforms, including Spotify and Apple.

Please share this episode with anyone who you think might find it useful. You may also want to check out our episodes on the three questions every parent should ask on parents evening with headteacher Raj Mann, why dyslexia is a superpower with Kate Griggs and finding balance when revising with teacher Nicola Lappage.

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