About us

Trevor Millum

Trevor has been an English teacher, then Head of Department and advisory teacher. Trevor was Director of NATE till recently and he also worked for Resource Education (a small software house). Writer of poetry and stories for children and ICT and English trainer and writer, Trevor continues to work with schools, teachers and universities. He has his own website called The Mouse and the Muse.

To read the longer version of Trevor's career, go here

Chris Warren

Chris Warren was an English teacher for 19 years. He has worked for a number of years for companies providing online resources for education and is currently employed on education development for Teachit. He serves on the NATE English and ICT Committee and is well known for his creative approach to using ICT in the classroom. He is co-editor with Trevor Millum of Sharing, not Staring, creative ideas for interactive whiteboards, and wrote Twenty Things to do with a Word Processor and the NATE CD-ROM for GCSE poetry, Unlocking Literature with Trevor. Chris has written a number of articles for the Secondary English Magazine and NATE Classroom and contributed a chapter to Teaching English: A Handbook for Primary and Secondary School Teachers, edited by Andrew Goodwyn and Jane Branson and published by Routledge Falmer.

You can see Chris's work for Teachit in their Word Kitchen.

Tom Rank

Tom Rank spent time on VSO in Pakistan then taught in comprehensive schools for many years. He left to edit a website for secondary English teachers and is now a freelance consultant and co-ordinator for NATE of its work for Becta on ICT in English teaching. He has a regular column in NATE's English Drama Media magazine and is currently Chair of NATE's ICT Committee. Tom has written two volumes in the York Notes Advanced series, on Poetry of the First World War and The School for Scandal. He was for many years a senior examiner and Principal Moderator for Advanced Level English Literature.

Tom has his own website, Literary Connections, with links to resources for English teaching.

Associate members of the team

We regularly work with the following highly experienced writers and trainers:

Judith Kneen

Judith is a a senior lecturer in secondary English at Newman University College, Birmingham, as well as being a freelance education trainer and writer. Prior to this, she worked with the Gloucestershire advisory service for a number of years, following a career as a teacher for 14 years, with differing responsibilities including head of department.

Judith has produced a range of resources for a number of publishers, including Oxford University Press and Heinemann, and she also writes a regular column for the Education Guardian. She has delivered training and workshops, notably on the use of interactive whiteboards in English, at school, and national level.

Esther Menon

Esther Menon is a Strategy Literacy Consultant for Northants LA as well as working as a freelance consultant for English and ICT. She has been involved in English teaching and ICT since 1993, working as a teacher, educational adviser at Research Machines and a Strategy English Consultant for Oxfordshire LA.

She has produced books and CDs for Heinemann and led the development of the DfES-funded Indigo Visions English CPD resources (many now found in the National Strategy's ICT in English pack and the DfES Practical Support Pack) and worked with Professor David Wray to develop interactive whiteboard software and content for Easiteach Literacy (RM).

There's more about Esther here.

Lorna Smith

Lorna Smith is Senior Lecturer for PGCE Secondary and KS2-3 English and Professional Perspectives Course Leader at Bath Spa University. Before this she was a PGCE lecturer at the University of the West of England and taught for over ten years in South Gloucestershire, including a spell as Head of Department. She has a number of print-based and on-line teaching and learning resources to her name, and is also a resource editor for Teachit. Lorna is Chair of the NATE ICT and English Committee.

There's more about Lorna here.