With school closures occurring across many countries due to the Coronavirus, parents are concerned with both what their children will learn and how they can get them to do this. Since Blackhen launched over ten years ago the majority of our students have completed their work with us at home. Along the way we have …
January is here again! Once again we will all be looking to become better people. Be it slimmer, smoke-free, alcohol refraining, multi-lingual, kinder or less-stressed. The list goes on. For many, these admirable aims will fall by the way side within a few weeks. However, one area you can succeed in, and improve your life …
Once again as the nights draw in and the clocks go back, we are approaching the 31st October. And this means only one thing. Halloween! This popular festival seems to grow each year, being widely celebrated in many countries now around the world. But why do we carve pumpkin lanterns, dress up in scary costumes or tell creepy stories? What are the roots of this tradition and the different elements connected to it? The …
Refugee (noun) ‘A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster’. The concept of refugees goes back centuries. It is founded on the practice of someone seeking safety in a neutral, safe place. Centuries ago this would have been a church or sacred site. In …
Early on the 6th June 1944 D-Day began. It was the beginning of Operation Overlord. This was the military operation that would ultimately bring about the defeat of Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the end of World War Two in Western Europe. On its 75th anniversary we look at why we should remember this military event …
January is here again! Once again we will all be looking to become better people. Be it slimmer, smoke-free, alcohol refraining, multi-lingual, kinder or less-stressed. The list goes on. For many, these admirable aims will fall by the way side within a few weeks. However, one area you can succeed in, and improve your life …
How can I get my child to read? This is probably the most frequent question an English teacher gets asked. Actually, it is usually ‘How can I get my son to read?’ That’s because it is usually, though not exclusively, a ‘boy problem’. So, what can you do? The golden question. There are lots …
November 2018 marks the centenary of World War 1. In the 100 years since that terrible conflict that took the lives of millions, thousands of books, newspaper articles and films have been written. From the haunting poetry of Sassoon, Owen, Brooke and a score of others to the recent film ‘Warhorse’ by Michael Morpurgo, WW1 …
‘Early evening, April four Shot rings out in the Memphis sky Free at last, they took your life They could not take your pride. As a teenager I remember when I first heard these lyrics from U2’s song ‘Pride in the name of love’. It was September 1984. Intrigued about ‘who’ was shot (these …