I was born and grew up in London, studied English at Birmingham University, then endured a series of jobs (record shop manager, architect’s dogsbody and psychiatric hospital laundry worker) before training as a teacher in Oxford.

I spent twelve years teaching in an 11-18 comprehensive in Oxfordshire, leaving in 2007 as Head of English and Senior Teacher in order to teach part-time and write during the gaps. I now live in mid Wales with my partner, two dogs and two cats, dividing my time between writing, consulting and teaching.

In 2004 I began writing for Heinemann, working on the Edges KS3 course book. A number of Heinemann titles later, my first play for schools – Free! – was published in 2008. Since then, I’ve written three novels (including two of the Robot Races series under the unlikely pen-name of Axel Lewis…), another two plays, and a number of short stories for developing readers.

The majority of my time is spent writing print and online teaching resources and consulting on curriculum and assessment for a variety of education publishers, including Pearson, OUP, Macmillan and Bloomsbury.