About Carón
Carón Drake
Experience, subject knowledge and a belief in independent thought
“Confidence in Literature does not come from reassurance; it comes from understanding.”
I have spent more than 20 years in education, teaching English and working with young people across different educational settings in South Africa and the United Kingdom.
I hold Qualified Teacher Status (UK) and have held senior English responsibilities during my teaching career, including serving as a Head of English.
English Literature has always interested me for reasons that extend well beyond examination results. At its best, the subject asks students to pay attention: to language, ideas, character, context, ambiguity and the choices a writer makes. It requires them to consider different possibilities, form judgements and support those judgements intelligently.
These are demanding skills. They are also highly transferable ones.
Beyond the formula
Students are often taught the components of an English Literature response without being shown how those components work together — a quotation here, a technique there, a paragraph structure learnt by rote.
But knowing the ingredients of an essay is not the same as thinking critically about a text. A strong Literature student needs to be able to ask: what is the writer doing here, why might it matter, is there another possible interpretation, what evidence genuinely supports my argument?
Structure has its place, but it should support thought rather than replace it. When students become too dependent on formulas or memorised paragraphs, their writing can become mechanically competent without being genuinely analytical.
My aim is to help students move beyond that dependence — towards writing that is controlled and well structured, but also thoughtful, perceptive and individual, and towards developing a method of thinking a student can rely on independently.
Teaching in an age of AI
Artificial intelligence has changed the educational landscape, and pretending students will not use it is neither realistic nor useful. The more important question is how they use it.
Within my teaching, AI is approached thoughtfully and ethically. It can occasionally provide material to interrogate, challenge or refine, but it should never substitute for reading, thinking or writing. A student might examine an AI-generated interpretation and ask whether the textual evidence genuinely supports it, or identify where the analysis is superficial. Used this way, AI becomes another object of critical scrutiny — the student's own judgement remains central.
The purpose of the work
GCSE and IGCSE students are working towards examinations, and examination requirements matter. But examination preparation is strongest when it rests on genuine understanding, not on producing a particular paragraph on a particular text.
My aim is for students to become more attentive readers, more independent thinkers and more accomplished analytical writers. Those abilities serve the examination — and, more importantly, they belong to the student afterwards.