Michael McLeod . Ink • Writer, Editor, Academic Coach & Educator

Underestimated English this year? Marks not where you want them to be – but not sure why?

English is hard. It isn't studied. It’s thought. And expressed.

Time is short. Let me help.

I have a decade of experience teaching English at elite IEB schools. I know how to get them over the final hurdle.

I help kids boost the skills underlying exam success, give them expert insights into exam trends and marking, and reteach missed or spotty content – leveraging my deep expertise as a high-performing teacher in the IEB and Cambridge systems. I have an MA in creative writing and a BA Honours in applied linguistics. I know this subject, I know language and I know what makes teens tick.

Let’s make the most of the last weeks.

Get in touch to book or find out more:
Email: [email protected]
WhatsApp: 078 865 0046
Website: https://www.michaelmcleod.ink/services/tutoring

Branding used to be iterative.

Startups could plug the right SEO keywords into a blog, link a vanilla Instagram post and bribe staff to do a cringey, memey video. Eyeballs would be pulled. Keywords would shine. Brand would be built.

That worked in the 2010s and the early 2020s. But AI slop is ubiquitous now. Any brand can churn out content. It’s plug-and-play.

But this doesn’t work like it used to. Audiences, especially literate ones, are craving human stories, hints of human messiness and a sign that businesses are real.

What startups need – especially in the education space – is writing that sings with humanity. It needs length. It needs space to breathe. It needs life so the reader trusts it – and you.

EdTech startups, education NPOs and schools need to invest in this kind of long-form writing. Get a human who’s been a teacher and knows the magic of communal education. Take the risk to show your brand in detail. Let narrative tell the story of who you are, why you do what you do and what you think.

After all, humans have been using narrative for millennia to create community, make meaning and shape their world. Leverage that ancient power.

And if you’re an EdTech startup or education NPO and what I just said resonates, let’s talk. I know a guy.

[email protected]
https://www.michaelmcleod.ink

Getting English marks up is a knotty business, especially in high school.

I taught IEB and Cambridge English for 11 years at elite schools in Johannesburg. I know what it takes to do well in this subject. It's not about drilling or studying. English is an art. It's language and expression. You need to get into the weeds.

Your kid deserves someone in their corner who knows the system and how to get teens to thrive in this discipline. I've done it for years.

I have a few slots left for October.

DM or email me for premium English tuition in IEB, CAPS or Cambridge (iGCSE, AS and A2) curricula:
[email protected]

Find out more at my website:
https://www.michaelmcleod.ink/services/tutoring

Getting English marks up is a knotty business, especially in high school.

I taught English for 11 years at elite schools in Johannesburg. I know what it takes to do well in this subject. It's not about drilling or studying. English is an art. It's language and expression. You need to get into the weeds.

Your kid deserves someone in their corner who knows the system and how to get teens to thrive in this discipline. I've done it for years.

I have a few slots left for September.

DM or email me for premium English tuition in IEB, CAPS or Cambridge curricula:
[email protected]

Find out more at my website:
https://www.michaelmcleod.ink/services/tutoring

Has your blog lapsed? Old posts remain from their SEO glory days, gathering digital dust?

What you need is a reset switch.

I call it a Blog Revival package, designed for education startups and NPOs who need to get their blogs working for them again.

Let’s revive it for 2025’s market and attention economy.

We’ll refresh the content, write fresh pieces for today’s readers and tomorrow’s business needs, and calibrate the blog for an AI world.

Let’s translate your vision and position your brand as human, thoughtful and worth discerning eyeballs.

Find out more:
https://www.michaelmcleod.ink/services/articles-blogs ��

Or get in touch for a quote or a chat on DM or email:
[email protected]

A tonal 'slip' can be artful, elegant, blazingly surprising.

Writing doesn't have to have a consistent tone. Writing thus would be robotic, such as the sentence by which you are presently occupied. Its rigidity emerges from its tonal consistency.

Chucking in a word with an odd register – a surprising curse, a squeeze into a colloquialism, a sudden oops, an out-of-context eish! – enlivens an otherwise dead piece.

This is one of my quirks. As a former English teacher, I knew it was dodge to break from a brisk register. I also saw many students slip into slang accidentally or because they didn't the vocab to write more formally.

Some of the 'character' of your writing style comes from slips and obsessions, the human touches that aren't replicable.

Let your tone slip strategically. Dala what you must sometimes.

And embrace your quirks.

https://www.michaelmcleod.ink

Until quite recently, I was an obsessive comma planter.

I was an English teacher. I taught and therefore exhibited the comma's technical use.

Sometimes, though, too many commas, even when used with technical precision, break the flow, the rhythm, arriving like daggers, creating a breathy, jagged, see-saw effect, suffocating and stalling.

Precision can kill.

After having my writing savaged in workshops during my MA studies (supervisors mentioned my commas so often!), I realized that a teacher's neurotic obsession with form isn't always helpful.

So I had to give my words more space to breathe by easing control, letting commas arrive instinctively. It was brutal at first because I felt like I was abandoning some law of physics. But I found other ways to punctuate – and other techniques to alter the pace and flow of my phrasing.

I still use them of course, but more intentionally. Now my comma use is more personal, more deliberate, almost illiberal. I have comma quirks now. And that helps my writing feel more like me.

Embrace your quirks.

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