Brighton College — A "Story of Our Land" exercise book with a full reference toolkit baked into the covers

The brief

Brighton College came to us for an exercise book for their "Story of Our Land" course that would do more than just hold lined paper — somewhere a student could write, be marked, respond to feedback, and have every piece of scaffolding they needed within reach without flipping to a separate booklet. The department wanted one consistent working format repeated through the book, so a student opening it for their tenth piece of work uses the same fields as their first. The book also needed front and back covers that taught — expectations, marking codes, sentence stems, source analysis and spelling — so the reference material lived in the same place as the work.

What we designed

Working with Brighton College, we built a 68-page exercise book anchored on a single repeating working spread, wrapped front and back with a full reference toolkit.

A bold cover in the school's blue, orange and yellow palette with overlapping speech-bubble shapes, the school crest, the "Story of Our Land" title and a name panel on the front so each student's book is clearly their own.
An opening expectations page setting out how the book should be looked after — neat writing, date and title underlined, diagrams in pencil, mistakes neatly crossed out, no graffiti, no scribbling out, no tearing pages — followed by repeated "To hit my target I will… / achieved" target-setting boxes.
A marking code key laying out every symbol a teacher might use — correct method, spelling, capital letter, word order, new line, rephrase, grammar, punctuation, missing information, verb tense, new paragraph, clarity, verbal feedback — so a student can always decode what's been marked.
A PEEL writing toolkit on the inside cover: point sentence starters, evidence stems, explanation stems, connectives, compare and contrast, summarise, synonyms for "shows", adding ideas and opposition — the full sentence-level scaffolding for written answers.
A repeating working spread used for every piece of work: a lined left-hand page with a check list down the side (accuracy, spelling, grammar), a date box, and footer columns for key words, key points and facts, and further questions / respond to feedback — and on the facing right-hand page more lined space with a "what went well / EBI feedback" footer marked teacher / peer / self.
A "My Notes / My Misspelt Words" spread for ongoing vocabulary capture as students work through the course.
Back-cover reference material on source analysis — Nature, Origin, Purpose, Inference, Content — with sentence starters for source questions, plus a PEE-style mark scheme showing exactly how points are awarded.
A closing reference page listing the 200 most commonly misspelled words for students to check against.

The finished book

300 bespoke books land at Brighton College every year, and the school has reordered for every cohort since 2021 — one book per student, with the toolkit and the working space in the same place all year.