Episodes

We’ve reached the end of another year of podcasting, and ready to give you all a summer break from our dulcet tones. To wrap up our seventh year in front of the microphones, we’re delighted to welcome back Richard West from Stanwell School. Richard’s here to contribute to our occasional series of episodes unpacking the nature of different subjects as they are experienced by pupils in the classroom. This time around, it’s the turn of physics: a subject with a fearsome reputation, a shortage of te...

When we heard that Finola Wilson from our friends at Impact Wales had published a book, our first reaction (after congratulations!) was to realise how ridiculously long it’s been since we last spoke to our fellow Welsh education podcasters. Long-time listeners will know that we visited their HQ in Caerphilly (and Tom has particularly fond memories of hauling the sound equipment through an incredible downpour of rain) just before Covid to talk about the sterling work that they do in schools. Now...

It's something of a tradition to haul Emma in for a doctoral progress check, and today she's digging into her chosen research approach: participatory research. If you listened to Emma's last episode, you'll remember that she examined her own research worldview and values, and concluded that she couldn't find out what she needs to know without making her participants into co-researchers, which makes for a complicated setup! Today she's telling us what her participants said about what and how sh...

We welcome Dr Fiona Heath-Diffey to the studio today to talk us through her doctoral research into the experiences of primary student teachers getting to grips with the idea of teaching PE. Fiona has previously joined us to talk about physical literacy - the idea that PE lessons should give pupils a lifelong healthy relationship with exercise and their bodies, rather than teachers taking an elitist view centred around creating elite sports people. In her research, Fiona uncovered some compelli...

For teachers it's the Easter break, and so we like to bring you another of our selections of the interesting, humorous and strange things we have been reading or otherwise consuming lately. This time around, Tom's taking a look at what it's like to be a 'progressive activist', while also musing on the power of the legally-enforced lunch break. Meanwhile, Emma has a book recommendation and a bit of a rant about the dusty old tropes wheeled out every time a TV drama is set in a school. Many laug...

Back in our non-camera-enabled studio, we've got some thoughts for you today about how observation can be made more purposeful. Often found as an initial activity at the start of student teacher placements, it can sometimes be a missed opportunity if student teachers simply stand at the back and try to make sense of what's going on in a busy classroom in an unfamiliar school. That's why we got some top-quality school colleagues in to discuss the challenges of making observation purposeful, and ...

Back in our normal studio, we welcome Professor David Egan back to the podcast. David was last with us taking about the poverty gap in education, and today he’s here to tell us about a report he’s written into the recruitment and retention of secondary school teachers. The report ranges widely around lots of important questions about what is shaping up to be something of a crisis for the profession, not just here in Wales but across the UK and, increasingly, internationally. David and his team ...

We're in the 'other' studio today which, to our delight, is not bristling with cameras! Apologies to the very small club of people who watch our episodes on YouTube. Emma was recently asked to review a book for the National Drama subject association: Teaching and Learning Shakespeare through Theatre Based Practice. Today we bring you an extended chat about the book, what it brings to those who want to use theatre based practice to help pupils access the work of Shakespeare, and what wider theme...

We make no apology for having based several of our episodes around the person that many student teachers report is the single most important person in their teacher education journey: the mentor. They're the school-based colleague who looks after the student teacher on placement, gives them advice, feedback and support, and assesses their teaching. It just so happens that one of Emma's many jobs is to be on the team that supports those all-important mentors, and today we're joined by Sian Wicke...

Today we welcome Kelly Bubbins from Willows High School in Cardiff. Willows is located in a part of Cardiff that's not without its challenges, and as Kelly tells us, assumptions about what that means for the aspirations pupils can have for themselves were a big problem for the school. This translated into poor behaviour and low aspiration, and the school decided to have a reset of its policies to see if something could be done about it. Kelly explains to us how, after the school looked outwards...

Today we're all on our own without a guest, because we're presenting original Cardiff Met research! But our colleague Sioned Dafydd is with us in spirit as she was a key member of the three-person research team that carried out this work. Today we're looking at what happens when student teachers change from one school placement to another, and when they move from their initial teacher education into their first job. In particular, we're focusing on the part that Wales's Professional Standards f...

In a very impressive move to win 'most dedicated podcast guest', today we welcome Dr Rachel Shanks from the University of Aberdeen to our studio in person! For obvious reasons, our original request to Rachel involved a down-the-line interview, but we were very happy indeed to be able to instead welcome her to Cardiff after an epic train journey from Scotland. Rachel has had a major impact on school uniform policy in Scotland following her work with students to analyse the policies of a huge num...

It’s that festive time of year again, and hopefully anyone involved in the world of education is relaxing after a very long Autumn term. We’re back with our usual Christmas offering - though we’re out of our normal studio as our friends in the Sport Broadcast and Media programmes are having a busy last week of term up on the second floor. In a partially successful attempt to cut the duration of our epic Christmas special, we’ve limited ourselves to four items each, and as ever, neither of us k...

One of the perks of hosting the podcast is that we get to invite people who’ve influenced us to come on as guests, and in our world of teacher education, there are few people who’ve had more influence on us than Professor Trevor Mutton from the University of Oxford. Co-author of a huge number of articles and books that have shaped our thinking about how new teachers learn, we’ve been privileged to work with Trevor for a number of years. Now, we’ve managed to get him into the studio to discuss a...

Teaching people to be teachers can feel like a bit of a head-spinner - it can get meta quite quickly! But teacher educators (in school or in university) are also part of a wider group of slightly unusual people who teach people to become public-service professionals like social workers, youth workers or police officers. In all of these cases, these educators have moved from a professional role to a role teaching people to do that job. While our colleagues looking after students in their work pl...

It's time for another 'delve' (!) into the world of AI, and how large language models have found their way into the world of education. Following our episode last year with Karl Jones, today we welcome Mark Lester from the library service into the studio. Mark's been keeping an eye on all things AI for a number of years now, and has some interesting thoughts for us on where it might make life more productive for students and those who teach them. He's also got some insights for us into the chall...

It’s October half term, and therefore time for one of our ‘light’ episodes! To entertain you with something a little different, we’ve gone a bit rogue and found three interesting things each. As ever, we don’t tell one another what’s coming in advance (though if you listened to the last episode with Emma, it’s fair to say that Tom had a good idea that an epistemology quiz was in his immediate future…). We also quietly drop our usual 60 minute limit on episode length in order to chew things over ...

Tom is joined in studio B2.15 today by Megan Cole from PGCE Primary, who talks us through her research into how learning through play can enhance the experience of older primary school pupils. --------------------- Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 29th April 2024

In the second half of our EdD work-in-progress double bill, Emma moves on from defining her worldview to realising that she needs to carry out her research using participatory methods. This is something a bit new to Emma (and quite a few of us in education) so today we take a dive into what it involves, how it differs from many of the approaches we’re used to as education specialists, and look forward to what Emma’s going to do next. Thanks to Emma for lots of interesting food for thought! ———...

For this episode, we welcome a very special guest to the studio… Emma! She’s still working away at her EdD and has been concentrating on the research design. This includes not only piloting her project on a small scale, but also getting to grips with tricky things such as her worldview, paradigm, ontology, epistemology and axiology - all long words to strike fear into researchers. In discussing her work in progress with Tom, she ended up providing enough content for two episodes! In this first ...

ITV National News* have just dropped a hard-hitting report about standards of literacy in Welsh schools. If you haven’t seen it, you can get the text and video here. We wanted to put together a reaction piece to unpack the issues around phonics and reading (without getting embroiled in any reading wars), but also zoom out a bit and see whether this first really prominent news investigation into the Welsh education reforms might be pointing to wider questions or concerns with the Curriculum for ...

For today's snippet of student teacher research Tom is joined by Ella Cleary from PGCE Secondary Biology. Ella was interested in how to use assessment for learning strategies to create an equitable biology classroom. ----------------------------------------------------- Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 29th April 2024