SecEd Podcast

This episode considers what schools can do to spot vulnerable students at risk of suspension or exclusion and how we can intervene to pull them back from the brink. Official figures show the number of suspensions and exclusions is increasing year-on-year, not least due to persistent disruptive behaviour. Related factors seem to include unmet mental health and SEN needs, poverty, safeguarding issues, trauma, criminal exploitation, social media, and more. In this episode, we chat to a secondary school headteacher and a virtual headteacher to find out what they are seeing on the ground. We ask what preventative actions schools can take to keep students in school and what the signs are that we need to be alert to that a student is on a suspension/exclusion trajectory. We discuss a graduated response to supporting students and the role of the school environment and climate for learning, including how routines and expectations can help and "teaching" behaviour. We also touch upon potential interventions for students at risk, including pastoral support plans, unmet needs, a change of curriculum, family support workers and more. We also ask how we can support students who have been suspended to help them reintegrate into school life successfully, including running reintegration meetings.

In this episode we discuss excellent Pupil Premium practice and offer practical tips and ideas for how schools and teachers can support their most disadvantaged pupils. We explore the causes of disadvantage and why the attainment gap between rich and poor has remained stubbornly large. We look at the tangible classroom consequences of disadvantage and what that means for teaching and learning. Specifically, we touch upon how we can improve the attendance of disadvantaged students as well as their language and vocabulary levels. We look at how we can ensure the funding benefits all pupils living in disadvantage – and not just those eligible for free school meals – and we explore the Pupil Premium interventions that tend to work best in most settings. We look at the common ingredients of an effective Pupil Premium strategy, including breaking down the five steps recommended by the EEF (diagnose pupil need, ensure strong evidence, implement, monitor, evaluate). We look at the role and responsibilities of the Pupil Premium coordinator in schools and the part that must be played by senior leaders and governors. And we also discuss how to prepare for an inspection of your Pupil Premium practice.

This episode looks at how to be an effective line manager in the secondary school, offering practical advice, examples and strategies for middle and senior leaders who have line management responsibilities. We chat with two experienced school leaders to discuss the golden rules and key skills required to be an effective line manager. We look at the different type of line manage roles and identify the biggest challenges for line managers. We focus specifically on appraisal – a key duty of line managers. We look at effective appraisal practice, supporting CPD, how to prepare for and have difficult conversations, and dos and don'ts for conducting lesson observations. We also talk about effective quality assurance practice, including how line managers can act on the findings of QA processes. And we discuss staff wellbeing, morale and workload – what can line managers do to protect staff wellbeing, build morale and to help keep workload under control and in check.

This episode looks at how school leaders can thrive and survive in their role, including wellbeing advice, tips for leading from the front, and advice for those new to leadership roles. We interview two experienced school leaders to get their insights and practical advice. We look at the hardest challenges of school leadership for those new to the role and tips to help you start off on the right foot. We ask how school leaders can be visible in school and available while protecting their workload and work/life balance. We also ask how leaders can model good work/life balance and working practices, including delegation and distributed leadership. And how can we lead from the front, and set ourselves up to- make good decisions and drive school improvement? We consider how to have difficult conversations, dealing with conflict and tackling underperformance. And how can we avoid becoming an isolated leader. How do we show vulnerability and humility as a school leader, how do we model learning from our mistakes and how do we remain resilient?

In this episode, three experienced teachers discuss how to start and end our lessons in the secondary school classroom – focusing on getting the first and last 10 minutes right. We kick off with some "golden rules" and key ingredients for opening and closing our lessons. We look at achieving calm lesson starts from a behaviour and classroom management point of view, including setting the right tone for behaviour, meeting and greeting, and dealing with students who are late or those who do not settle well. We also consider ideas for getting into learning as quickly and smoothly as possible, including tips for starter activities, recapping previous learning, explaining learning objectives, and fostering student engagement and curiosity about the lesson. When it comes to ending our lessons, we discuss ideas and techniques for bringing learning to a natural close and assessing whether the lesson has landed well with students. Also, how do we give students reflection time? Do we always need a plenary? And what makes for effective end-of-lesson learning routines? And how can we end our lessons so that transition to the next lesson is calm from a behavioural point of view, including effective end of lesson behaviour routines.

Good questioning is at the heart of great teaching – as such this very practical episode looks at how teachers can plan and ask effective questions that support student participation, learning and progress. Two experienced teachers discuss the different purposes of questioning in the classroom as well as the things teachers must consider when planning their questions and questioning techniques. We detail some of the common challenges and how we can overcome them, such as getting the timing of questions right, encouraging student participation, dealing with "I don't know" responses, improving oracy and the quality of student responses, creating a safe questioning culture in your classroom and more. We look at the different types of questions, including hinge questions, Socratic questioning, discussions, metacognitive questions and more. And we consider different techniques, including hot seating, think-pair-share, cold-calling, mini-whiteboards, entry and exit tickets, students asking the questions and more.

This episode of the podcast asks how classroom teachers and teaching staff can best support the learning, progress, and wellbeing of their neurodiverse students. Our expert panel offer a range of advice, ideas, and tips based on their extensive experience within SEND education. We define neurodiversity and discuss what makes a learner neurodiverse and the kinds of conditions the term covers while also busting some myths. We discuss how we can support the wellbeing of these learners in our classroom, including examples of best practice and practical tips. Likewise, we discuss general teaching tips and approaches to support the progress of neurodiverse learners, touching upon pedagogy, common adjustments, adaptive teaching, and the classroom environment. We talk advice for supporting specific neurodiverse conditions and we also hear about one school's Autism Resource Base and how that has been established and works in practice. We finish with some recommendations for further reading, resources, and support for our work to support this cohort of students.

This episode looks at the role of the classroom teacher and teaching staff when it comes to effective safeguarding practice, offering insights, tips and practical dos and don'ts. Classroom teachers and teaching staff are on the frontline when it comes to spotting students who are at risk or struggling due to safeguarding issues. In the episode, three experts consider how we can spot the signs of safeguarding issues, what to do if we're worried, and how to support and handle disclosures from students – including what to say and what not to say. We discuss the key safeguarding duties of classroom staff, not least how teachers can engage effectively with the safeguarding documentation, including statutory guidance, and with training requirements. We consider general rules for ensuring good safeguarding practice in your classroom, how we can challenge our own assumptions, and how we can promote a culture of safeguarding, including via our classroom environment and the curriculum. Finally, we discuss some of the current safeguarding trends and offer tips and pointers for school staff.

This episode focuses on subject reviews or "deep dives" in the secondary school, asking what they are, how we can conduct them effectively without burdening staff, and what information we can and cannot expect to gather accurately. Our expert panel asks what a subject review or deep dive is and looks like and why we need to carry them out – ultimately, what is their purpose? We discuss how we can best conduct reviews/deep dives in order to ensure that we gather reliable and valid information that helps to inform our improvement planning. And how can we do this while minimising the amount of stress that deep dives can cause to subject leader sand teachers, not least in terms of workload? We ask what information we can gather with accuracy and confidence through subject review/deep dives, including the kind of questions we might ask. And, crucially, we ask what information we cannot gather with accuracy and confidence and what approaches we should avoid. We also discuss the vital role of subject and middle leaders and the kind of CPD a school must have in place to support effective subject review processes. Ofsted has of course placed subject deep dives at the heart of its Education Inspection Framework, and we touch upon how good practice in this area can stand a school in good stead for when inspectors do call.

In this episode, three experienced teachers discuss ideas, tips and advice for fostering student curiosity and motivation in the secondary school classroom. We ask what curiosity and motivation look like in a classroom and discuss the key elements of the classroom environment and our teaching and pedagogy that can help to create curious and motivated students. Not least, we ask how we can create a "culture of curiosity" that students buy into in our classrooms, including inclusive practice, building strong relationships with our students as well as the importance of effective classroom routines and teacher role-modelling (and how they can do this). We discuss how we can motivate students who are struggling in their personal lives and as such arrive in our classrooms not ready for learning. We focus on pedagogy and curriculum delivery. How can we plan learning so that we engage and retain students' curiosity? How can we make learning relevant to students' lives? We offer a range of ideas for using hooks and other devices to boost engagement. We talk about the kind of tasks we set in lessons, how we can achieve desirable difficulty so that students are challenged but motivated, and the importance of chunking work and achieving a high-but-not-too-high success rate. We talk about the role of teacher expectations and ideas for how we should respond when students "fail" or struggle with their learning. And we touch upon metacognition and self-regulation, the importance of teaching students how to manage their own learning, and the role of autonomy and student choice in their learning.