SecEd Podcast

Host Adele Bates leads a reflective and practical discussion on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the school, especially within the curriculum, school culture and workforce. Adele and guests, including #DiverseEd's Bennie Kara, author of A Little Guide for Teachers: Diversity in Schools, discuss how far we have come and what needs to happen next. Topics include decolonising/diversifying the curriculum, LGBT, whole-school approaches, workforce training and changing school cultures. We consider EDI within school policies, recruitment and school values/culture. Where should schools start with this work? How do we get past tokenism and box-ticking?

This episode offers a wealth of practical insights, advice & ideas for effective safeguarding practice in schools. We look at general good practice as well as safeguarding during Covid-19. Our experts tackle issues including the key principles of effective safeguarding, safer working practice, making effective referrals/working with children's social care & the 'trends' to be aware of in 2021 (sexual harassment/abuse, self-harm, online abuse, esafety). We look at safeguarding considerations for September, how safeguarding practice has evolved during Covid-19, what changes are here to stay, the issues we are on the look-out for & what our response should be.

In this episode, three guests – who have more than 34 years' teaching experience between them – dissect what exactly Quality First Teaching looks like in the classroom, offering practical ideas, guidance, tips and reflection. We tackle issues such as teacher CPD, subject knowledge, and research-led teaching. We look at the environment for learning, some key principles of effective pedagogy, stretch, challenge and high expectations as well as explanations and modelling. We also tackle questioning techniques, how to tackle misconceptions, practice and revision, as well as feedback and assessment.

This episode focuses on issues of SEND, inclusion and diversity in the school environment in the context of the Covid pandemic, our students returning following national lockdown, and how we might build back better. Host Adele Bates leads a wide-ranging discussion which offers practical reflections, empathy and advice across areas including students' lockdown experiences, issues around the current transition back into school, supporting students who struggled or disappeared during lockdown, anxiety, advice for parents, advice for SENCOs, and more. The discussion also touches upon issues of diversity and equity, building back better after Covid, and supporting the school workforce.

This episode looks at how we can effectively teach and support students who use English as an additional language (EAL) in the classroom. With advice from three experienced teaching experts, we consider who our EAL students are, the five bands of language proficiency, the tenets of good classroom practice, learning materials, translanguaging, high expectations, assessing learners' progress, effective resources, and more. We also look at family/parental engagement, how to support students when they first arrive in your school, whole-school approaches and supporting EAL students during Covid-19.

This episode looks at the plight of our vulnerable learners as schools re-open once again to all students after the third Covid-19 national lockdown. We consider barriers to learning and wellbeing that vulnerable learners face and what our priorities must be coming out of Lockdown 3.0. We discuss: what we have learnt about effective remote education, teaching & lessons, the cancelled Summer 2021 exams, student progression, working with families, SEND, questions to ask ahead of full school re-opening & more. We also talk wellbeing & mental health, including attendance, anxiety, county lines, safeguarding issues, pastoral care and more.

This episode looks at the skills, traits and approaches that effective middle leaders need to employ in the secondary school environment and offers practical advice, tips and reflections from three practising middle leaders. We discuss how to work with and lead your teaching colleagues, how to manage tricky colleagues, how to work with those who are more experienced than you, and how we can best support struggling colleagues. We also look at communication, maintaining professional boundaries, workload and team morale, career progression, CPD, developing your team, and developing a culture of mutual trust – among other areas.

In this episode, we consider what effective teaching for SEN students looks like in the mainstream school classroom. The discussion considers the principles of good teaching for SEN students, common barriers to success, and the implications for pedagogy. We touch upon the use of teaching assistants, models of intervention, and how we should work with families. Other themes include the SEND in Mainstream Schools Guidance, implementing the graduated approach (Assess, Plan, Do, Review), and adaptive teaching (dispelling the myths of differentiation). And we consider Cognitive Load Theory, masking, sensory overload, and making the curriculum and resources accessible.

In this episode, we interview former headteacher and author Jackie Beere and former teacher and school leader Kevin Piper about metacognition and self-regulation. The panel define their terms and discuss ways to help students develop metacognitive skills in order to support their wellbeing, their learning and progress. They debate whether metacognition can be taught as a transferable skill or if it is domain-specific, and discuss the importance of a teacher modelling different learning strategies. The podcast offers a number of teaching ideas and strategies.

This episode looks at Covid-19. We discuss how schools have coped during the autumn term. Their biggest successes and the biggest challenges. What lessons have we learned? What good practice advice can we give? We also touch upon how we are planning for the spring and summer terms 2021. We are joined by three headteachers from schools in Tier 2 and 3 areas and Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. Topics: Leadership, remote education, staff wellbeing & fatigue, workload, government guidance, school budgets, risk assessment, catch-up funding, exam preparation, parental engagement, mental health & more.