Emma & Tom Talk Teaching

A slightly different episode for February half term - this is our reflection on a talk we attended in September which was presented by the Singaporean ITE specialist Professor Pak Tee Ng. An adviser to the Scottish government on their education reforms, the professor was making a quick trip to Wales to deliver a 'masterclass' entitled 'The Singapore Story'. Singapore is the world's highest-ranking education system according to the international PISA tests (with Wales considerably further down the list!) so we were eager to hear what he had to say, and we weren't disappointed. On returning from the talk back at the start of this academic year, we sat down and recorded a podcast episode with our thoughts, which was then promptly relegated to the 'we have no idea when to put this out' folder, and then became our unofficial 'emergency episode', to fill a gap if something went disastrously wrong with something else! More than four months later, with no sign of a podcast disaster, we decided that if we didn't release the episode soon it would be too old to use, so we hope you enjoy our belated reflections on the force of nature that is Professor Pak Tee Ng. If you'd like to read the Professor's book, it's 'Learning from Singapore: The Power of Paradoxes' published by Routledge. Enjoy!     ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 30th September 2019

In an episode recorded in the final hours before we staggered into the sunset for our Christmas break (indeed, just a few hours before we recorded the Christmas special episode!), we travelled the short distance to the other university in Cardiff: the mighty Cardiff University, member of the Russell Group and now officially part of the Cardiff Partnership for Initial Teacher Education. While not involved in the training of school teachers, Cardiff University has an education department staffed with top-flight, internationally-renowned researchers, so we wanted to have a chat with one of them about the various knotty questions around how we can work to close a perceived gap between academic research and classroom practice. Professor David James kindly invited us to his office for a conversation which ranged widely across some really interesting questions in this important area, and we hope you find the discussion as thought-provoking as we did.   ---------- This episode was recorded at the Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University on 19th December 2019

If you've been with us since the start, you may remember our second-ever episode, in which we sat in Emma's house and discussed coaching and mentoring. We were inspired by a talk by a colleague from another university, Jordan Allers, to chew over the different ways we can help novice teachers (as well as more experienced colleagues) to improve their practice. Well, now we can return to the discussion because the wonderful Jordan Allers has jumped ship and joined us here at Cardiff Met! We managed to track him down and bring him to the microphone to put some substance on the original discussion, and to give us some pointers about how we in the teaching profession can raise our mentoring game! Tackling the regular slots, Jordan reveals himself as a lover of organisation, as well as providing us with some reading material and something to try that relates to today's topic. We hope you enjoy what Jordan has to say. We'll be back in a fortnight, when we'll be discussing the role of educational research with Professor David James of Cardiff University.   References   Adair, J. (2006) Effective Leadership Development. London: Jaico Publishing House. Campbell, J. (2016) ‘Coaching in Schools’, in Van Nieuwerburgh, C. (ed.) Coaching in Professional Contexts. London: SAGE Publications. Colwell, J. et al. (2015) Reflective Teaching in Early Education. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Donaldson, G. (2015) Successful Futures: Independent Review of Curriculum and Assessment Arrangements in Wales. Available at: https://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/150225-successful-futures-en.pdf (Accessed 21 August 2018). Estyn (2001) Good Practice in the Leadership and Management of Primary Schools in Wales. Cardiff: Estyn Publications. Fletcher, S. and Mullen, C. (eds) (2012) The Sage Handbook of Mentoring and Coaching in Education. London: SAGE Publications. Furlong, J. (2015) Teaching Tomorrow’s Teachers: Option for the future of initial teacher education in Wales [Online]. Available at: https://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/150309-teaching-tomorrows-teachers-final.pdf (Accessed: 22 August 2018 Harris, A. (2008) Distributed School Leadership, Developing Tomorrow's Leaders. Oxon: Routledge. Harris, A. (2014) Distributed Leadership Matters. Perspectives, Practicalities, and Potential. London: SAGE Publications. Hughes, M. (2013) Coaching and Mentoring Training Course (School-based CPD), October 2013. Langdon, F. (2017) Learning to mentor: unravelling routine practice to develop adaptive mentoring expertise, Teacher Development. DOI: 10.1080/13664530.2016.1267036 (Accessed: 9 October 2019) Langdon, F. and Ward, L. (2015) Educative Mentoring: a way forward, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education. https://doi.org/10.1108/ IJMCE-03-2015-0006 (Accessed: 9 October 2019) OECD (2018b) The Future of Education and Skills: Education 2030. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/education/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf (Accessed 21 December 2018 Pask, R. and Joy, B. (2007) Mentoring-coaching, a guide for education professionals. Berkshire: Open University Press. Rhodes, C., Stokes, M. and Hampton, G. (2004) A Practical Guide to Mentoring, Coaching and Peer-networking. Teacher Professional Development in Schools and Colleges. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Spence, G. (2016) ‘Coaching for Optimal Functioning’, in Van Nieuwerburgh, C. (ed.) Coaching in Professional Contexts. London: SAGE Publications. Thomson, B. (2014) First Steps in Coaching. London: SAGE. Warwick, J. and Wolpert, M A. (2014) ‘Making the Most of Your Placements’, in Cremin, T. and Arthur, J. (eds) Learning to Teach in the Primary School. Oxon: Routledge. Welsh Government (2014) Principles of Mentoring and Coaching [Online]. Available at: http://learning.gov.wales/docs/learningwales/publications/140214-curee-leaflet-en.pdf (Accessed: 11 December 2018). Welsh Government (2017) Professional standards for teaching and leadership. [Online]. Available at: http://learning.gov.wales/docs/learningwales/publications/170901-professional-standards-for-teaching-and-leadership-en.pdf (Accessed 20 August 2018).   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 26th November 2019

Happy New Year / Blwyddyn Newydd Dda to you all! We've gone back on the road, battling through torrential rain to the town of Caerphilly, where we tracked down what can only be described as edu-twitter royalty! Yes, it's the mighty Impact Wales, aka Finola and Jane, who provide tailored support to schools. However, for those of us without a school budget to play with, Impact Wales are probably better known for filling Twitter with wonderful sketchnotes, each of them informed by a solid bed of research, and serving up the findings of that research in a single graphic. We know lots of you are, like us, huge fans of their work, so we thought it was high time to get inside Impact Wales HQ and ask them how they ended up as a team, what they do, and how we can all be a bit more impact-focused in our working lives. And while we were there, we couldn't resist asking Finola and Jane for their responses to our regular slots: wellbeing and something interesting - only letting them off 'something to try' because there was so much of that in the main discussion! To see more from Sylvia Duckworth, who inspired Finola's sketchnoting in the first place, go to sylviaduckworth.com For more from our lovely friends at Impact Wales, you need to go to impact.wales and sign up. Go on, you know you need their sketchnotes in your life! We'll be back in a fortnight, returning to the question of how we effectively coach and mentor student teachers and colleagues in an educational setting. See you then!   ---------- This episode was recorded at the offices of Impact Wales on 10th December 2019

Merry Christmas from us both! For your festive pleasure, we present the 12 days of Christmas in the form of 12 items drawn from our regular topics of 'wellbeing', 'something interesting' and 'something to try' - four of each. It's a slightly more wholesome Christmas special than last year, but hopefully there's something in here for everyone, from substantial academic text recommendations to wellbeing tips and a vintage Tom item in the form of 'the bus factor'. Please do rate and review us if you have a moment. We'll be back on January 10th, when we'll be talking to edu-twitter royalty in the form of Finola and Jane from Impact Wales. See you then!   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 19th December 2019

For our final episode of the Christmas term, we welcome an award-winning researcher to our humble studio! Bethan Rowlands joined Cardiff Met from our friends at the University of South Wales at the start of this year, and promptly won a BERA award for a poster presentation on raising awareness fo dyscalculia. Dyscalculia is, as Bethan describes it, dyslexia with numbers, and is very much the poor relation of the much better-known condition of dyslexia. Bethan explains to us the personal journey which led her to find out more about the condition, the dawning realisation that it was almost unheard of for a pupil to be diagnosed with it, and her work raising awareness in the student teachers that she works with. If you think you might have dyscalculia, or as a teacher you want to know more about it, you can contact the British Dyslexia Society (yes, they do dyscalculia as well!), or check out the authors that Bethan names in the end credits. We'll be back one more time in 2019 for our festive episode. See you then!   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 17th October 2019

We’re looking at literacy again today, and particularly what seems to be a perennial problem: the engagement of boys with reading. Our guest is Paul Warren, a former primary headteacher who now advises schools across a wide area of south Wales, and who is in the final stages of a PhD investigating this very area. His approach is to use comics to engage young pupils with stories, and he’s got plenty of interesting things to tell us about his findings, as well as about how rewarding it is to find things out for yourself through action research in the classroom. Paul also brings us some nice ideas for the wellbeing slot, plus a book recommendation for anyone who wants educational research explained in clear terms (which is pretty much all of us!). Paul’s book recommendations for this episode were: Coe, R. et al., 2017. Research methods and methodologies in education 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics: [the invisible art]. New York: HarperPerennial.   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 22nd July 2019

We're back on the road, and have finally got some pupils on the podcast! For this episode, recorded back in July (hence the frequent references to the summer holidays, now a distant memory), we popped down the road to Eastern High School in Cardiff, taking over a room in their shiny new building to interview four special guests. Georgina Saunders was mentioned in one of the regular slots back in season 1, and now gets the chance to appear in person to tell us about how she pulled off the impressive feat of being the student teacher who took forty pupils to the Hay Festival to develop their love for all things to do with reading. She's joined by Eastern High's librarian, James Emery, who was a vital part of the team who brought it all together. They've got plenty of tips for anyone who can see the value for pupils of putting on something like this, but can't imagine how they'd survive the experience! For good measure, we've got two wonderful pupil guests who went on the trip, who tell us about everything from LGBTQIA+ literature to gothic fiction, the joys of tidying the library and the lovely smell of new books. If you want to find out more about the Hay Festival, their website is at www.hayfestival.com. Huge thanks to Eastern High School (EasternHigh.org.uk) for hosting us for the recording of this episode and making our four guests available. The books recommended in this episode were The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, Circe by Madeline Miller and How to Teach English Literature: Overcoming Cultural Poverty by Jennifer Webb. Please do let us know what you think with a rating or review in your favoured podcast app (why not subscribe while you're at it?) - or find us on Twitter @ethayer_cmu and @thomasbreeze. You can also find Georgina at @Saunders__G   ---------- This episode was recorded at Eastern High School, Cardiff on 16th July 2019  

Teachers should always practise what they preach, and we firmly believe that the holidays are a great opportunity to do just that! So we want everyone to make time for a break from whatever they do in the hard-working world of education. In true teacher style, we've provided you with a resource to assist! It's a small but perfectly-formed episode following the 'blogs, tweets and stories' format that was so successful in the Easter break last year, and we'd like you to listen while doing something restorative - whether that's a walk, a bit of sofa time or a trip to the coffee shop, we don't mind! On with the show, then: Tom has a piece from the Guardian which encourages us to use a Japanese technique to get real about how many things we should be doing at once. Emma has a tweet with something to try which gets the parents on board, and then we move on to the stories, givign Tom his customary opportunity to sail close to the wind. Grabbing the opportunity with both hands, Tom makes yet another attempt to get the podcast taken down permanently with a story about a rogue supply teacher. Please ensure any small, innocent children (or adults) are safely out of earshot! Emma, meanwhile, introduces a teacher-related tale from our friends at And Then What? The Podcast All About Stories which reminds us to laugh at ourselves.   You can find the original material here: Overwhelmed with your to-do lists? Try this simple solution - Oliver Burkeman What a lovely week - @MissKP10 Substitute teacher goes rogue - New York Post (apologies for crediting this as the Washington Post on the recording!) And Then What? - The Podcast All About Stories   Have a wonderful half term break and we'll be back in a fortnight with a pair of episodes looking at literacy. See you then!   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 17th October 2019

We've got a very special treat for you this episode - an exclusive half hour interview with none other than Professor Graham Donaldson, author of the Successful Futures report in 2015 that made 68 recommendations for reform of the education system in Wales. His name is used as a shorthand for the new curriculum that was finally published in draft in the summer of 2019, and somehow, we're still not sure how, we managed to grab an extended interview with the man himself. In it, we discuss how the report came to be written, what it's like being the lightning-rod for endless Twitter debate, where our lovely student teachers fit into the picture, and - of course - how Professor Donaldson himself looks after his wellbeing. The interview itself was recorded in a conference venue that was being packed away around us, so please forgive us for the background noise! Huge thanks to Professor Donaldson for his generosity. Thanks also to the coffee shop employee who didn't throw us out when we turned our table into a temporary studio to record the opening and closing segments of this episode. We'll be back for half term with something for the holidays. See you then!   ---------- This episode was recorded at the Park Inn Hotel, Cardiff (and Starbucks, The Hayes, Cardiff!) on 3rd October 2019