Emma & Tom Talk Teaching

Today we're joined by primary specialist Sian Davies-Barnes to consider a recent report by the Education Endowment Foundation entitled Improving Behaviour in Schools. We love the EEF because they crunch a lot of research, make it clear and accessible and give us several points of entry depending on how busy we are! This episode is particularly aimed at our student teachers who are just starting their first placements as it goes out, but is equally useful for early career teachers, or anyone looking to distil the wide range of information around behaviour into something manageable. Check out the EEF's report at https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/improving-behaviour-in-schools/ or follow them on Twitter at @EducEndowFoundn Thanks to Sian for dropping by our studio. Don't forget to tune in next time, when we have an interview with a very special guest indeed...!   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 30th September 2019

It's episode 2, and Dr Judith Kneen is still with us for the second half of this double-bill. We're discussing our ongoing research into how to combine subject disciplines in the expressive arts (though plenty of this will be relevant for those working in other subject areas too). In season 1 episode 5 we described how we jumped in with both feet, trying out some bright ideas with our students with mixed success, and came away with the strong impression that we needed to do some reading. Fast-forward to this year, and we've done a systematic literature review of all things cross-curricular, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary in the expressive arts, and have come to some interesting conclusions about what creates those all-important 'powerful connections' that we need to make in order for our learning to be meaningful, and for the subject disciplines to be well-served. In the course of today's deep discussion we explain what we found, present a taxonomy of cross-curricular approaches in the expressive arts, and give some concrete examples of what meaningful (and less meaningful) approaches might look like in the classroom. For our regular slots, Emma has a quote from the mighty Albert Einstein himself, Tom wants us all to admit to being a bit of a shambles, and there's a suggestion about tracking your time to find out where it all goes. If you want to read some of the articles that fed into our literature review, check out the references below. See you next time!   References   Barry, A. & Villeneuve, P. (1998) ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici: Interdisciplinary Learning in the Art Museum’, Art Education, 51(1), pp.16-24. La Porte, A. (2016) ‘Efficacy of the Arts in a Transdisciplinary Learning Experience for Culturally Diverse Fourth Graders’, International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 8(3), pp.467-480. Maria, K. (2015) ‘The Use of Project Method in Teaching Arts’, Review of European Studies, 7(11), pp.159-165. Pruitt, L., Ingram, D. & Weiss, C. (2014) ‘Found in Translation: Interdisciplinary Arts Integration in Project AIM’, Journal for Learning through the Arts, 10(1). Risner, D. (2015) ‘Interdisciplinary Teaching Artists: Moving Dialogue’, Journal of Dance Education, 15(1), pp. 33-38. Roucher, N & Lovano-Kerr, J. (1995) ‘Can the Arts Maintain Integrity in Interdisciplinary Learning?’, Arts Education Policy Review, 96(4), pp. 20-25. Stavrou, E., Chrysostomou, S. & Socratous, H. (2011) ‘Music Learning in the Early Years: Interdisciplinary Approaches Based on Multiple Intelligences’, Journal for Learning through the Arts, 7(1). Wenner, G. (1976) ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching and Learning: Where do the Arts Fit?’, Art Education, 29(7), pp. 4-8. Wiggins, R (2001) ‘Interdisciplinary Curriculum: Music Educator Concerns’, Music Educators Journal, 87(5), pp. 40-44.   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 2nd July 2019  

We're back! It's season 2, and we've decided that the best way to get over the fear of dusting off the microphones and recording a new episode is to call upon the ever-reassuring Dr. Judith Kneen, who is now approaching the status of regular guest and national podcast treasure. Judith has stopped by to discuss her recent research into how primary and secondary schools are faring with their work to pioneer the new curriculum for Wales, and especially the expressive arts Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE), though plenty of what she says will be relevant to other subject areas too. 'Pioneer schools' were chosen by the Welsh Government to have a go at some aspects of the new curriculum, so they're interesting subjects for research as they get to grips with concepts such as making powerful connections between subject areas. Judith has lots of interesting things to report about how differently things are going in the primary and secondary age phases, the opportunities and challenges presented, and where things are going next. This will segue smoothly into episode 2, in which we'll discuss with Dr Judith what we've been doing in terms of preparing student teachers for the challenges of teaching in a cross-curricular way. We also get the chance to give our revamped regular slots a run-out, and Emma has a podcast that gives ample material for all three slots! If you want to check it out for yourself, it's The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish. If you like what you hear, please rate, review, subscribe and tell your friends! You can find us on Twitter at @ethayer_cmu, @thomasbreeze and @judithkneen respectively. See you next time!   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 2nd July 2019

We're coming back to your podcast feed very soon! Emma and Tom's PGCE Podcast will return for Season 2 on Friday 6th September. We'll have all the deep discussions about teaching that you need to see you through your Friday commute or the weekend, plus regular tips for wellbeing, things to try and pointers to interesting things we've read, heard or watched. If you haven't subscribed already, you can catch us wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate, review and tell your friends. See you soon!

Emma and Tom are here to interrupt your summer holiday downtime with a public service announcement: there will definitely be a season 2 of Emma and Tom's PGCE Podcast! In the meantime, they've dusted off the microphones to bring you a quick reflection on season 1, some favourite moments from the series, and to look forward to what's coming up in season 2. We'll be back with episode 1 of the new season on Friday 6th September, so make a date to download, listen and enjoy. And if you haven't subscribed yet, don't forget we're available in all the good podcast places, so please do add us to your feed to get our episodes on your device automatically. See you again soon!

It's the end of the road for the 2018-19 PGCE cohort here at Cardiff Met, and that means it's time to put our last PGCE podcast episode out into the world. It's episode 21 and we've somehow managed to send our ramblings out into the world every fortnight since the start of September! For our final episode we're back out on the road, visiting Katy Edwards and Sarah Cason, Headteacher and Deputy Head of Palmerston Primary School in Barry. Their passion is tackling the thorny problem of teacher workload, and they've spent years building up a culture in their school where they can keep working to ensure that their staff are doing the right things with the finite amount of time they have available. The discussion ranges over three perennial trouble-spots: marking, planning and data. Katy and Sarah have a number of common-sense approaches to tell us about, and they reflect on the journey they've taken to get the school where it is now, and the mistakes they've made along the way. Our regular slots are present and correct, and by the last five minutes, the end-of-season fever has fully taken hold and the recording becomes a fairly riotous affair - we hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it! We'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who's humoured us and appeared on an episode, especially our academic colleagues, school colleagues and students - and not forgetting those unfortunate colleagues who were doorstepped in their offices to contribute to the pre-recorded packages we put out in episodes 9 and 11. We'll be back in September with more from the PGCE Podcast, and we'll try to put at least one episode out over the summer, too. If you liked our ramblings this year, please do rate, review and tell your friends. We're @ethayer_cmu and @thomasbreeze on Twitter. Thanks for listening!   All the best from Emma & Tom   ---------- This episode was recorded at Palmerston Primary School, Barry on 7th May 2019

We’ve reached episode 20 of the podcast with a certain amount of amazement that we’re still here! After the excitement of episode 19, we’re back in Emma’s office to chat to our friends and colleagues from Teach First Cymru.   Dr Julia Jenkins and Rhian Davies-Jones (Damehood surely just a matter of time) have popped in to talk about one of the strategies that underpins the Teach First philosophy: deliberate practice. What is it? What isn’t it? And why would you want to run bits of lessons in a room with no pupils? Dame Rhian and Dr Julia explain all.   Plus: why it’s nice to have five minutes of quiet time in your car, and shoutouts to @impactwales, #TeamCymru2017 and #TeamCymru2018.   Join us next time for the last episode of the 2018-19 season, when we’ll be back on the road and dropping in on some colleagues from the primary sector to discuss the thorny question of teacher workload!     ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 2nd May 2019

Well, this isn’t quite what we expected when we set up the podcast in summer 2018... shortly after the release of episode 16, in which our lovely students discussed a talk by the education minister, we received a message from the minister’s office suggesting that we might be able to get an interview with Kirsty Williams herself! It’s a big moment for Welsh education, as the draft curriculum has been published and opened up for feedback from the education world at large. As part of launching the new draft curriculum into the world, the minister visited Cardiff Met with some of the orchestrators of the new curriculum to present and take questions. This episode consists of Kirsty Williams’s speech, an exclusive interview by Emma and Tom with the minister, and a short reaction piece by four PGCE students who were present at the event. Those of us present at the event also heard words of wisdom from Ty Golding, Head of Curriculum Design and Development at the Welsh Government, and Cat Kucia, headteacher of Jubilee Park Primary School in Newport, and we reference one or two of their points during the discussion. We hope to be speaking to one or both of them in future episodes. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and spread the word. We’ll be back in a fortnight, when we’ll be talking to our friends from Teach First Cymru. 04:10 - Kirsty Williams Speech 13:54 - Kirsty Williams Interview 31:57 - Student discussion 40:07 - Wellbeing, Something to Try, Shoutout   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 2nd May 2019

Emma and Tom are joined by Sally Bethell, Senior Lecturer in PGCE Secondary PE, to discuss the five recommendations at the end of Lucy Crehan's book Cleverlands, in which the intrepid author gets on a plane to find out what lessons can be learned from five countries whose education systems are routinely held up as examples of excellent practice. The final chapter of the book distils everything Crehan learned on her travels into five principles that she feels underly excellent and equitable systems for the education of young people, and Emma, Tom and Sally have plenty to say about these - especially Tom, who is in particularly controversial mood and is now awaiting the arrival of his P45 in the post. The three regular slots - wellbeing, shoutout and something to try - get a whole new level of challenge when Emma and Tom decide to try recording them remotely: Tom's in Cardiff Met and Emma's at home with her dog, meaning that the whole thing takes place without the benefit of eye contact - and with slightly lower sound quality than we've become used to! Tom's got another good reason to go for tea with your colleagues: so you can make them your friends. Emma, meanwhile, combines the shoutout and something to try slots into a comprehensive explanation of live modelling as it applies to extended writing, and how Georgina Saunders, an English student teacher on the Teach First programme, used this to impressive effect in a lesson observation.   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 1st April 2019

It's the middle of the Easter holidays, and Emma and Tom enjoyed recording the last holiday special for Christmas so much that they've decided to do another one! This time there's a bit more of an educational theme, but a change to the format: Emma and Tom both bring a blog post, a tweet and a story about a teacher into the studio, and neither of them is letting the other have any advance warning of the content... Emma has an uplifting blog post, a tweet that's a perfect summation of an accountability culture gone mad, and a story of pupil protest, quietly aided and abetted by subversive teachers. Tom plays true to form by starting off firmly on the rails with a blog post about dealing with work overload, and then veers off into the unexpected with a tweet about how to tell if someone is truly powerful, and a news story about an idea for a lesson that can only be described as insane. Emma hangs on for what she describes as a 'white-knuckle ride' of content, musing on whether Tom's about to get them both sacked - so a normal day at the podcast office, then! If you'd like to take a look at the content that inspired today's episode (and many thanks to all the people responsible for writing it!), please do take a look at the links below: Tom Sherrington: Overloaded? Out of Control? Press the Reset Button. Martin Robinson: Cultural Mobility Ed Morrish: Power Annie Black: Horror Stamper Fake Ambitious Assistant Head: Differentiation The Telegraph: Crazy Lesson Idea Zapataforever: Protests   Please do rate, review and tell your friends. You can find us on twitter at @ethayer_cmu and @thomasbreeze. Our department at Cardiff Met tweets at @ITECardiffMet. See you next time!   ---------- This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 8th April 2019