Emma & Tom Talk Teaching

For the latest instalment in our PGCE Research Bites strand, Tom talks for PGCE primary student teacher Peter Russell about his intervention to increase pupil engagement in Welsh in his placement primary school. Located in Torfaen, Peter's school presented something of a challenge when it came to enthusing pupils about wanting to learn Welsh: not only is Torfaen one of the most socio-economically...

Welcome back to season 5 of the podcast! Today's episode features an extended interview with our colleague Paula Webber (Programme Leader for PGCE Secondary Religious Education) to talk about religion, values and ethics. Not in the abstract - it's a mandatory part of the new curriculum for Wales. Up to this point, religious education (RE) has been something that parents can opt their children out...

Happy holidays! We're checking in briefly before we go off for some R&R. We look back on an exciting season of episodes, and forward to series 5. We'll be back with our normal service on Friday 9th September. In the meantime, we hope you're all keeping well. Why not give us a rating or review?

Here we are at the end of another series - four long years in front of the microphone! Meanwhile, in the wider world of education, Wales is heading for an important staging post on the curriculum reform journey: by the time we come back into your ears in September, the new Curriculum for Wales will be happening in schools all over the country.  It seems a good opportunity to fire up the line to ou...

We welcome an alumna of the (sadly departed) Teach First Cymru programme today. Bethan Jeffers has now moved sideways into a job working for the Skills Builder Partnership. Set up by Tom Ravenscroft (not, as Tom initially thought, the music broadcaster and son of the late Radio 1 DJ John Peel, but an educator, strangely enough), Skills Builder aims to provide businesses and education institutions...

Welcome to PGCE Research Bites 11, and our final bonus Saturday episode. Today, Dr. Rhodri Lewis from PGCE Secondary Biology with Science is in conversation with Dr. James Snook, senior lecturer in PGCE Secondary Science. Rhodri has reviewed the literature about target setting for pupil development with the aim of helping GCSE pupils come to an understanding about where they are and what they need...

Dyma damaid arall o ymchwil TAR i chi ac mae’r fyfyrwraig TAR Cynradd, Elin Dawes yn siarad gyda Sioned Dafydd am ei gwaith. Ystyria i ba raddau mae Dysgu yn yr Awyr Agored yn cael effaith gadarnhaol ar iechyd a lles, a beth ddylid ei ystyried wrth ei ymgorffori i fywyd yr ysgol.   Yn y sgwrs hon mae Elin yn esbonio beth wnaeth hi ddarganfod ac effaith hynny ar ei hymarfer proffesiynol.   Gallwch...

Here in Initial Teacher Education land, we're very familiar with coaching our brand-new members of the profession, student teachers who are working towards that all-important qualified teacher status (QTS). But today's guest, Julie Keyes, has moved sideways from a successful career in teaching to provide coaching to more experienced members of the profession. Working with senior leaders as well as...

it's another Saturday research bite for you, and PGCE Primary student teacher Abby Dee is in conversation with Sioned Dafydd about her work, which considers AfL strategies for inclusion. Abby is particularly interested in working with pupils with ASD and other additional learning needs, and indeed she has undertaken her second PGCE placement in a special school. In this conversation Abby explains...

Welcome to another episode of PGCE Research Bites! We've got another PGCE MFL student for you today: Rhiannon Ashcroft talks to her programme leader, Kerry Bevan, about her review of the literature on restorative practice. A sometimes controversial and often misunderstood approach to pupil-teacher relationships, restorative practice proved to be fertile ground for Rhiannon to make some helpful and...

It's time to hit the road (for about a mile) and make an enormous mess of wires and microphones in the nerve-centre of Welsh Government. We travelled to Cathays Park for a chat with our second education minister since we started the podcast. Jeremy Miles has been the minister for education and the Welsh language for just under a year now, and with the implementation of the new curriculum for Wales...

We have so many goodies for you, and so little of the year left, that we're giving you some bonus Saturday releases: for the first time ever, we present BA Bites! As well as our well-known PGCE programmes, the Cardiff Partnership for ITE has an undergraduate BA Primary with QTS programme, and today we bring you our first ever guest from that programme. Lani Codd is a final year student who has car...

Research Bites is back! Showcasing the very best student teacher research from the Cardiff Partnership for Initial Teacher Education, we're proud to present student teachers in conversation with their tutors about the work they've done, and the impact it's had on them and their classrooms. Today, Sonia Fajkis joins us to talk about engagement in blended learning in the language classroom. Sonia ta...

We're back with the second half of our double-bill discussing the outcomes of joint research carried out by Cardiff Metropolitan University and Cardiff University into the impact of Covid-19 on the education landscape. The research focused particularly on assessment, and looked at both pupils and student teachers. In this second episode we're rejoined by Professor Emmajane Milton from Cardiff Univ...

It's the Easter break in schools - and who knows, we might even take a few days of annual leave ourselves! It's become a tradition at holiday times for us to break into our normal service with a chat about some interesting, weird and wonderful things we've found online, so here's our Easter offering for you. Tom's on best behaviour this time around and has promised not to drop some nightmarish bom...

Today we're releasing the first in a double-bill of podcast episodes discussing joint research carried out by the Cardiff Partnership for Initial Teacher Education, and presented at events convened by the International Professional Development Association. We're joined by the newly-professored Emmajane Milton (congratulations to her!) and Dr. Alex Morgan from Cardiff University, who carried out re...

Long-time podcast listeners may remember our review of Lucy Crehan's bestseller Cleverlands, in which the author outlined her insights into leading education systems of the world. Crucially, Lucy had actually got on a plan and travelled to the countries, living with teachers and speaking to people involved in education, and so her conclusions about the features of high-performing education systems...

It's been quite a while since we discussed the all-important role of the mentor in initial teacher education, and we welcome two guests today: Sally Bethell, veteran of several podcast recordings, and Sian Wickersham, one of our newest colleagues. Sally has spent years becoming our go-to colleagues about all things to do with mentoring, and is in the closing stages of doctoral research on the subj...

Mae wedi bod ychydig yn amser ers i ni glywed ddiwethaf gan ein hathrawon dan hyfforddiant, a heddiw gallwch chi glywed gan sawl un ohonyn nhw! Mae'r cysyniad o ymchwil ac ymholi yn ganolog i fodel ymarfer clinigol addysg gychwynnol ymchwil Caerdydd Met, ac mae'n bleser clywed athrawon dan hyfforddiant yn amlinellu eu gweithgareddau ymchwil ac ymholi cynnar o'u lleoliadau ysgol cyntaf mor groyw. F...

It's been a little while since we last heard from our student teachers, and today you can hear from several of them! The concept of research and enquiry is central to Cardiff Met's research-informed clinical practice model of initial teacher education, and it's a joy to hear student teachers outlining their early research and enquiry activities from their first school placements so articulately. W...

Dr. Viv John, recently awarded her doctorate after completing the Cardiff Met EdD programme with flying colours, has been in our sights for a while! After hearing the rave reviews of her viva, we had to get her in front of a microphone to find out what she's been researching. And the answer is that Dr. Viv has been bravely tackling several of the trickier areas relating to music education, taking...

For the first time in a very long time, we're off on the road to an actual real-life school! Pencoedtre High School in Barry is the venue for an interesting discussion about what we mean by trauma-informed schools and how trauma-informed practice can help support pupils in overcoming difficulties that can affect their experience in school. Steph Robinson and Liz John join us in a school in the mid...

So you want to become a teacher? Hopefully we can help! Our original episode of this name three years ago has been our number 1 most downloaded episode, so there must be quite a few of you out there interested in joining us in the best job in the world! But three years is a long time, and we thought it was time to produce a sequel and put it out there. We're joined by Sioned Dafydd, primary educat...

It's Christmas Eve! We're here to supply our traditional festive ramble through a variety of random things we've gathered together for your enjoyment and diversion as you recover from a long, long autumn term.  As usual, it's a mixture of the heavy and the insubstantial, the academic and the completely left-field. Hopefully there's something in the present pile for everyone, whether you're looking...

For this final episode before our traditional Christmas Special, we welcome Richard West, numeracy coordinator at Stanwell School in Penarth. Richard is a physics specialist but has taken on this important role in his school, supporting his colleagues to find opportunities within their subject specialisms to draw out numeracy skills. Richard discusses how to address numeracy meaningfully, how to a...