Beyond Good

In this episode Matt and Femi chat to pastoral legend Helen Sydenham.  Helen is head of year at an inner city school and is known for her skill, tenacity and passion for working with students who often have particularly challenging circumstances and behaviours.  They talk about how Helen tackled an out of control year group that she took on, how she works with parents, managing parental meetings, ...

In this episode of the podcast Femi and Matt explore the topic of ‘discussion in the classroom’.  They try to tease apart nuances such as the difference between pupils having to explain the work to each other because the teacher’s explanation was not good enough versus pupils engaged in a rich discussion that extends thinking from an existing strong foundation of knowledge.  They examine the pros...

In this episode of the podcast Femi and Matt are joined by Amy Green -  an English teacher and head of English who has honed her craft in tough inner-city schools. Amy talks about using ‘silent and solo’ with knowledge recall questions to create powerful starts to English lessons, giving students more concrete structures for answering questions than the traditional PEE paragraphs, and how effectiv...

In this episode Femi and Matt are again joined by guest Simon King as they explore the claim that the very best A-level teachers are also, in fact, the teachers achieving the best outcomes with bottom set Year 9, or middle-ability Year 7 students, for example.  Simon provides valuable insight into the differences and similarities between sixth-form teaching and the teaching of younger and less abl...

In this episode Femi and Matt discuss lesson observations and lesson visits - the process Femi calls 'walking the shop floor'.  They touch on the bizarre phenomenon of teachers doing something other than 'business as usual' when being observed, the questionable practice of once-per-year observations or departmental reviews, feeding back after lesson visits and the importance of...

Femi and Matt are joined by special guest Simon King to discuss teaching strategies and differentiation for those very top end students that we all occasionally come across.  While the conversation is focussed on extending the top end students, the principles for teaching and differentiation that Simon describes are applicable to all classes.

The themes of Matt and Femi's discussion for this episode are 'starters' and 'the starts of lessons'.  The conversation is equal parts philosophical and pragmatic, and many aspects of starters are covered in great depth.  The conversation covers the importance of starters, their utility for orientating students towards this subject as they arrive from elsewhere around the...

In this episode of Beyond Good, Femi and Matt return to the Blue Memo to discuss the final three points.  The central themes of these points are 'challenge', 'practise' and 'sequencing'.  If you haven't already listened to the Blue Memo parts 1 and 2, it may be worth listening to episodes 3 and 4, in which the Blue Memo is introduced and the first 7 points are di...

In this episode Femi and Matt discuss the characteristics of a good department, visions and values, and achieving consensus within a team about what matters and why we are here.  They discuss the impact of formal 'meetings' vs informal interactions between teachers and the value of rich discussions around teaching and learning.  The conversation then pivots to the skills and attributes t...

This is the second of the three-part series on ‘The Blue Memo’ in which Femi and Matt cover points 4-7.  They discuss the importance of engaging all students, ensuring that no one student takes up a disproportionate amount of time at the expense of others, explanations and feedback.  Part 3 can be heard in episode 6, and you can download your own copy of the blue memo from our twitter account, or...

This is the first of a three-part series on 'The Blue Memo'.  In this episode Femi introduces the blue memo, explains what it is and where it came from and then we dive deep into the first three points.  These cover the starts of lessons, the importance of revisiting taught material and what he means by 'getting out into the classroom and experiencing the learning'.  The discus...

In this episode of the podcast Matt and Femi discuss mentors and some of the key things they took from their mentors that have shaped them as teachers.  They discuss the idea of 'golden rules' and 'non-essential essentials', the tremendous importance of the first lesson of the year with a new group and laying the foundations for strong relationships with students for the rest o...

In this (inaugural) episode of the podcast, Matt and Femi set out what the podcast is and isn’t about, how they each came to teaching and why they’re so passionate about it.  They discuss what makes for good ‘raw materials’ in teaching, and how their own natural dispositions may have shaped their areas of interest, and what they each look for in new teachers.  They discuss the fundamental importan...