Emma & Tom Talk Teaching

Wales and England have had different education systems for more than 25 years now, so it’s a weird coincidence that both countries published a ‘National Plan for Music Education’ in the same year - 2022.  This was an opportunity that Tom and friends of the podcast Dr Elizabeth MacGregor and Dr Viv John, all being music education specialists, couldn’t pass up. They’ve published, and presented in va...

Wales is a country in which two languages (English and Welsh) have equal status in law. So parents can choose whether their children are educated through the medium of English or Welsh. There are lots of interesting issues that arise when pupils educated in Welsh come from homes where English is mainly spoken, and these issues are interesting to teachers anywhere in the world who work with pupils...

Most of the guests who pass through our studio are teachers of some kind, so it’s a rare treat to welcome some people who are from a slightly different world, but who have taken a real interest in helping out the profession with their specialist insights! Chris and Suzy Peach are both doctors, and decided that they wanted to make something that could help young people with their health and wellbei...

After welcoming Kelly Bubbins from Willows High School in Cardiff to our studio a year ago, we're delighted to be having a chat with one of Kelly's colleagues. Nicola Lo Celso is literacy coordinator at the school, and has been responsible for developing the school's literacy policy. Listeners who remember our discussion with Kelly last year will know that Willows have a strong view about how they...

It's time for our notoriously long and self-indulgent Christmas special, in which we bring in strange, interesting and (sometimes) festive things we've found, to see what others make of them.  This year we also welcome Emma's stunt-double, Sian Wickersham, who's standing in for some episodes this season, to join in the fun.  We've got everything from poems to articles, festive food and unsung hero...

For this episode, we’re delighted to welcome back our colleague Kerry Bevan who runs the PGCE Secondary Languages programme here at Cardiff Met. Kerry’s here to contribute to our occasional series of episodes on individual subjects in the curriculum.  It’s always fun to geek out about the subject we love, and Kerry’s got plenty for us on the purpose of languages in the curriculum, what the subject...

One of the principles underlying the Curriculum for Wales is that we should situate learning within authentic contexts in order to make it more meaningful. We thought it was worth digging a little more into what that might actually look like, so we convened a panel discussion for our PGCE Secondary student teachers, bringing in guests with experience of doing this from different perspectives. Whil...

For this episode, we welcome back Professor Brendan Cropley, and since we’re no longer in the grip of Covid restrictions, we can actually meet face to face this time! Brendan works at the University of South Wales where his background is in sport psychology, and his particular specialism is reflective practice. Digging a little deeper into the specifics this time, we wanted to look at what the wor...

The autumn term is a long one, and to mark half-time in the long march to the Christmas break, we like to kick back with one of our 'light' episodes (though to be fair they're not always entirely light!) in which we bring some randomly-selected pieces of content with which to surprise, delight and horrify one another. Regular listeners may remember that we will be hearing less of Emma during seaso...

It’s time to take another dive into what makes a classroom subject tick, and this time around we’re going for art. In a slight twist to the usual format, we’ve paired a discussion with a subject specialist with an excellent example of how professional enquiry coupled with top-notch subject knowledge can lead to meaningful impact on pupils.  We’re joined by Daisy Wilson from our friends at Yr Athro...

Planning and evaluating lessons is at the core of what teachers do. Deciding what we want our pupils to know or be able to do, how we'll know whether they've managed it, and how we'll be able to tell is the key to selecting a sequence of activities that will get them there and allow us to judge how they're doing. But this is one of the hardest skills for a new teacher to grasp, as an experienced t...

Just as we were shutting up the podcast shop for the end of the academic year, Estyn (the school inspectorate in Wales) published a thematic report on the teaching of maths in Wales's schools. It concluded that there was too much variability in the quality of teaching, and not enough subject-specific support for those teaching maths. This reminded us in some ways of the ITV news story back in Sept...

Welcome to season 8 of the podcast! So…. You want to become a teacher? You’ve come to the right place. In the third iteration of this popular topic, we’re joined by our colleague Rhian Wyn Griffiths to talk about becoming a teacher. While we’re quite focused on how to come and be a teacher with us in Wales (after all, it’s what we know best), there’s plenty here that’s relevant to people elsewhere...

One of our podcast traditions is to take a moment to reflect on the season that's just been (season 7) and get ready for the one that's about to land in your feeds (season 8)! After a hasty move across campus to avoid our power-tool wielding enemies, this episode was recorded in a temporary studio at the end of four straight days of recording. We've got plenty we're pleased with from the last year...

We’ve reached the end of another year of podcasting, and ready to give you all a summer break from our dulcet tones. To wrap up our seventh year in front of the microphones, we’re delighted to welcome back Richard West from Stanwell School. Richard’s here to contribute to our occasional series of episodes unpacking the nature of different subjects as they are experienced by pupils in the classroom...

When we heard that Finola Wilson from our friends at Impact Wales had published a book, our first reaction (after congratulations!) was to realise how ridiculously long it’s been since we last spoke to our fellow Welsh education podcasters. Long-time listeners will know that we visited their HQ in Caerphilly (and Tom has particularly fond memories of hauling the sound equipment through an incredib...

It's something of a tradition to haul Emma in for a doctoral progress check, and today she's digging into her chosen research approach: participatory research. If you listened to Emma's last episode, you'll remember that she examined her own research worldview and values, and concluded that she couldn't find out what she needs to know without making her participants into co-researchers, which make...

We welcome Dr Fiona Heath-Diffey to the studio today to talk us through her doctoral research into the experiences of primary student teachers getting to grips with the idea of teaching PE.  Fiona has previously joined us to talk about physical literacy - the idea that PE lessons should give pupils a lifelong healthy relationship with exercise and their bodies, rather than teachers taking an eliti...

For teachers it's the Easter break, and so we like to bring you another of our selections of the interesting, humorous and strange things we have been reading or otherwise consuming lately.  This time around, Tom's taking a look at what it's like to be a 'progressive activist', while also musing on the power of the legally-enforced lunch break. Meanwhile, Emma has a book recommendation and a bit o...

Back in our non-camera-enabled studio, we've got some thoughts for you today about how observation can be made more purposeful. Often found as an initial activity at the start of student teacher placements, it can sometimes be a missed opportunity if student teachers simply stand at the back and try to make sense of what's going on in a busy classroom in an unfamiliar school. That's why we got som...

Back in our normal studio, we welcome Professor David Egan back to the podcast. David was last with us taking about the poverty gap in education, and today he’s here to tell us about a report he’s written into the recruitment and retention of secondary school teachers. The report ranges widely around lots of important questions about what is shaping up to be something of a crisis for the professio...

We're in the 'other' studio today which, to our delight, is not bristling with cameras! Apologies to the very small club of people who watch our episodes on YouTube. Emma was recently asked to review a book for the National Drama subject association: Teaching and Learning Shakespeare through Theatre Based Practice. Today we bring you an extended chat about the book, what it brings to those who wan...

We make no apology for having based several of our episodes around the person that many student teachers report is the single most important person in their teacher education journey: the mentor. They're the school-based colleague who looks after the student teacher on placement, gives them advice, feedback and support, and assesses their teaching. It just so happens that one of Emma's many jobs i...

Today we welcome Kelly Bubbins from Willows High School in Cardiff. Willows is located in a part of Cardiff that's not without its challenges, and as Kelly tells us, assumptions about what that means for the aspirations pupils can have for themselves were a big problem for the school. This translated into poor behaviour and low aspiration, and the school decided to have a reset of its policies to...

Today we're all on our own without a guest, because we're presenting original Cardiff Met research! But our colleague Sioned Dafydd is with us in spirit as she was a key member of the three-person research team that carried out this work. Today we're looking at what happens when student teachers change from one school placement to another, and when they move from their initial teacher education in...