The Crafted Conversation

In this deeply grounded conversation, Marcus speaks with Simon Woodward , Head of Sport Sciences & Curriculum PE at Oakham School, about the role of emotionally intelligent leadership in shaping high-expectation, high-safety environments.   🚨💭Follow The Crafted Concept on Instagram or LinkedIn for daily content    Marcus and Simon explore everything from classroom routines to coaching identi...

In this episode, Marcus speaks with Adam Clark —coach developer, grassroots advocate, and National League South assistant manager with Slough Town FC , about the purpose of coaching, and the evolution of football thinking. Follow The Crafted Concept on Instagram. From defining what the “game” truly is, to the value of simplicity over jargon, this is a conversation about doing the work that matters...

Follow The Crafted Concept on Instagram Episode Summary In this expansive conversation, Dr Craig Harrison invites us to rethink the purpose and practice of youth development. It’s not about designing perfect athletes, but about crafting safe, playful, expressive environments where young people can explore who they are, not just what they can do. Marcus and Craig explore the ecological complexity o...

Episode Summary: Steve Morison's insight is forged in the lived experiences of dressing rooms, personal reinvention, and the acute awareness that what you model matters more than what you say. This conversation with Marcus goes beyond tactics and into the human science of performance. The CRAFT of performance. It’s a masterclass in leading from the inside-out. Follow The Crafted Concept on Instagr...

🧠 Episode Summary Dr Sally Needham brings a lens rarely discussed in high-performance coaching: phsyco-social-emotional state for performance. From early years to elite teams, her philosophy is grounded in polyvagal theory, neuroception, and somatic coherence — or, as she puts it, “getting the nervous system in the room before the thinking.”   Follow The Crafted Concept on Instagram    Throughout...

John Mackenzie - Assistant Head of Cocurriculum - The Grammar School at Leeds  Follow The Crafted Concept on Instagram . "To build performance, we have to start with the person." This conversation with John McKenzie offers more than insight into coaching; it's a portrait of character-led leadership.   ✨ Crafted Concept Takeaway This episode reminds us that great coaching starts with curiosity, no...

Martyn Bowles is the Head of Coaching at Walsall FC, a League Two professional football team who lost in the Playoff Final this summer, narrowly missing a chance to head into League One. Follow Marcus on Instagram.  Martyn believes in coaching like a great teacher believes in teaching — with structure, warmth, and a deep understanding of people. His approach reveals a blueprint for coaching beyond...

"If you're not coaching character, you're just running drills." Follow Marcus on Instagram now  In this episode, Marcus sits down with Joe Quinn , Head of Rugby at Dulwich College , to explore the tension and alignment between teaching, coaching, and leadership in school sport. The conversation is loaded with real-world wisdom, reflecting how performance coaching can be both technically excellent...

Marcus discusses the processes of "Think, Pair, Share" and "Checking for Understanding" as two instructional strategies which can transform player/athlete engagement and a coach's live feedback on player/athlete learning. Follow 🫵 and engage with The Crafted Concept to embed lifelong learning 🌱 into your professional life 📈: 🎧 Listen Apple 🎧 Listen Spotify 📺 YouTube 📸 Instagram 📰 Newslette...

Storytelling is an art and not one just for authors and television writers!  Discover how drawing on story and narrative structure can help form performance identities in your environment...   Follow 🫵 and engage with The Crafted Concept to embed lifelong learning 🌱 into your professional life 📈: 🎧 Listen Apple 🎧 Listen Spotify 📺 YouTube 📸 Instagram 📰 Newsletter  

In this solo episode, Marcus discusses the concept of offering statements within the Learning Design in elite sport settings. Statements are a powerful alternative to questions, which allow athletes/learners to demonstrate what they know via retrieval of prior knowledge, elaboration to context, and encoding new information as a more powerful memory trace. Statements also remove judgement because t...

  In this episode Marcus discusses the importance of one of the most underrated tools in the leader/instructors toolkit: questions. By making questioning a habit, leaders and instructors can: Start by embracing curiosity and asking "Why?" often. Move to "What if?" to explore alternatives. Finally, ask "How?" to take action. By adopting this approach, individuals and organisations can become more i...

In this solo episode, Marcus delves into the concept of "processing". Imagine the Apple rainbow pinwheel or the Windows egg-timer of old as your device takes time to "think". To process. This is human learning. Our brain's require levels of processing in order to more deeply encode information into our long-term memory... Drawing on the seminal works of Craick and Lockhart, Marcus considers these...

Dan Crossman is the Headteacher of Marlborough St. Mary's primary school. Dan has a varied and interesting CV in primary education, where he trained and taught in London before moving back into Wiltshire. Dan became a Head early in his career at a small village primary school, and has been the Headteacher of Marlborough St. Mary's for three years. Under his leadership the school has altered its st...

In this solo episode, Marcus explores the important role of pupil/athlete voices as an empowering mechanism to offer agency; and choices to demonstrate value in their individual and collective competence.   Follow 🫵 and engage with The Crafted Concept to embed lifelong learning 🌱 into your professional life 📈: 🎧 Listen Apple 🎧 Listen Spotify 📺 YouTube 📸 Instagram 📰 Newsletter

David Webb is the Georgia national football team assistant coach, supporting their much-documented run in the Euro 2024 tournament, beating Portugal to progress from the group stage and, despite going 1-0 up, losing out to the champions, Spain. In a wide ranging conversation, Marcus questions David around the Crafted Concepts of: applying his trade a a coach, and thus teacher, in in international...

In this episode, Marcus explores the impact of a deliberate and thoughtful approach to building character development into an elite sport or educational curriculum. This is drawn from the University of Birmingham Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue s' excellent foundation of research and application of four pillars of virtues: Civic Moral Intellectual Performance To engage with The Crafted Con...

In this week's episode, Marcus explores the concept of Learning Design choices which unintentionally fail to inspire any learning. This all hinges on seminal research by Clark (1989) where a meta-analysis of research where control groups outperformed research groups in learning. The focus is all on scaffolding, or its deliberate absence... Keynote Educational are the partner of The Crafted Convers...

In this week's episode, Marcus summarises his keynote speech at the Physical Education & Sport conference held in London last week, hosted by Keynote Educational . The focus is on The Crafted Concept 's core pillars: Learning Environment Learning Design Learning Critique The second half of the podcast focuses on the question and answer session recorded live at the event for delegates to questi...

Chris Dossett is the Chair of the Professional Association for Directors of Sport in Independent Schools (PADSIS). Having worked in school physical education and sport leadership roles throughout his career, Chris's mission now is to help make the job easier and more enjoyable for those in post. A self-confessed ever-learner, Chris brings his practical and experiential lens to this conversation, w...

"Our craft at Inner Drive is to illuminate research and make it accessible" Marcus is joined by Bradley Busch, Director at Inner Drive and Chartered Psychologist. Bradley's career has seen him work as a psychologist in elite sporting environments and as a lecturer. His current mission is to make cognitive science and educational & cognitive psychology accessible to instructors to inform practi...

In this solo episode, Marcus explores the cognitive process of elaboration for deeper learning in the classroom and in the sporting arena.   https://thecraftedconcept.co.uk/subscribe

Sandro Di Michele is the Sportsbook Director for William Hill Racing. Marcus was Sandro's Performance Coach as the Sporting Director for Swindon Town FC. Here, Marcus delves into Sandro's expertise in data analysis, juxtaposed by the uniquely human skill to connect.   https://thecraftedconcept.co.uk/subscribe

Instructional environments hinge on the success of teaching & learning. Marcus explores this week's Crafted Concept, offering insight into the deliberate creation of safe environments where pupil/athlete agency is actively promoted.

Jonathan has a wide reaching experiential background in education which has given him the opportunity to explore pupil motivation through the lens of Modern Foreign Languages teacher, middle leader, school improvement consultant, trainee teacher tutor, and professional development speaker. This has led to some interesting insights.   The conversation then pivots towards explorative methods of pupi...