Emma & Tom's Pgce Podcast

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 c

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!      

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

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 lowe

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 sacke

It's a cosy recording session in Emma's office this time, as we manage to squeeze four student teachers around the table with us to discuss the future of education, focusing particularly on the curriculum reforms here in Wales. After attending a talk by the Welsh Education MInister, Kirsty Williams, all four students felt they wanted to share their thoughts on the way things are moving, and the part they have to play as new members of the teaching profession. With four guests, we get plenty of material for the regular slots, and as an extra bonus we ask them what advice they might have for someone applying to join them in teaching. Their answers are honest, perceptive and inspiring!

Emma and Tom return to their roots with a podcast episode featuring just the two of them - it's been a while! Tom's also relieved to be back in the land of the living after recording the last three episodes back-to-back while suffering from terrible man-flu. With a two-weekly release cycle, that's over a month he's been missing in action on the podcast, occasionally croaking an intervention and then subsiding behind the controls and quaffing Lemsip... now he's sounding much perkier and ready to make a proper contribution! Episode 15 is another episode discussing a learning strategy that we can all try out from time to time: the flipped classroom. Emma and Tom discuss how they used it to reduce the amount of 'death by powerpoint' in their very limited teaching time with the PGCE students, how to get round concerns about technical knowhow and planning workload, and what they've found in the literature about the strategy. Tom's wellbeing tip turns into a fairly epic story, but with a useful message for us all ab

In this small but perfectly formed episode, Emma and Tom are joined by two guests: Rachel George and Rhodri Jones from Ysgol Maes y Coed, a school for pupils with additional learning needs. Fresh from delivering a session with the PGCE students, Rachel and Rhodri talk about how the expressive arts form a central part of the learning experience for their pupils, whose additional learning needs (ALN) range from autism to physical health issues requiring specialist care and equipment. Rachel and Rhodri are experts at not taking no for an answer, and have pressed industry professionals and celebrities from the world of the expressive arts into service enriching the lives of their pupils! There's plenty to think about in this track, from how we can use the arts to help pupils access a range of other subjects, to how we listen to the pupil voice to devise our lessons, and how the ALN learners were represented at the heart of the process to devise the new curriculum for Wales.

It's time for another book review! Emma and Tom are joined again by Dr Judith Kneen to look at Tom Sherrington's 'The Learning Rainforest', a book that Judith rightly describes as 'a thing' in the education community right now. What will Emma, Tom and Judith make of this book which promises to tell us about 'great teaching in real classrooms'? After that. Judith brings her wellbeing tip, shoutout and idea to try - we hope you find them useful. If you want to read more from Tom Sherrington, his blog is teacherhead.com - and if you like our podcast, please do send us a rating, review or tweet. Emma is @ethayer_cmu and Tom is @thomasbreeze. We'll be back next time with more guests, and an episode all about how we can use the arts to enrich the learning of pupils with additional learning needs, and how everyone should give it a go. See you then!   ---------- Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 29th January 2019

For episode 12 of the podcast, we're joined by Fiona Diffey, Programme Leader for PGCE Secondary PE at Cardiff Met. Fiona is doing her PhD research on the concept of physical literacy, and has come in to talk to us about how we can transform the way people think about being physically active, their motivation and the way they view the interface between mind and body through physical literacy. This has big implications for the way subjects such as PE are delivered in school in order to have the most positive effect, and we take a deep dive into what this looks like and how the philosophy translates into good teaching - and how a lifelong love of being physically active is vital for our health and wellbeing. If you want to read more about physical literacy, check out the work of Professor Margaret Whitehead, and indeed the research being carried out by Fiona and many of her fine colleagues from our very own Cardiff School of Sport & Health Sciences right here at Cardiff Met. See you next time, when we'll be

It's episode 11 of the podcast, and Emma and Tom are joined by June Hurcom, senior lecturer in early years education, for her first podcasting experience! This episode is for anyone who's ever felt that they might like to embark on the journey to becoming a teacher, and is full of great advice for things to do (and not to do!) when preparing to apply for a programme that will get you that all-important teaching qualification. From the different routes into the profession to what to do when you get an interview, our podcasters have everything you need to know to help you take those first steps towards teaching. We've also been back out to our excellent Cardiff Met colleagues who have each given their top tips for applicants - in both English and Welsh - so it's worth a listen in case you find one of them doing your interview... It's become a PGCE Podcast tradition for our guests to provide their take on the regular slots at the end of the episode, and June has clearly done her homework, rattling through her we

Happy new year! The podcast is back with an extended episode featuring not one, but two special guests. Emma and Tom are joined by Dr Judith Kneen who runs the PGCE Secondary English course, and Sharne Watkins, Deputy Head of Initial Teacher Education, PGCE Primary literacy specialist... and Tom's line manager - gulp! Emma, Tom, Judith and Sharne bring us a meaty 57 minutes in which they review a fairly controversial publication: Daisy Christodoulou's 'Seven Myths about Education' - a book that ruffled a fair few feathers on its publication in 2014, propelled its author to instant fame as a darling of the traditionalist wing of the education world, and had commentators even tipping her as the next head of Ofsted. The book itself aims to set out seven 'myths' which are apparently dearly-held by 'progressives', and to demolish them with evidence and science. Focusing mainly on the first two myths for reasons of time ('facts prevent understanding' and 'teacher-led instruction is passive'), our intrepid podcast q

It’s that weird bit between Christmas and New Year, and it’s time for a bumper PGCE podcast special!  Emma and Tom are here with a 68-minute epic that contains the absolute bare minimum of wholesome educational content, and an enormous number of self-indulgent treats. In place of the usual slots, we recommend a few of our favourite podcasts, and Tom tells the story of how the PGCE Podcast came to be. We welcome our special guests, Becky and Amy from ‘And Then What? - the podcast all about stories’, and they bring us the hilarious tale of when a hotel stay went horribly wrong courtesy of a flock of seagulls. Colleagues from the Department of Initial Teacher Education at Cardiff Met weigh in with their favourite teachers from fiction (in both English and Welsh!), and then it’s time to hear Emma and Tom’s biggest classroom disasters. Be prepared for two sorry tales involving floor polish, rainwater, an infamous Chilean dictator… and the inevitable trips to hospital. To round off the episode, Becky and Amy return

Emma and Tom have taken the PGCE Podcast on the road again (and are hankering after their own PGCE tour bus) - this time to the brand new Ysgol Nantgwyn in Tonypandy. Nantgwyn is a 3-16 school that's a hotbed of innovation for the new curriculum in Wales. Its Head of Expressive Arts is Kath Lewis, a curriculum pioneer who's spent the last few years co-developing the new expressive arts Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) for the new curriculum here in Wales. Kath talks to Emma and Tom about what it's been like co-constructing a whole new expressive arts curriculum in heated debates with her fellow pioneers, how you keep school colleagues around you on board when selling major change to them, and brings her own wellbeing tips for us to take on board. Kath has plenty of talented colleagues at Ysgol Nantgwyn, so the shoutout slot is no problem for her, and her 'something to try' is an approach to differentiation that gives us all food for thought. Something for everyone in here, hopefully - not just those wor

Emma and Tom are joined by Dr. Kate North to discuss creative writing: its place as a creative art, its interdisciplinary nature, and the fact that everyone has the right to write! Kate tells us how creative writing can be used as an innovative way of collecting research data, and how in the process of doing so it can gently break down language barriers, throw light on competing priorities and level the playing field between powerful professions and the public they serve. In the wellbeing slot, Kate tells us how she keeps motivated to write when nobody's cracking the whip on her, she shouts out to a student for whom an unfortunate diagnosis was the stimulus for becoming a writer, and gives us a creative writing prompt that has us all cringing even while we acknowledge its genius. Plus, as an added bonus, we didn't want to miss the opportunity of asking Kate to read one of her poems to us! We hope the one we asked for has something to say to all of you - we loved it. We hope you'll be back next time, when we'l

In their longest episode yet (a massive 51 minutes, so settle in!) Emma and Tom discuss the work of Australian educationalist John Hattie, and look into his famous 'visible learning' ranking of factors affecting pupils' learning and progress. The main focus of the discussion is 'jigsaw technique' - a highly-ranked strategy for pupil-led learning of content. The wellbeing slot takes a turn for the slightly bizarre, with an excellent tip from the world of outdoor survival that involves hot beverages. Our shoutout this time around goes to everyone at Teach First Cymru, and Tom gives us some ideas for thinking more systematically about how we put our pupils together to work in groups. Join us again next time for a very exciting guest episode featuring Dr. Kate North, Chair of Literature Wales, who'll be talking to us about creative writing and its place in your life! John Hattie's website is visible-learning.org The Belbin website is belbin.com Jigsaw technique is fully explained at jigsaw.org   Sections: Main d

Episode 5 is all about the joys of working in a cross-curricular (or interdisciplinary) way. Tom makes his way upstairs from his decidedly humble ground-floor room to Emma's glorious penthouse corner office, and proceeds to be rude about the view from the window... With that small misunderstanding ironed out, Emma and Tom describe a project they have been working on to bring drama and music together, and discuss how the proposed new education system in Wales encourages a breaking-down of the traditional dividing lines between subjects. What does effective cross-curricular teaching and learning look like? The wellbeing slot focuses on the importance of being aware of your mood, being able to label your emotions, and making the right decisions about what to do when you feel a certain way. The calorie-free takeaway is a warm-up that'll get your classes focused and having fun whatever your subject. And we shout out to the PGCE students starting to take on their full teaching load next week and wish them good luck

Emma and Tom tackle all things digital in episode 4! The introduction of the Digital Competence Framework in Wales, and the rise of digital technology in general, means that teachers need to be able to use a variety of techie tools with confidence and panache. Where do we stand on the debate about technology in the classroom, and how should we approach the arguments on both sides? The wellbeing slot takes a look at using social media to build a support community while on placement (though it works for serving teachers too!), Tom gives a shoutout to the PGCE Music class of 2018 with a montage created on their mobile phones, and Emma tells us about Finding Nemo round the back of a maths classroom in the Swiss Alps. See you all in a fortnight, when we'll be taking a look at cross-curricular teaching and learning!

Emma and Tom are joined this week by guest contributor Sally Bethell, Senior Lecturer in PGCE PE at Cardiff Met. Sally's research specialism is the relationships between student teachers and their mentors on placement, so she has plenty of good advice for student teachers about how to make the best impression, as well as tips for school mentors about how to ensure the student/mentor relationship is a productive and happy one. One of Sally's many claims to fame is that she teaches an enormous cohort of around 40 student PE teachers each year, and rarely loses a single student from the course. She shares her secrets to ensuring the wellbeing of her students, and celebrates a football specialist who tried her hand at teaching dance with spectacular results. Finally, in the 'something to try' slot, Sally suggest we all take a good look at the presentation of our resources. Follow us on twitter: @BethellSally, @ethayer_cmu and @thomasbreeze - or instagram: @PGCEPodcast. See you in a fortnight, when we'll be talkin