In a very impressive move to win 'most dedicated podcast guest', today we welcome Dr Rachel Shanks from the University of Aberdeen to our studio in person! For obvious reasons, our original request to Rachel involved a down-the-line interview, but we were very happy indeed to be able to instead welcome her to Cardiff after an epic train journey from Scotland.

Rachel has had a major impact on school uniform policy in Scotland following her work with students to analyse the policies of a huge number of schools in the country, and today she joins us to discuss this often under-appreciated aspect of school life. As we found, the more you dig in to what seems like a relatively simple topic, the more interesting cans of worms get opened, and regular listeners to the podcast will know that's just the way we like it!

The discussion ranges across Rachel's around such knotty issues as affordability, sustainability, comfort, and why schools feel the need to have uniforms in the first place. If you want to find out more about Rachel's work, you can check out her web page here.

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 18th November 2024.

It’s that festive time of year again, and hopefully anyone involved in the world of education is relaxing after a very long Autumn term.

We’re back with our usual Christmas offering - though we’re out of our normal studio as our friends in the Sport Broadcast and Media programmes are having a busy last week of term up on the second floor.

In a partially successful attempt to cut the duration of our epic Christmas special, we’ve limited ourselves to four items each, and as ever, neither of us knows what the other one is about to bring to the table in a white knuckle ride of an episode recorded as close to the end of term as we dare…

We hope you enjoy the resulting chat, and it whiles away a post-Christmas walk or two.

We’ll be back with our normal service in two weeks’ time.

Merry Christmas from Emma & Tom!

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Recorded in studio D0.12 at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cyncoed Campus on 19th December 2024.

One of the perks of hosting the podcast is that we get to invite people who’ve influenced us to come on as guests, and in our world of teacher education, there are few people who’ve had more influence on us than Professor Trevor Mutton from the University of Oxford. Co-author of a huge number of articles and books that have shaped our thinking about how new teachers learn, we’ve been privileged to work with Trevor for a number of years.

Now, we’ve managed to get him into the studio to discuss an article he’s co-authored about Initial Teacher Education, whether we as a profession have a clear story to tell about how we educate new teachers, and why that matters. But the discussion ranges more widely than the article, looking at how teacher education policy in England has moved in a different direction from that in Wales, and chewing over some of the really tricky questions around what we believe about what it means to be a profession.

The article we were talking about in the main discussion is: ‘Learning to think, perform and act with integrity: does teacher education have a signature pedagogy, and why does this matter?’ by Clare Brooks, Joanna McIntyre and Trevor Mutton.

The article mentioned by Trevor in something interesting is ‘Educative mentors? The role of classroom teachers in initial teacher education. A New Zealand study’ by Helen Trevethan.

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 6th November 2024.

Teaching people to be teachers can feel like a bit of a head-spinner - it can get meta quite quickly! But teacher educators (in school or in university) are also part of a wider group of slightly unusual people who teach people to become public-service professionals like social workers, youth workers or police officers.

In all of these cases, these educators have moved from a professional role to a role teaching people to do that job. While our colleagues looking after students in their work placements still do their original job too, in the case of university-based educators, they have left their original job role entirely and are trying to carve out a new position - not quite a 'normal' university lecturer, but not a teacher/social worker/whatever any more, either.

We're delighted to be joined once again by Dr Louise Allen-Walker, together with Dan Williams who's making his podcast debut. They've been investigating clinical supervision - a supportive process which is a key part of many of these professions (but interestingly not teaching) - and asking whether it might be possible to create a 'safe space' for university-based educators to work out how they support students in university without treading all over all sorts of red lines and boundaries.

We think this is also an interesting one for school-based teacher educators to consider in terms of what shift in identity takes place once you move from teacher to mentor.

Thanks to Louise and Dan for joining us! We'll be back next time with more to get you thinking.

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 18th October 2024.

It's time for another 'delve' (!) into the world of AI, and how large language models have found their way into the world of education. Following our episode last year with Karl Jones, today we welcome Mark Lester from the library service into the studio. Mark's been keeping an eye on all things AI for a number of years now, and has some interesting thoughts for us on where it might make life more productive for students and those who teach them. He's also got some insights for us into the challenges and risks, where some of those red lines might lie, and some unexpected down-sides of the rise of the machines.

Thanks to Mark for joining us, and as always we'll be back with you in a fortnight!

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 6th August 2024

It’s October half term, and therefore time for one of our ‘light’ episodes! To entertain you with something a little different, we’ve gone a bit rogue and found three interesting things each. As ever, we don’t tell one another what’s coming in advance (though if you listened to the last episode with Emma, it’s fair to say that Tom had a good idea that an epistemology quiz was in his immediate future…). We also quietly drop our usual 60 minute limit on episode length in order to chew things over a bit more expansively.

Today we have a Hollywood actor, an ex Prime Minister, a rising star of feline academia, some bad habits, and some other bits and bobs to keep you amused and make you think.

Normal service will be resumed next time, when we welcome a colleague to the studio to discuss AI in education.

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Recorded in Studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cyncoed Campus on 9th August 2024

Tom is joined in studio B2.15 today by Megan Cole from PGCE Primary, who talks us through her research into how learning through play can enhance the experience of older primary school pupils.

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 29th April 2024