SecEd Podcast

This episode focuses on issues of SEND, inclusion and diversity in the school environment in the context of the Covid pandemic, our students returning following national lockdown, and how we might build back better. Host Adele Bates leads a wide-ranging discussion which offers practical reflections, empathy and advice across areas including students' lockdown experiences, issues around the current transition back into school, supporting students who struggled or disappeared during lockdown, anxiety, advice for parents, advice for SENCOs, and more. The discussion also touches upon issues of diversity and equity, building back better after Covid, and supporting the school workforce.

This episode looks at how we can effectively teach and support students who use English as an additional language (EAL) in the classroom. With advice from three experienced teaching experts, we consider who our EAL students are, the five bands of language proficiency, the tenets of good classroom practice, learning materials, translanguaging, high expectations, assessing learners' progress, effective resources, and more. We also look at family/parental engagement, how to support students when they first arrive in your school, whole-school approaches and supporting EAL students during Covid-19.

This episode looks at the plight of our vulnerable learners as schools re-open once again to all students after the third Covid-19 national lockdown. We consider barriers to learning and wellbeing that vulnerable learners face and what our priorities must be coming out of Lockdown 3.0. We discuss: what we have learnt about effective remote education, teaching & lessons, the cancelled Summer 2021 exams, student progression, working with families, SEND, questions to ask ahead of full school re-opening & more. We also talk wellbeing & mental health, including attendance, anxiety, county lines, safeguarding issues, pastoral care and more.

This episode looks at the skills, traits and approaches that effective middle leaders need to employ in the secondary school environment and offers practical advice, tips and reflections from three practising middle leaders. We discuss how to work with and lead your teaching colleagues, how to manage tricky colleagues, how to work with those who are more experienced than you, and how we can best support struggling colleagues. We also look at communication, maintaining professional boundaries, workload and team morale, career progression, CPD, developing your team, and developing a culture of mutual trust – among other areas.

In this episode, we consider what effective teaching for SEN students looks like in the mainstream school classroom. The discussion considers the principles of good teaching for SEN students, common barriers to success, and the implications for pedagogy. We touch upon the use of teaching assistants, models of intervention, and how we should work with families. Other themes include the SEND in Mainstream Schools Guidance, implementing the graduated approach (Assess, Plan, Do, Review), and adaptive teaching (dispelling the myths of differentiation). And we consider Cognitive Load Theory, masking, sensory overload, and making the curriculum and resources accessible.

In this episode, we interview former headteacher and author Jackie Beere and former teacher and school leader Kevin Piper about metacognition and self-regulation. The panel define their terms and discuss ways to help students develop metacognitive skills in order to support their wellbeing, their learning and progress. They debate whether metacognition can be taught as a transferable skill or if it is domain-specific, and discuss the importance of a teacher modelling different learning strategies. The podcast offers a number of teaching ideas and strategies.

This episode looks at Covid-19. We discuss how schools have coped during the autumn term. Their biggest successes and the biggest challenges. What lessons have we learned? What good practice advice can we give? We also touch upon how we are planning for the spring and summer terms 2021. We are joined by three headteachers from schools in Tier 2 and 3 areas and Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. Topics: Leadership, remote education, staff wellbeing & fatigue, workload, government guidance, school budgets, risk assessment, catch-up funding, exam preparation, parental engagement, mental health & more.

This episode looks at the impact the Pupil Premium has had over the last 10 years on closing the attainment gap. The panel discuss the causes of academic disadvantage and explore some solutions for schools, including tackling the vocabulary gap, improving quality first teaching, and putting in place targeted interventions and support. It features Debi Bailey, CEO of Newcastle East mixed MAT, Charlotte Bowyer, Pupil Premium Coordinator and Assistant Headteacher at King Ecgbert School in Sheffield, and Marc Rowland, Deputy Director of the National Education Trust & author of A Practical Guide to the Pupil Premium.

This episode offers practical advice, guidance and tips for schools delivering the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum, which has been a statutory requirement since September. Our experts, including from the Sex Education Forum, discuss how things are going so far, specific challenges schools have faced in delivering effective RSHE, the impact of Covid-19, the role of RSHE in supporting students post-lockdown, the right to withdrawal, delivering LGBT+ elements & more. We offer advice for schools delaying delivery until the summer and we also feature a case study of one school's approaches.

Matt Bromley talks to headteacher Phil Denton, head of English Chloe Testa, and education trainer Peter Radford about teacher workload. They discuss the impact burn-out can have on teachers' wellbeing, as well as the consequences of low teacher retention and explore possible solutions. They discuss the importance of school culture, explaining that often it's the nature of the work teachers are asked to do that causes anxiety. They argue that teachers should be afforded autonomy when it comes to planning and assessment. They discuss the impact Covid-19 has had on workload and what schools might learn about flexible working.