Beyond Good

This week Femi and Matt discuss ‘making the most of your training year’ – in response to listener demand!  Much of what is covered will be useful for trainees and ECTs, as well as mentors and anyone thinking of taking on a mentoring role.  Indeed,  some of the conversation is ever-green as they do cover areas such as planning, resources and feedback.  

In this episode the seemingly mundane topic of 'meetings' comes under Femi and Matt's scrutiny.  Both have sat in meetings, like so many of us, with utter dismay at the terribly ineffective  use of time and frankly sometimes callous disrespect for colleagues' time as lengthy agendas are gradually ticked off with a series of mainly one to one discussions...In this conversation Matt and Femi don't do much complaining: instead they focus on what they are currently doing differently now that they are in charge of how their meeting times are used.This has a huge effect on the culture and morale of colleagues so really is worth thinking about... and as always, the boys do not shy away from getting into the fine details that are the differences that make the difference.

In this episode Matt and Femi speak with Sam Roberts.  Sam Roberts is best known for his work in sports broadcasting - particularly as a rugby commentator.  However Sam is also a teacher, and so is able to speak from the intersection of a fairly unique Venn diagram – bridging the worlds of teaching and elite-level sports performance.As you will hear, Sam speaks passionately about performance mindset and mental fitness for teaching.   He discusses how he was inspired by Don McPherson and the millennias-old concept of ‘monkey mind’, thinking about teachers as elite performers and how they can benefit from mental fitness and mindset coaching.  The trrio cover some of the barriers to do this effectively in schools, the effects of self-talk and your inner voice, the importance of belief, imposter syndrome, the concept of the accidental mind-coach, coaching vs giving advice, the role of HR in supporting teachers, and other topics.

Join Femi and Matt as they share their thoughts and experiences of running professional development for teachers in their departments.  Mentioned in this episode is the EEF - the Education Endowment Foundation and if you are not familiar with their work, we highly recommend spending some time on their website, and in relation to this episode, reading their guidance report on 'Effective Professional Development'.

This week on the podcast Matt and Femi talk to special guest Mike Stuart about his many years of experience as a head of year.  They discuss relationships, 'the first assembly',  taking assemblies, tutor times - and being a visible presence amongst the year group,  fierce conversations, "not just the naughties", role clarity and looking after yourself, amongst other topics.

In this episode Femi and Matt discuss Robert Pondiscio's AEI Op-Ed titled 'Confronting 5 Damaging Educational Myths'.  The discussion elicits some interesting and useful points with the following 6 myths coming under fire from the duo:“I don’t teach facts. I teach critical thinking.”“Reading is a skill.”“This is too hard/inappropriate/irrelevant for my students.”“Children have different learning styles.” “Teach kids to think like a scientist” (or a historian or other expert)“Who needs rote learning? You can just Google facts.”

In this episode Femi and Matt explore high quality science teaching with Rob Newman.  They discuss the importance of identifying and then observing established good teachers, having quality conversations about teaching, filtering the noise of ‘advice’ coming from all corners and crucially; ignoring the feedback that was not helpful.  Rob talks about where time is wasted in lessons and what good teachers do instead, the power of relentless routines, clarity of teacher talk – concise clear explanations / modelling, lots of practise time and time on task for students.  They discuss the ever present tension between time spent practising vs covering the curriculum and how good science departments develop their curriculum and lessons to best manage this, the features of a good science lesson – retrieval, practise, teacher circulating and supporting students and silent independent work.  Rob explains the difference between checking for listening and checking for understanding, and highlights key features of practicals and demonstrations - emphasising the need for teachers to be absolutely clear on what the purpose is for that practical.  The trio discuss text books, their utility, their lack of prevalence in English science departments, and the need for texts with a good volume of high quality questions for students to work through.

In this episode Matt and Femi discuss how they approach cover lessons.  They cover etiquette for leaving cover, running cover lessons in your own subject and running cover lessons outside of your specialism.  What emerges are a wide variety of useful tips and tricks that teachers can use to take the pain out of cover lessons and achieve better outcomes for all involved!

Femi and Matt are excited to be back after the summer break and kicking off season 2 with an interview with Phil Naylor.  Phil was the long-standing host of the most excellent Naylor’s Natter podcast and he has recently relinquished his seat behind the microphone in order to make time to pursue his writing and his work – he is a full time deputy head in blackpool.  His first book, also called Naylor’s natter, brings this wisdom to the page using a cleverly blended format whereby QR codes throughout the book can be scanned to go directly to related podcast episodes, thus allowing the listener in on the original interview.In this episode we discuss professional development: spending more time in subjects with subject leads leading training, utilising the expertise that is already in schools, building CPD time into the school day, performance management and the appraisal process, behaviour and relationships, behaviour as a curriculum, fake SLT, and having a vision as you move into leadership.  We discuss rules and routines – and what it means to live them as opposed to laminating them, Phil’s plans for his next book and much much more.As always we welcome your comments and questions: you can contact us through twitter - @beyondgoodpod.

In the final episode of season 1 of the podcast, Femi and Matt interview Patrick Ottley-O’Connor.  At the time of recording Patrick was just a few days into his retirement from a fascinating and diverse career in education spanning over 35 years, and including roles from classroom teacher all the way to head and CEO.  His experience encompasses primary, secondary and special educational settings as well as a whopping 21 Ofsted inspections!  Patrick was kind enough to share his experience of education starting in an era that predates the national curriculum, Ofsted and league tables right through to the current day.  In this conversation he also shares his wisdom around leadership, tackling underperformance, professional development, work life balance and well-being.