The SecEd Podcast: Protecting staff wellbeing in schools
SecEd Podcast
This episode offers practical advice and examples for how we can protect the wellbeing of our teaching staff – with ideas for teachers and schools. The episode has been inspired by the recent publication of Education Support UK’s Teacher Wellbeing Index 2024, which has once again painted a worrying picture about the wellbeing of those who give so much to educate our children and young people in schools. As such, we hear from Education Support about the findings of this year’s Index research findings and speak to our guests about the wellbeing challenges that teaching staff face. Our...
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The SecEd Podcast: How to build school culture
SecEd Podcast
In this episode we discuss ideas for how we can build a positive and inspiring whole-school culture which is inclusive of all, drives high standards, and sustainable in the long-term. We ask what we mean by “school culture” – the way we do things here – and consider how a school culture intersect with its vision, ethos and values, rules, attitudes, and social norms. We speak with three school leaders about how they have developed the culture in their institutions and offer a range of practical ideas and “lessons learned”. We ask how a school leader can go about creating and...
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The SecEd Podcast: Ideas & examples for reducing workload in schools
SecEd Podcast
In this episode, we discuss practical actions that secondary school leaders and teachers can take to reduce workload and working hours. The Department for Education’s Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders research shows that secondary teachers are working almost 50 hours a week on average while secondary leaders work more than 58 hours a week. This episode features two experienced school leaders who have both undertaken a range of initiatives in their schools to bring workload down for all staff. We discuss some of the most common workload challenges before hearing about some of their...
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The SecEd Podcast: Teaching exam classes
SecEd Podcast
This episode looks at how we can best teach and prepare our examination classes in the secondary school, especially our GCSE groups. A panel of experienced teachers considers what specific challenges come with teaching exam clases and exam course content and discuss how we can best prepare our students for the exam hall experience itself, including how we can build good exam habits alongside teaching course content. We discuss how teachers can support their students’ wellbeing during their examination years – especially in years 10 and 11 – and how we can build their resilience,...
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The SecEd Podcast: Effective deployment of teaching assistants
SecEd Podcast
This episode offers practical advice for the effective use of teaching assistants (TAs) in the secondary school classroom. Packed full of practical ideas and examples, the episode features three experienced educators, including teachers and TAs. We ask why we need TAs in the modern secondary classroom and the kinds of skills, training and CPD that our TAs need to have in order to be effective. From there, we move on to discussing effective deployment and how teachers can work effectively with their TAs to support teaching and learning in the classroom. We discuss a number of ideas and...
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The SecEd Podcast: Classroom behaviour
SecEd Podcast
In this episode we offer practical advice and tips for teaching staff to help you manage behaviour effectively in your classrooms. Focusing on the secondary school classroom, our experts discuss why school culture is vital to promoting positive behaviour and what this looks like in practice. We discuss where the line lies between overarching principles of whole-school behaviour and how that manifests itself in different classrooms and different subjects? We offer concrete, tangible classroom strategies, ideas and tips for your “in the moment” behaviour toolkit. We consider the role and use...
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The SecEd Podcast: Preventing suspensions and exclusions
SecEd Podcast
This episode considers what schools can do to spot vulnerable students at risk of suspension or exclusion and how we can intervene to pull them back from the brink. Official figures show the number of suspensions and exclusions is increasing year-on-year, not least due to persistent disruptive behaviour. Related factors seem to include unmet mental health and SEN needs, poverty, safeguarding issues, trauma, criminal exploitation, social media, and more. In this episode, we chat to a secondary school headteacher and a virtual headteacher to find out what they are seeing on the ground. We ask...
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The SecEd Podcast: Delivering the Pupil Premium in secondary schools
SecEd Podcast
In this episode we discuss excellent Pupil Premium practice and offer practical tips and ideas for how schools and teachers can support their most disadvantaged pupils. We explore the causes of disadvantage and why the attainment gap between rich and poor has remained stubbornly large. We look at the tangible classroom consequences of disadvantage and what that means for teaching and learning. Specifically, we touch upon how we can improve the attendance of disadvantaged students as well as their language and vocabulary levels. We look at how we can ensure the funding benefits all pupils...
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The SecEd Podcast: Effective line management in schools
SecEd Podcast
This episode looks at how to be an effective line manager in the secondary school, offering practical advice, examples and strategies for middle and senior leaders who have line management responsibilities. We chat with two experienced school leaders to discuss the golden rules and key skills required to be an effective line manager. We look at the different type of line manage roles and identify the biggest challenges for line managers. We focus specifically on appraisal – a key duty of line managers. We look at effective appraisal practice, supporting CPD, how to prepare for and have...
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The SecEd Podcast: A school leadership survival guide
SecEd Podcast
This episode looks at how school leaders can thrive and survive in their role, including wellbeing advice, tips for leading from the front, and advice for those new to leadership roles. We interview two experienced school leaders to get their insights and practical advice. We look at the hardest challenges of school leadership for those new to the role and tips to help you start off on the right foot. We ask how school leaders can be visible in school and available while protecting their workload and work/life balance. We also ask how leaders can model good work/life balance and working...
info_outlineThis episode looks at how we can best develop the literacy skills of our students, offering whole-school, cross-curricular and classroom-specific ideas, interventions and tips.
The podcast defines literacy as the ability to speak, read and write and to understand and use language in order to communicate effectively.
We welcome four guests from four schools who discuss the range of approaches, programmes, and interventions they use to support students’ literacy.
We ask why literacy skills are so important, what form these skills take in practice, and how we can help students to develop these skills.
Our guests discuss the interventions and programmes they use to support literacy catch-up and how they go about identifying students most in need of these interventions.
How can we ensure that all teachers see themselves as teachers of literacy and teach the vocabulary of their subjects? What is the role of phonics in secondary literacy education, especially post-Covid?
We talk vocabulary and disciplinary literacy. How can we teach vocabulary effectively and explicitly? How can we close the vocab gap? How can we embed vital disciplinary literacy? How do we develop speaking and listening skills?
We talk Ofsted too – what inspectors looks for and how we can ensure that our literacy work also meets inspection requirements.