Emma & Tom's Pgce Podcast

Today we welcome our colleague Dr. Anne Hodgson, an expert in autism and additional learning needs more widely. We discuss the new ALN act in Wales and the implications for pupils and teachers. As well as that, we consider how the new curriculum in Wales might have an impact on provision for pupils with additional learning needs, and what mainstream settings (and the teachers in them) need to do in order to support pupils to access their education in a mainstream environment.Thanks to Anne for joining us! If you'd like to find out more about the education and social justice research group, you can drop her an email at ahodgson@cardiffmet.ac.uk!-----------------------------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 15th February 2023

It's time for another look at doctoral research in progress, and Tom's hoping his won't be in progress for much longer! Recorded the day after submitting his viva corrections, this episode looks at Tom's PhD thesis, A Study of Key Stage 3 Music Teachers' Pedagogic Beliefs in the Context of a New Curriculum for Wales. The study aimed to create a model of the beliefs of classroom music teachers about what the subject is for, what they are trying to achieve and what goes on in their classrooms, all at a time of major education reform.Emma gives Tom a gentle grilling about what makes classroom music problematic, his use of sociology to try and make sense of it, and what he took away from the project. You can download the visual model here.---------------------------------------------------Recorded in studio B2.16 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 6th February 2023.

Today we welcome Dr. Mary Woolley from Canterbury Christ Church University. Mary joins us down the line from Folkestone to discuss her role in a research project focusing on encounters between science and religion in the classroom. Having met Mary and her colleague Professor Bob Bowie at the UCET conference, we immediately saw the potential for their work to support curriculum reform in Wales. Today's discussion outlines the work of the project, what the team have found out, and what resources are available to support science and religion teachers in coming closer together. Plus we discuss the take-aways for teachers of other subjects looking to foster meaningful dialogue.-------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 6th February 2023.

Today, we welcome Professor David Egan to our podcast studio for an extended discussion about poverty in education in Wales. David has had a long and distinguished career in education, starting as a history teacher in the Welsh valleys in 1976 and ending up as a professor, so he has plenty to tell us about the education landscape.In this episode, David tells us about the causes and consequences of child poverty in Wales, how education reform might have an impact, and how we can do the very best we can for the least advantaged pupils in our schools.-------------------------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 9th January 2023

Happy new year! Friend of the podcast Sally Bethell is back once again, with an upgrade to Doctor Sally after successfully achieving her EdD professional doctorate a few months ago. Having spoken to us several times in the past about her work on mentoring, Dr Sally is now in a position to outline how she's been working to support mentors in generating a self-reflection tool to help them reflect on the complexities of the role. If you'd like to get in touch with Sally with a view to making use of her research, drop her an email at sbethell@cardiffmet.ac.uk! --------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 9th November 2022

Well, here we are again - in the gap between Christmas and New Year, and it's time for our annual tradition of giving each other six Christmas presents consisting of interesting things we've begged, borrowed and stolen.This year, Emma's finally succumbed to Covid after a glorious three-year run of immunity, and is therefore forced to dial in down-the-line from home. Tom, meanwhile, is all alone in an apparently deserted university after teaching has finished on the last Friday of term. All in all, then, a not so festive start to an episode which will hopefully pull some Christmas cheer out of the bag, Sit back and enjoy as Emma and Tom discuss unsung heroes of music, a classic Christmas film, the evils of PowerPoint, primary school parental admin, and some wholesome(ish) literature to while away the holiday period. Apologies, as ever, to Cameron for butchering his theme music with festive bells. We hope you enjoy it, and we'll see you in 2023!Best wishes from Emma and TomPS: last year we made a video of us re

Today we welcome a friend of PGCE Research Bites to his first full podcast episode! Dr. James Snook heads up all things to do with research and professional learning here at the Cardiff Partnership, and is a strong advocate for classroom enquiry. We sat down with James to ask him about the benefits of classroom enquiry, how to embed a culture of enquiry in school, the place of universities, and more. Thanks to James for coming in, and we'll be back in a fortnight with something festive!-------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 8th November 2022

This week, we're delighted to welcome a school colleague to our podcast studio. James Wise is the ITE coordinator at Cardiff High School, and also the organising force behind ResearchED Cymru. We wanted to chat to James about how he works with new teachers to help them create a culture of challenge for all pupils in their classrooms. Thanks to James for taking part, and do check out the latest from ResearchED Cymru by checking out @Cymru_Ed on Twitter. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 10th November 2022

Dyma damaid arall o ymchwil TAR i chi ac mae’r myfyriwr TAR Uwchradd Mathemateg, Tomos Woods, yn siarad gyda Dr Gina Morgan am ei waith ymchwil. Mae’n trafod ei ail Aseiniad, sef ymyrraeth sydd yn ffocysu ar sut mae Esboniadau Ychwanegol Gweledol yn Cynyddu Dealltwriaeth Gysyniadol Disgyblion mewn Gwersi Mathemateg. Mae’r ystyried effaith gadarnhaol y defnydd o luniau, diagramau, siapiau a lliw ar sgiliau Mathemateg a Rhifedd ei ddysgwyr. Yn y sgwrs hon mae Tom yn esbonio beth wnaeth e ddarganfod ac effaith hynny ar ei ymarfer proffesiynol.

Confession time: quite a long time ago we were asked to provide a recommendation of something interesting from the EBSCO database of education literature for the Education Workforce Council's Meddwl Mawr book and journal club. Teachers registered in Wales can access anything in EBSCO for free, helping to bring education literature goodies to classroom practitioners all over the country.Finally, we've got our act together and have a discussion for you about initial teacher education reform in Wales in the form of an article by Professor John Furlong and co-authors. Despite the apparently niche subject area, there's plenty in here for anyone in the education world to chew over, so we hope you'll stick with us for the ride!If you want to read the article, look for Furlong, J., Griffiths, J., Hannigan-Davies, C., Harris, A. and Jones, M. (2021) ‘The reform of initial teacher education in Wales: from vision to reality.’ Oxford Review of Education 47(1) pp. 61-78You can find the Meddwl Mawr book and journal club at

Today's Research Bite features Daniel Gurner, a PGCE Secondary Music student teacher who designed and delivered an intervention in his placement school to help pupils improve their literacy when answering GCSE music exam questions.In putting the intervention together, Daniel drew on various sources of literature as well as his understanding of the advantages of treating music as a holistic subject in which pupils develop their understanding of music through making it.You can also watch this episode on the Cardiff Partnership's professional learning YouTube channel.------------------------------Recorded in studio B0.17, Cyncoed Campus, Cardiff Metropolitan University on 21st June 2022

Hello from our latest podcasting home - just across campus from our old podcasting home! And as is traditional at this time of year, we've got a feast of random stuff for one another, drawn from all four corners of the internet and beyond.If you'd like to see any of the items from this episode, check out the links below. We'll see you again soon!News is bad for you - Rolf Dobelli in the GuardianTea - Hanan IssaAdmin Assistant II - Ed BurmilaBameEd WalesAfter Rembrandt and Grubby Grub - Morten MorlandThe Golden Mole and other living treasure - Katherine Rundell-------------------------------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 24th October 2022

In this episode, Phoebe Rees (who has just graduated from our PGCE primary programme) speaks to Tom Breeze about an intervention she created to tackle her concerns about low academic self-esteem in her pupils. Before embarking on the PGCE, Phoebe did a degree in psychology, and she brought her knowledge of research-informed approaches to bear on the practical issues she wanted to address in her classroom.

For today's episode we welcome one of our newest colleagues, and one of the newest Doctors on the team - Dr Kristina Kelly joins us at Cardiff Met with a wealth of knowledge about additional learning needs (ALN), so we immediately put her in front of a microphone to tell us about her research. Kristina carried out classroom research into how Piagetian schema are applicable to pupils with autism, and came up with some intriguing conclusions about potentially new schema to add to those identified by Piaget. In this conversation she talks about juggling research and teaching, the benefits of classroom-based research, and the ethics of carrying out research with participants who can't give full informed consent owing to their conditions. Thanks to Kristina for a fascinating chat, and we'll be back again soon!------------------------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 4th August 2022

We're on the road for a special podcast recording today, speaking to Jess Dainham about her work for her Master's degree. As part of her research, Jess has investigated how to make the Curriculum for Wales work for the working class pupils that she teaches. When we're carrying out education research, we don't tend to name schools or participants, so today's podcast comes from an unnamed school in south Wales. but Jess's pupils are predominantly working class, and Jess herself comes from a working class background, so she was interested in how to make things work for them. Whether you're working in a working-class catchment or not, there are lots of really important ideas in Jess's work, especially listening to the pupils in front of you, and Jess gives us plenty of encouragement to engage in research in order to make our practice better. Thanks to Jess for inviting us in!---------------------------------------------------------Recorded at a secondary school in south Wales on 14th July 2022

Welcome back to PGCE Research Bites! In this episode, PGCE Secondary Biology with Science student Joseph Thomas talks to Dr. James Snook about how he spent time in school trying to get a more in-depth understanding of scaffolding learning. While scaffolding is a well-known term, and many of the strategies Joseph came across during his investigation are familiar to all of us, he wanted to have a really good look at how it could work. Having done some reading, Joseph then tried out an intervention to help his pupils get to grips with a tricky topic. -----------------------------------------Recorded in studio B0.17, Cyncoed Campus, Cardiff Metropolitan University on 21st June 2022

It's always lovely to welcome a school colleague to the podcast! Today we say hello to Lauren Rees, who is currently the research champion at Stanwell School in Penarth, but has fulfilled every teacher-educator role in her time at the school. We're keen to hear the school perspective about how research and enquiry contributes to the development of new teachers, as well as what it does for the school as a whole. With the new curriculum upon us, is it even more important that schools engage with sources of knowledge and share them around? Plus Lauren brings us something interesting and something to try, both of which are of interest to all of us, new and old teachers alike!--------------------------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 12th July 2022

For the latest instalment in our PGCE Research Bites strand, Tom talks for PGCE primary student teacher Peter Russell about his intervention to increase pupil engagement in Welsh in his placement primary school. Located in Torfaen, Peter's school presented something of a challenge when it came to enthusing pupils about wanting to learn Welsh: not only is Torfaen one of the most socio-economically deprived parts of the country, it also has a very low proportion of Welsh speakers. As part of his final PGCE assignment, Peter worked with pupils to co-construct an intervention that changed the way they felt about learning and using Welsh, and this episode of Research Bites summarises Peter's work. You can also see this episode in video form on the Cardiff Partnership's professional learning YouTube channel. --------------------------------------Recorded in studio B0.17, Cyncoed Campus, Cardiff Metropolitan University on 24th June 2022

Welcome back to season 5 of the podcast! Today's episode features an extended interview with our colleague Paula Webber (Programme Leader for PGCE Secondary Religious Education) to talk about religion, values and ethics. Not in the abstract - it's a mandatory part of the new curriculum for Wales. Up to this point, religious education (RE) has been something that parents can opt their children out of, but the all-new RVE is compulsory for all.So it's time for an in-depth chat about what's covered in RVE, the sort of difficult debates teachers will find themselves in the middle of, and how schools can make sure that they stay on the right side of a constantly evolving area of learning.We recorded this interview last academic year, so you'll hear us refer to the implementation of the new curriculum as a future event - and now, of course, it's here!You can find the full version of Paula's recommended video from Theos Think Tank here.------------------------------------------Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan Univer