Welcome to the first episode of Season 5 of the Rethinking Education podcast!

As you may be aware, Estonia has consistently been the highest performing European country in the PISA assessments in recent years. This episode features my recent conversation with Gunda Tire, Head of International Assessments (PISA & TALIS) at Estonian Education and Youth Board.

Gunda very generously gave me almost 2 hours of her time to take a whirlwind tour around the Estonian education system - early childhood, curriculum, assessment, inspection (or the lack of it) - behaviour, attendance, technology - you name it, we cover it. In many cases, you’ll see that Estonia does things quite differently to how we do things in the UK.

While you can’t just cut and paste education policies from one country to another and expect them to work effortlessly - there is plenty of food for thought here which I hope the Labour education team will give some serious thought to.

LINKS

Free lunches, brain breaks and happy teachers: why Estonia has the best schools in Europe: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/27/free-lunches-brain-breaks-and-happy-teachers-why-estonia-has-the-best-schools-in-europe

Gunda TIRE: "Estonians believe in education, and this belief has been essential for centuries": https://english.caucasianjournal.org/2020/02/gunda-tire-estonians-believe-in.html

Gunda Tire - What is Estonia doing right? Presentation about PISA results for Estonia. British Council Education Conference: https://vimeo.com/207516457

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Outro track: 'How it is and how it should be' by Grit Control: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ud69RIV1eOV9poMR7AORI

“Let’s Rethinking Education” jingle: https://www.rocktopusmusic.com/

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