Many people who are well known for their work in education have such interesting backgrounds and stories to tell, although many of us don’t get to hear them. The aim of this podcast series is to learn a bit more about these people.

We sit down for a chat to find out a bit more about them – what was their experience of school? How did they come to work in education? What they’re currently working on etc. And in every episode we ask for three favourite pieces of music.

Whatever we discuss, every podcast episode ends with the same question: If you were in charge of the education system for a day, what one policy or structural change would you make?

In this episode we chat with Dame Alison Peacock, Teacher and Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching. We talk about her time at school, taking a seven-year career break, how difficult and wonderful being a teacher can be, meeting the queen and much more. As usual, our conversation is interspersed with our guest's three song choices.

As well as listening to the podcast, find out more about Alison Peacock and her work with these links:

Find out more about what the Chartered College of Teaching has to offer

Take a look at Alison’s articles for the TES

Watch Alison’s TEDx talk on Learning without limits

If you haven’t already, do check out the previous episodes of Knowing Me Knowing Ed-U with Geoff Barton and Sugata Mitra. Do you have suggestions for future guests of Knowing Me Knowing Ed-U? Who would you like to hear from? Let us know at [email protected].