Alcohol is such a huge part of the culture for many countries across the globe, for a lot of us it is believed that alcohol enables us to connect, deal with stress, sadness, happiness and joy. Reducing or removing alcohol from our lives seems to be on everyone's wish list but actually going through with it is a whole other matter.

Club Soda was created by Dru Jaeger and Laura Willoughby. It's a community supporting those who want to change their drinking habits. The wonderful thing is that the support comes without judgement and without that huge expectation to quit altogether - it turns out we can be mindful drinkers and Dru joins Sophie to discuss how.

Book Mentioned is The Kindness Method -  Mindfulness for learning encourages the use of local bookstores if you want to purchase any of our recommended books. Click here to find your nearest local book shop.

Wetherspoons alcohol free options

The Lounges 

Club Soda

Dru Jaeger

Sophie chats to Gemma Clark - TES writer, Primary School Teacher and Massage in Schools Instructor. In this episode Gemma reveals exactly what massage can do for the children in your care and how it can have a profound effect on their readiness to learn. 

"The Massage in Schools Association is a not-for-profit organisation, bringing together and supporting Massage in Schools (MISP) Trainers, Instructors and branches from over 30 countries worldwide"

Read Gemma's articles

Find Gemma on Twitter

Sophie starts the series with supply teacher and environmental activist - Miranda. They chat all about the challenges and wins of being a supply teacher; the things you may want to expect before choosing to becoming a supply teacher, preconceptions of the people coming to look after our classes and how we can improve the lives and wellbeing of the supply teachers visiting our schools.

Links discussed in the episode:

NEU Help for supply teachers

Conversation with Jo and Miranda from XR Families - How do we cope with parenting in lockdown?

Helen and Sam chat with Sophie about Motherhood; the journey from birth through maternity and into the first years of mum life. They dissect an article written by Eliane Glaser (‘Parent trap: why the cult of the perfect mother has to end’) exploring many topics including expectations, parenting in a pandemic, support, social media and what we can do to create change to improve family life. 

Check out Helen's sustainable kids clothing range on Instagram on @dottyole_preloved

Articles

Black women in the UK four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth

Fewer than third of new fathers take paternity leave, research suggests

Books Mindfulness for learning encourages the use of local bookstores if you want to purchase any of our recommended books. Click here to find your nearest local book shop.

What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen

Motherhood: A Manifesto by Eliane Glaser

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Websites

MBRRACE-UK: Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK

For support, advice and information

Motherdom 

The Mamma Coach 

Mind 

NHS Pregnancy and Mental Health 

NHS Postnatal depression 

Young Minds for Parents 

NSPCC Mental Health and Parenting 

Amelia is an Early Years Practitioner and joins Sophie to talk about the skills involved in early years learning. Whether you are a parent wanting to understand what is going on in your child’s EYFS classroom or a teacher exploring your early years approach this is an informative episode discussing how play contributes to the wellbeing of children in their first years of life.

Planning in the moment with young children by Anna Ephgrave

The reception year in action by Anna Ephgrave

The nursery year in action by Anna Ephgrave

Community Playthings

Inside Role-Play in Early Childhood Education: Researching young children's perspectives

Claire Kelly talks with Sophie about her own personal journey with mindfulness and discusses how you can successfully create a mindful culture in school. 

Claire Kelly began her career as a secondary school teacher and now works for the Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP) as the Head of Curricular and Teaching Development*, creating content to support their work which offers training to educators on how to practice and teach mindfulness to the children in their care. She is also a teaching partner at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre which offers courses in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for life and mindfulness teacher training. 

MiSP 

Oxford Mindfulness Centre 

Bamba 

Home Mindfulness Network  

Bangor 

*Following this recording Claire began to work full time for the Oxford Mindfulness Centre as the MBCT Lead and so is no longer working for the Mindfulness in Schools Project.

For Men's Mental Health Week Sophie chats to Adrian all about his preconceptions of parenthood, what those first moments were like when his eldest was born and how he coped with expecting his first child the same month he was booked in to speak alongside the Dalai Lama! It's a great episode recognising the specific experiences men go through in the initial years of becoming a dad.

Adrian Bethune 

For advice and support:

Mens Health Forum 

Calm 

The Samaritans 

SHOUT 

Mind 

In this episode Kaurice Moran talks to Sophie about the difficulties in deciding what constitutes bullying in the workplace, how we can cope with this and she reflects upon her time at a setting where she was bullied, now with much more experience at hand.

She also discusses her move to yoga teaching, what it can do for both adults and children and how we can bring this practice into our daily lives to help manage the stresses of teaching, parenting and schooling and explains why it has created a good balance for her as a teacher.

Support and advice on being bullied at work

Kaurice Instagram 

Kaurice Facebook

This is nave

Natasha Eeles, founder of Bold Voices, discusses how education can drive change to tackle gender inequality and cultures of gendered violence.

Mindfulness for learning piece on RSE

Some more helpful information from Natasha

Read our article on Gender in the classroom

Sophie talks to David Cramer Smith, author of the novel, Medway. Discussing the novel initiates conversations about various mental health centred topics from the importance of having a support network, to understanding their relationships with alcohol. They also discuss the education system, what it’s like to be a teacher and why David left teaching for writing and developing.

Buy Medway/Read David's writing here: