It is our absolute pleasure to welcome Nick Hart, Executive Headteacher of Courthouse Junior School in Berkshire. Nick is a well-respected voice in education and many of you will have heard him talking at ResearchEd. Nick is also the organiser of ResearchEdBerks, which will be on 7th May 2022. Nick also runs an influential blog thisismyclassroom.wordpress.com and is a visiting fellow of Ambition Institute.

💥 Could you start by talking us through your journey as a teacher and what you have learned along the way.

💥 For those who haven’t visited Courthouse Junior School what can they expect when immersed in your school day? Can you tell us about the Courthouse way?

💥 You’ve created a leadership handbook, 146 pages of absolute gold dust, it is so extensive. Can you talk to us about this project? 

💥 We spoke to Mary Myatt about her book with John Tomsett ‘Huh’ and we discussed the relationship of senior and middle leaders and how best to support. This is something that you have blogged about recently. So how can senior leaders best support subject leaders?

💥 Talking about middle leaders/subject leaders – what makes a great subject leader? What do they need to know, need to do?

💥 How do we know if students are making progress?

💥 What do you think are the biggest differences in leading a primary school than that of a secondary school? Would you feel confident in leading a secondary or an all through school?

Megan Mansworth is an experienced teacher and leader who has taught English and guided students to achieve outstanding results across a variety of state schools. Megan has been Leader of Research and Leader of English for two different MATs and her writing has been published in national media publications. Megan is currently completing her PhD in Literary Linguistics and of course is the author of top selling book ‘Teaching to the Top’.

💥Could you start by talking us through your journey as a teacher and what you have learned along the way.

💥Your book is called ‘Teaching to the Top’ – what does that actually mean in practice?

💥Teaching is a profession and like any profession you want and need experts. How important is it to build the foundation of developing high-level knowledge and how can we do this?

💥There is continual talk about the level of challenge in the curriculum and pitching up, how do we embed this challenge?

💥A common issue that I have witnessed in classrooms and lessons is a real level of passivity, the teacher working harder than the students etc. What do you mean when talking about thinking hard and how do we get students to think hard in lessons?

💥This is a big question and obviously inspired a lot of the thinking in the book, chapter 4 is about teaching to the top and not to the test, something that schools have been guilty of and some may still be guilty of, so how do we teach to the top and are we not a risk of not meeting expected outcomes if we don’t think of the test?

💥I have a real passion for ensuring that staff understand how and why we make reasonable adjustments for some students, when and where needed. This leads to the chapter you wrote on the dangers of differentiation. What are the dangers and what common errors do practioners make?

💥Due to circumstance, background, parenting and many other factors, some children don’t have the aspiration or drive to reach the top. What would you recommend to school leaders to help them believe that anything is possible?

Marie Gentles OBE is a Government Behaviour advisor and star of the recent ground-breaking BBC documentary ‘Don’t Exclude Me’ which aired on BBC Two and is available on the iPlayer. She currently runs a behaviour consultancy Magic Behaviour Ltd and prior to this was the Headteacher of an Outstanding Pupil Referral Unit and Social Emotional and Mental Health provision which featured on Victoria Derbyshire’s BBC One show.

Marie’s influence and Partnerships with many schools, The DfE and families has had immense success in transforming pupil’s behaviour and significantly reducing the rate of permanent exclusions.

Katie L’Aimable is a fellow director at Magic Behaviour Ltd. Katie started her career at an inner London mainstream school where she fostered and developed her love of working with pupils and families with additional needs. Katie was also the Deputy Head of the same outstanding Pupil Referral Unit and was also the executive lead for a successful key stage 2 Nurture Group pilot project, which saw some of the most vulnerable children in a London Borough transform their behaviour and reintegrate back into mainstream school.

💥 How did you get into teaching and did you end up becoming a behaviour expert and expert advisor, then the same question to you Katie.

💥 On both BBC programmes you’ve featured on, it clearly shows you achieving positives outcomes for the young people in need of your support. How do you go about this and what techniques do you use?

💥 Do you feel that there are too many children being excluded from mainstream provision and if so, what is the reason for this? What would you do to prevent or reduce it?

💥 The American Psychiatrist Ross W. Greene who we recently interviewed, says that ‘Kids do well if they can’ and consequently he is not a big fan of sanctions or rewards as a way of turning round challenging behaviour. What are your thoughts on this?

💥 Are there ever any reasons where you would support a school with permanently excluding a child?

💥 Can you explain how you operate with Magic behaviour Ltd how do schools sign you up and what services do you offer?

We were live at ResearchEd Surrey 2021 and have a wonderful highlights package with insights of the day from many of the leading voices in education. Listen to this episode as we are joined by:

💥 Becky Allen & Matthew Evans

💥 Daisy Christodoulou 

💥 Kevin Surrey, Suzy Wybrow & Jon Owen

💥 Lianne Lax

💥 Mark Enser

💥 Yvonne Jones

💥 Michael Chiles

💥 Patrice Bain

Plus hear from some of the delegates:

💥 Simi Ajayi & George McCormack

💥 Dan Hunt & Vicky Moorby

We were live at ResearchEd Surrey 2021 and have a wonderful highlights package with insights of the day from many of the leading voices in education. Listen to this episode as we are joined by:

💥 Abby Bayford & Mike Brett

💥 Jack Tavassoly-Marsh

💥 Josh Goodrich

💥 Lekha Sharma

💥 Oliver Caviglioli

💥 David Goodwin

💥 Pete Foster

💥 Tom Sherrington

Plus hear from some of the delegates:

💥 Cali Price

💥 Katherine Reading

💥 Michelle Creer 

💥 Scott Mellors

Athena – goddess of wisdom and reason

Iris - represents royalty, courage, wisdom and was a messenger between heaven and earth

Mary Myatt – meaning Queen of the Curriculum, a wise authority of matters of education and inspirational

Yes it is our absolute pleasure to welcome Mary Myatt to Morethanajob podcast, in association with ResearchEd. Mary is one of the leading voices in education and has authored many influential and must read texts such as ‘The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to Coherence’, ‘Back on Track’ and most recently ‘Huh’ that was written with John Tomsett.

A former LA advisor and inspector, a governor in several schools and a trustee for a MAT. Now Mary spends her professional days an educational advisor, writer and speaker and also is a member of the curriculum advisory group for Oak National Academy.

💥 What makes an effective curriculum for a school?

💥Your book with John Tomsett is a book of curriculum conversations between subject and senior leaders. What can and should we do to support both senior and middle leaders to bring real credibility and purpose to this relationship to ensure we are truly developing curriculum and subjects?

💥 Within Key Stage 4, how do balance choice vs compulsion? Where do you think the line is?

💥 Curriculum maps – are these worth sharing with students?

💥  Marking books – is it worth the cost? What would you advocate to promote effective assessment?

💥 How important is awareness of cognitive science and application of research in developing outstanding schools, cultures and teachers? Do effective schools have staff who regularly engage with pedagogical research?

💬 "Marking kids books is a complete & utter waste of time....Talk to them and model through a visualiser."

💬 "Teachers time on marking costs £4.5bn with no evidence of any impact."

💬 "Mark extended pieces but feedback as close to the action as possible. As for verbal feedback stamps........"

💬 "Anything that we're asked to do we should ask why." [Seek rationale, evidence and understanding - this is not suggesting insubordination or rudeness!]

Listen to one of the most influential educators in the UK. Stuart is the CEO of Advantage Schools and he has previously been Headteacher of a school in Cambridgeshire.  Prior to that his experience was in four London schools.  Stuart regularly presents at national conferences, particularly on the philosophy of education and on educational research.

Stuart oversees Bedford Free School which is one of only 12 schools in England to have been graded as OUTSTANDING under the EIF 2019.

He has advised the Department for Education on a few groups, including the group that developed the Early Career Framework, the group that wrote the Headteacher Standards in 2019, and the group that looked at the role of National Leaders of Education in 2019.

💥 What has made Bedford Free School such an amazing place for staff to teach and students to learn? 

💥 What advice would you give to school leaders to establish great behaviour in schools?

💥 What are the cornerstones/pillars to an effective curriculum intent and model?

💥 Marking books – is it worth the cost?

💥 What are your thoughts on the GCSE exams announcements on optionality, advanced notice and the overall plans for 2022?

💥 You blogged in June about teacher recruitment & retention. You said “It will be game changing if we do this do this properly.” What does it look like being done properly?

💥 What are the characteristics of an effective leader in schools?

It is our absolute pleasure to welcome Kate Jones to Morethanajob podcast in association with ResearchEd. Kate Jones is the best selling author of many influential books including the retrieval practice series and most recently ‘5 Formative Assessment Strategies in Action’. Kate is an ambassador Winston's Wish and also the recently appointed teaching and learning lead for InnerDrive.

💥 Can you help us understand the science & research behind retrieval practice?

💥 What advice and best strategies would you give to colleagues in order to successfully implement retrieval practice in their classrooms and curriculums.

💥 Marking books – is it worth the cost? 

💥 What would you advocate to promote effective teaching & learning?

💥 One of your most recent books is ‘Five Formative Assessment strategies in Action’. The basis behind this research is from Dylan Wiliam’s book 10 years ago and the 5 identified strategies are:

Can we explore each of these strategies and understand what they mean to those at the chalkface?

💥 You’ve also got another book coming out at the end of November called ‘The Teaching Life’ – what can we expect from this book?

💥 How important is awareness of cognitive science and application of research in developing outstanding schools, cultures and teachers? Do effective schools have staff wo regularly engage with pedagogical research?

It is our absolute pleasure to welcome David Didau to Morethanajob podcast in association with ResearchED. We briefly spoke to David at ResearchEd21 but now we have the pleasure of a full interview to fully explore the mind and philosophy of the ‘King of English’.

David runs one of the most influential education blogs in the UK and has won an awards for this. He has got Ofsted listening to him and has consulted on the Inspection Handbook. He works with schools and offers advice and support to those who need it. He is a bestselling author has committed to ‘Making Kids Cleverer’ and ‘Making Meaning in English’.

💥 In one of your blogs you use the phrase “Rather than settling for good things, we must be alert for better things.” To close the literacy gap what strategies would you suggest and or what considerations should school leaders have full awareness of?

💥 Can you give us the overwhelming argument for why we need to read out loud? Will this create fluent readers?

💥 Cancel Culture. Of Mice & Men. To Kill a Mockingbird. What are your thoughts on these texts and their place in the English curriculum? Also what is your advice to build a curated reading curriculum for schools?

💥 Marking books – is it worth the cost? What would you advocate to promote effective teaching & learning?

💬 "Show me how this book demonstrates that the curriculum is being learned. You are looking at the kids work [not the marking]."

💥 Is Curriculum 'all That'?

💥 What do we need to do to make kids cleverer?

Join us for a mind blowing episode in which we talk to the BIGGEST NAME in Psychology.

Ross is a clinical psychologist and a New York Times bestselling author of the influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost and Found, and Raising Human Beings.

He is the originator of the model of care described in those books, now called Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS). Dr. Greene was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School for over 20 years, and is now founding director of the non-profit Lives in the Balance, which provides a vast array of free, web-based resources on the CPS model. He has appeared in a wide range of media, including The Oprah Show, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe.

💥 How have you become an expert on the challenging behaviours of young people?

💥 You’ve coined the phrase ‘Kids do well if they can’, what does this mean and what implication does it have for teachers and caregivers?

💥 What would you say to educators who believe that sanctions are necessary to promote good order and discipline in schools?

💥 How would you respond to those who call your method and approach as woke? How can you not consider sanctions & rewards?

💥 What advice would you give to someone working with a challenging student – what techniques could they use to improve the outcome in a positive way?

💬 "I'd rather be solving problems than modifying behaviour."

💬 "The last thing our prisoners need is more punishment."

💬 "Why does society continue with punishment, reward & sanction?"

💬 "I hate seeing kids getting...secluded for expectations we already know that the kid cannot reasonably meet."

💬 "No excuses behaviour policies = Ineffective. Silent corridors = archaic."