Iesha and Anna discuss 'The Talent Challenge:  The looming teacher retention crisis in England’s state schools and what to do about it.'

Rob Webster is a researcher at the UCL Institute of Education, where he leads the Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants (MITA) initiative for the UCL Centre for Inclusive Education. Rob is also Co-Director of the SEN in Secondary Education (SENSE) study. In this episode, Rob talks to Iesha about the role of teaching assistants, how they can be used more effectively, the contribution they make to SEND provision and how they could help solve the teacher recruitment crisis.

In this episode Iesha and Rob discuss:

• SEN or SEND?

• How Rob’s frontline work as a teaching assistant led to him conducting research into the role of TAs

• How TAs might be the solution to the teacher workforce crisis

• The central role that TAs play in SEND provision

• Segregation and streaming of SEND pupils

• ‘Ability’ vs. ‘prior attainment’

• Whether it’s right that SEND pupils spend more time with TAs than their peers

• Why pupils don’t benefit from spending lots of unstructured time with TAs, but…

• …how TAs have a consistently positive impact when they’re delivering targeted interventions

• Given negative evidence, why schools have been happier to scrap TAs than scrap ability grouping

• What schools can do to make better use of TAs

• What we mean by ‘inclusion’

• Shed Seven

Dr Sam Baars is LKMco’s Director of Research. He talks to Iesha about his research exploring how higher education can become more accessible for white working class boys.

In this episode Iesha and Sam discuss

• Why Sam’s A-levels made him more politically engaged

• How Sam’s doctorate in Social Change led to the work that he does now

• Why research can help marginalised groups who otherwise might be ignored

• How surprisingly hard it is to define what a white ‘working class’ boy is

• Why feeling as if you belong is important for success at university

• Why working class pupils are less likely to go to university than middle class pupils

• Why many working class pupils don’t see the point in going to university

• Why supporting aspirations to attend university ought to begin to in primary school

Resources/people featured or mentioned

• The Great British Class Survey (BBC)

• The underrepresentation of white working boys class in higher education (LKMco/KCL)

Show notes and links for this episode can be found here.

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Music credits:

‘Oui’ by Simon Mathewson and ‘Jump for joy’ by Scott Holmes both from http://freemusicarchive.org

Want to contact us?

[email protected] / @ieshasmall or [email protected] / @sambaars

Geoff Barton is General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. He talks to Iesha about leadership, literacy, books and radio.

Geoff Barton is General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. He talks to Iesha about leadership, literacy, books and radio.

In this episode Iesha and Geoff discuss

Geoff’s love of 70s and 80s icon Noel Edmonds

Why his mum declared his exam results a “failure”

Why leaders need to ask fewer but better questions

Why literacy and social justice are linked for Geoff

Why Geoff feels that writing helps him to think

The newspaper article that Geoff had 20mins to write after a major disaster

His controversial election as general secretary of ASCL over the preferred candidate

Is ASCL a union that just wants to hold the status quo and be compliant with government?

Why Head teachers who become MAT CEOs are sometimes caught short

Resources/people featured or mentioned

The hidden lives of learners- Graham Nuthall

The magic of thinking big – David J Schwatrz

Dylan Williams

The social animal -David Brooks

Hold tight – Jeffery Boayke

Blink – Malcolm Gladwell

Matthew Syed – Black box thinking

Freakonomics

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at https://www.lkmco.org/podcast/barton/ 

Found the show useful?

Leave a review on iTunes

Music Credits:

‘Oui’ by Simon Mathewson from  and ‘Jump for joy’ by Scott Holmes both from  http://freemusicarchive.org

Sample of ‘Man don’t care’ by JME . “It’s nice knowing Geoff” and “flame thrower” copyright Geoff Barton

Want to contact us?

[email protected] or [email protected]

Catt Scutt, the Director of Education and Research at The Chartered College of teaching argues that even if research contradicts teachers' "common sense" or professional judgement, they still can't turn their back on it.

Social mobility at work and university. How well-known employers are trying to improve social mobility and why different generations have different perspectives about social mobility in the UK. Discussion between Iesha Small and Dr Sam Baars of LKMco.

Discussing the increasing globalization of educational policy and how inequality can be tackled worldwide with Prof. Geoff Whitty and Iesha Small.

Discussing evidence-based educational policy and how to Professor Geoff Whitty has used his career to take educational disadvantage.

What lessons can schools learn from Sound Training, a programme that improved reading ability in prisons?