We’re Emma (PGCE Secondary Drama) and Tom (PGCE Secondary Music) from Cardiff Metropolitan University. Welcome to our podcast, in which we muse about the joys of working with student teachers, the expressive arts, research, and teaching in general. Expect deep discussions, topical debates, celebrations of great practice, and things to steal for your own lessons!
Our primary audience is student teachers and early-career teachers, but we hope there's something here for everyone who's involved in the world of education, whether you're new or experienced.
Most of our episodes involve a main discussion (often with one or more guests), and two regular slots: something interesting and something to try. And when we hit the holidays, we bring out some weird and wonderful talking points from the internet and just have a chat.
Podcast artwork by Beth Blandford (@blandoodles on Facebook and Instagram)
Music by Cameron Stewart
Welcome to season 8 of the podcast! So…. You want to become a teacher? You’ve come to the right place. In the third iteration of this popular topic, we’re joined by our colleague Rhian Wyn Griffiths …
One of our podcast traditions is to take a moment to reflect on the season that's just been (season 7) and get ready for the one that's about to land in your feeds (season 8)! After a hasty move acro…
We’ve reached the end of another year of podcasting, and ready to give you all a summer break from our dulcet tones. To wrap up our seventh year in front of the microphones, we’re delighted to welcom…
When we heard that Finola Wilson from our friends at Impact Wales had published a book, our first reaction (after congratulations!) was to realise how ridiculously long it’s been since we last spoke …
It's something of a tradition to haul Emma in for a doctoral progress check, and today she's digging into her chosen research approach: participatory research.
If you listened to Emma's last episode, …
We welcome Dr Fiona Heath-Diffey to the studio today to talk us through her doctoral research into the experiences of primary student teachers getting to grips with the idea of teaching PE.
Fiona has…
For teachers it's the Easter break, and so we like to bring you another of our selections of the interesting, humorous and strange things we have been reading or otherwise consuming lately.
This time…
Back in our non-camera-enabled studio, we've got some thoughts for you today about how observation can be made more purposeful. Often found as an initial activity at the start of student teacher plac…
Back in our normal studio, we welcome Professor David Egan back to the podcast. David was last with us taking about the poverty gap in education, and today he’s here to tell us about a report he’s wr…
We're in the 'other' studio today which, to our delight, is not bristling with cameras! Apologies to the very small club of people who watch our episodes on YouTube.
Emma was recently asked to review …
We make no apology for having based several of our episodes around the person that many student teachers report is the single most important person in their teacher education journey: the mentor. The…
Today we welcome Kelly Bubbins from Willows High School in Cardiff. Willows is located in a part of Cardiff that's not without its challenges, and as Kelly tells us, assumptions about what that means…
Today we're all on our own without a guest, because we're presenting original Cardiff Met research! But our colleague Sioned Dafydd is with us in spirit as she was a key member of the three-person re…
In a very impressive move to win 'most dedicated podcast guest', today we welcome Dr Rachel Shanks from the University of Aberdeen to our studio in person! For obvious reasons, our original request t…
It’s that festive time of year again, and hopefully anyone involved in the world of education is relaxing after a very long Autumn term.
We’re back with our usual Christmas offering - though we’re out…
One of the perks of hosting the podcast is that we get to invite people who’ve influenced us to come on as guests, and in our world of teacher education, there are few people who’ve had more influenc…
Teaching people to be teachers can feel like a bit of a head-spinner - it can get meta quite quickly! But teacher educators (in school or in university) are also part of a wider group of slightly unu…
It's time for another 'delve' (!) into the world of AI, and how large language models have found their way into the world of education. Following our episode last year with Karl Jones, today we welco…
It’s October half term, and therefore time for one of our ‘light’ episodes! To entertain you with something a little different, we’ve gone a bit rogue and found three interesting things each. As ever…