Five Principles for High Performing Equitable Education Systems: Lucy Crehan's 'Cleverlands'

Emma and Tom are joined by Sally Bethell, Senior Lecturer in PGCE Secondary PE, to discuss the five recommendations at the end of Lucy Crehan's book Cleverlands, in which the intrepid author gets on a plane to find out what lessons can be learned from five countries whose education systems are routinely held up as examples of excellent practice. The final chapter of the book distils everything Crehan learned on her travels into five principles that she feels underly excellent and equitable systems for the education of young people, and Emma, Tom and Sally have plenty to say about these - especially Tom, who is in particularly controversial mood and is now awaiting the arrival of his P45 in the post.

The three regular slots - wellbeing, shoutout and something to try - get a whole new level of challenge when Emma and Tom decide to try recording them remotely: Tom's in Cardiff Met and Emma's at home with her dog, meaning that the whole thing takes place without the benefit of eye contact - and with slightly lower sound quality than we've become used to!

Tom's got another good reason to go for tea with your colleagues: so you can make them your friends. Emma, meanwhile, combines the shoutout and something to try slots into a comprehensive explanation of live modelling as it applies to extended writing, and how Georgina Saunders, an English student teacher on the Teach First programme, used this to impressive effect in a lesson observation.

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This episode was recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 1st April 2019