This episode looks at a range of routines, systems and protocols that can help you to create a calm and efficient primary school environment – with lots of practical ideas to adapt and adopt. Our panel of school leaders discuss a range of evidence-based ideas for useful school routines that help the school day to run smoothly – whether that be in the classroom, corridors or playground. We look specifically at consistent classroom routines across the school, including how to give teachers appropr...
Jul 02, 2025•57 min•Season 5Ep. 51
This podcast discusses the retirement choices open to school leaders and headteachers, tips for effective pension planning as well as the implications of early and phased retirement options. We speak with two experts from Wesleyan Financial Services to discuss principles of effective retirement planning and what headteachers need to think about and plan for. We focus on the provisions within the Teachers’ Pension Scheme including how benefits are calculated under the 80th Final Salary, 60th Fina...
Jun 04, 2025•49 min•Season 5Ep. 50
This episode offers advice, ideas and examples for effective library provision in the primary school, including tips for whole-school literacy support. We meet with two primary school professionals and an expert from the National Literacy Trust to get their view of what makes for excellent primary school library provision. We discuss how to create a thriving school library provision when space and budgets are limited – including advice for schools that do not have a dedicated library space. We a...
May 07, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 49
This episode describes ideas and advice for identifying and supporting pupils with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) in the primary school classroom. SLCN are now the most common need for the 1.2 million pupils who are on SEN Support in England’s schools – and the evidence tells us that there will be many more who are going undiagnosed. The podcast features two SENCOs and a speech and language therapist who offer advice for school leadership teams (especially SENCOs) and classroom ...
Apr 02, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Season 5Ep. 48
In this episode we discuss leadership succession planning and how primary schools can spot, develop and nurture the school leaders (and headteachers) of tomorrow. Across two halves, the podcast speaks to four school leaders to find out how they spot, encourage and develop potential leaders in their schools and trusts. We ask how we can talent-spot these leaders – what kind of leadership traits and characteristics are we looking out for in our teachers and school staff? Then, once we have identif...
Mar 05, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Season 5Ep. 47
With the numbers of pupils with SEN rising year-on-year, this episode offers advice for primary school leadership teams (especially SENCOs) about the effective management of SEN across the primary school. Our expert panel begin by offering their principles of best practice for managing SEN. We then discuss how can school leaders can best support their SENCOs and what SENCO need in order to be effective in their role. We focus too on how SENCOs can best support teaching staff – what will empower ...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Season 5Ep. 46
In this episode we discuss how to deliver excellent and high-quality school food on a budget in your primary school. We chat with two headteachers and the founder of the Chefs in Schools charity to explore ideas and options for how schools can deliver quality food experiences for pupils. We ask how we can work with families to improve packed lunches and also discuss how we can raise money via our food growing and education initiatives. We talk about what we can do to improve the take-up of free ...
Jan 08, 2025•56 min•Season 5Ep. 45
In this episode we take a deep dive into the different roles and models of executive school leadership, looking at best practice and how executive leaders can best support individual schools. Our panel of experts ask what different executive leadership roles exist and what purpose they serve; we consider the different structures and models of executive leadership, too. We discuss how executive leaders can effectively support the individual school leadership teams within each of the schools they ...
Dec 04, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 44
In this episode we look at the recruitment and retention of teachers in the primary school, including how to attract the best teachers and ideas and tips for how to keep hold of them. The podcast features three experienced school leaders who begin their discussion by each offering their three core principles of best practice for effective recruitment and retention. We then consider how we might go about finding the best teaching staff, including how we recruit effectively for specific roles, and...
Nov 06, 2024•55 min•Season 5Ep. 43
This episode focuses on how we can teach oracy and speaking skills in the primary school, with practical tips, ideas, resources and advice. Our expert panel discuss what oracy is, why it matters, and the impact we have seen on pupils’ speaking skills since Covid. We look at how we can teach oracy in the classroom and across the curriculum, including practical activities for the explicit teaching of oracy as well as ideas for authentic opportunities to encourage talk. We consider the role of voca...
Oct 02, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Season 5Ep. 42
In this episode three school leaders discuss effective behaviour management strategies and approaches in the primary school. We ask how we can build a culture that supports consistent behaviour management across the school. Furthermore, what does an impactful behaviour policy look like and how should it be applied in practice to ensure consistency in classrooms, corridors and playgrounds? The panel also discusses what support and CPD school staff need in order to ensure consistent and good behav...
Sep 04, 2024•54 min•Season 5Ep. 41
In this episode we discuss how headteachers can “market” their primary schools effectively – not least to prospective parents and their wider communities. Pupil rolls are due to fall notably in the coming years, meaning that promoting our school’s ethos, culture and educational track record will become ever more important – especially for small primary schools. But how do we go about doing this well? We speak to two experienced headteachers of small primary schools and ask why marketing our scho...
Jul 03, 2024•50 min•Season 4Ep. 30
This episode looks at how schools and school leaders can lead change and make sure new approaches, interventions or improvement practices have the biggest possible impact. Inspired by the publication of the Education Endowment Foundation’s updated implementation guidance – Putting Evidence to Work – the podcast features advice, examples, and ideas from three experienced school leaders. The EEF’s new guidance distils the latest research into effective implementation and is aimed at helping school...
Jun 05, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 39
In this episode we discuss a range of ideas and strategies for how primary schools can support the good mental health and wellbeing of their pupils. We chat to three guests who work in three different schools. We hear their tenets of good practice when it comes to supporting good pupil wellbeing in school before discussing what wellbeing challenges they are seeing on the ground and at the chalkface in their schools. We delve into some of the work taking place in our guests’ three schools and hea...
May 01, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 4Ep. 38
In this episode we discuss tips, ideas, and strategies for protecting the wellbeing of headteachers – and other school staff – during Ofsted inspections. Our guest is Paul K Ainsworth, who has held director of school improvement roles in four multi-academy trusts in the last nine years and in that time has experienced more than 40 Ofsted inspections. We get Paul’s practical insights – both small ideas and more substantial advice – about how we can protect our mental health and wellbeing, and tha...
Apr 03, 2024•48 min•Season 4Ep. 37
In this episode, three schools talk about the impact of the cost of living crisis and their work to support Pupil Premium and disadvantaged pupils. Our guests identify their key tenets of effective Pupil Premium practice and talk about specific approaches they are using in their schools. We delve into a range of strategies and ideas for addressing the consequences of poverty in the primary school, including tips for success and lessons learned. We hear about what is happening on the ground in ou...
Mar 06, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 36
This episode looks at the effective deployment of our teaching assistants in the primary school classroom, offering advice for whole-school practice and individual teaching and lessons. We ask how teaching assistants can enhance pupils’ outcomes and support inclusion and how teachers and teaching assistants can communicate and work together effectively. We discuss school systems and structures that can support their effective deployment. And we discuss the training and development that must be i...
Feb 07, 2024•58 min•Season 4Ep. 35
This episode looks at using instructional coaching as part of your school’s approach to staff CPD and improving teaching and learning. Three experts discuss what instructional is and its core principles. We ask how we can best launch and develop this approach in our schools and how it can be used to enhance teachers’ knowledge and understanding of pedagogy while complementing whole-school CPD. We consider the discrete stages of instructional coaching and also hear case studies and examples from ...
Jan 10, 2024•51 min•Season 4Ep. 34
This episode looks at how primary schools can best support the education and development of pupils who use English as an additional language (EAL), including refugee children. The podcast features three experts and opens with each guest offering their three tenets of best practice for EAL. We discuss what primary school leaders can do to ensure effective whole-school provision for EAL pupils, including effective teaching and learning approaches. We talk specifically about how to support refugee ...
Dec 06, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 33
This episode looks at best practice for delivering phonics programmes and teaching early reading in the primary school. Two experts discuss how phonics supports early reading and what the high-quality teaching of early reading looks like in practice. We ask what a high-quality phonics programme should offer schools and how we can ensure maximum impact with the scheme we are using. How can we move pupils from learning to read to reading to learn and how can we instil and inspire a love of reading...
Nov 01, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 4Ep. 32
This episode offers crucial advice and lots of practical tips to help primary school headteachers – especially those new to post – to survive and thrive in the top job. We speak with three experienced school leaders who draw on their experiences and the ups and downs of their careers to offer their tips, ideas, and advice to others. We ask what our guests wish somebody had told them during the early months and years of their headships – a question that yields lots of quick wins as well as more i...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 4Ep. 31
This episode of the podcast considers how school leaders can successfully navigate difficult conversations that often need to take place with staff, parents and others. We discuss common types of “difficult conversation”, some general principles for how to handle these discussions, and how we can best prepare ourselves and others for these conversations. We discuss the crucial role that school and leadership culture plays in creating the right conditions and thus taking the sting out of these co...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 4Ep. 30
This episode discusses simple and effective ways of conducting high-impact self-evaluation in order to support and drive school improvement. Three primary school leaders discuss their tenets of best practice for effective self-evaluation. We talk about the self-evaluation cycle, what it should look like, and how it fits into the wider process of school improvement. The panel includes a practising Ofsted inspector and we discuss Ofsted’s view on self-evaluation and how we can meet Ofsted expectat...
Jul 05, 2023•59 min•Season 3Ep. 29
This episode advises primary schools on how to engage with the different statutory and non-statutory agencies working to support pupils, especially our most vulnerable. From local authorities, safeguarding, mental health and Early Help services, to community out-reach, mentoring support and more, we consider the range of bodies that schools need to engage with. We discuss how to create partnerships with positive reciprocal relationships and how to get the most out of key agencies at a time of st...
Jun 07, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 28
This episode identifies key aspects of effective and purposeful curriculum assessment and evaluation in primary schools, including ensuring it is not onerous for teachers and meeting Ofsted expectations. The discussion involves three experienced primary school leaders who offer us their tenets of best practice for how we can ensure our curriculum is high-quality and working for our pupils. How do we achieve consistency across the primary school? How can we be sure that our curriculum caters for ...
May 03, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 3Ep. 27
This episode discusses how to be an effective school leader in challenging and difficult circumstances – both the expected and the unexpected. Our experts consider how to lead and manage these situations, sharing their tenets of effective leadership under pressure, their own experiences, and lessons learnt. We ask how leaders stay calm, decisive, and people-centred when times are tough. We also look at the particular challenge of handling a negative Ofsted inspection outcome. We consider specifi...
Apr 05, 2023•56 min•Season 3Ep. 26
This episode is packed full of advice, ideas, and tips for delivering effective and impactful outdoor learning in the primary school. Our expert panel kick off by discussing nine tenets of best practice in delivering outdoor and nature-based learning in schools. We also talk about the benefits that outdoor learning can bring, including the skills it can help pupils to develop. With lots of ideas for activities and projects, we discuss how outdoor or nature-based learning can be set up in urban s...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 3Ep. 25
This episode focuses on the use of coaching and mentoring approaches to support the development of teaching staff in schools. Our experts discuss the differences between coaching and mentoring, with some examples of what each approach entails and sets out to achieve, as well as what they look like in practice. We ask how headteachers can get started with introducing coaching or mentoring as part of CPD and professional learning for staff in their school. We discuss the different models, importan...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 24
This episode looks at how primary schools can boost pupil attendance, including tackling persistent absenteeism and supporting families. Three experts discuss the current trends and challenges in primary school attendance, including the legacy of Covid. We identify and discuss the main barriers to attendance – including anxiety, school avoidance, SEMH needs, problems with punctuality, poverty and school uniform – and offer strategies and tips for how they can best be overcome, including ideas fo...
Jan 11, 2023•59 min•Season 3Ep. 23
This podcast considers what effective middle leadership looks like in the primary school, including subject leadership, handling Ofsted's subject deep dives, and strategic middle leadership. Our experts consider the traits of effective middle leaders and how we can support our staff to develop these skills. We focus especially on subject leadership, including how middle leaders can ensure they are ready for Ofsted subject deep dives and how schools can support and empower subject leaders. We ask...
Dec 07, 2022•51 min•Season 3Ep. 22
