Emma & Tom Talk Teaching

Half term rolls around at last, and it's our tradition here on the podcast to do something a little different. Emma and Tom have each hunted down three interesting things with which to amuse, intrigue and/or torment the other, with no advance warning of the contents. Emma's got a blog by the almighty guru of teaching and learning, Tom Sherrington, and she has some feedback... Tom has a cautionary tale of why our instincts to run a mile from purveyors of corporate waffle are bang on the money. Plus: AI vending machine chaos, being a teacher and a parent, the glorious journalistic phenomenon of the 'knobbly monster' and a Texas court judgment so damning, it needs to be printed on asbestos paper. Find the goodies here:- The Times on corporate waffle (and the original journal article)- Sherrington on subject knowledge vs teaching techniques- Very unimpressed Texas judge- Secret teacher on becoming a parent- AI vending machine chaos at the Wall Street Journal newsroom- Second mentions, aka knobbly monsters-------------------------------Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 10th August 2026

The Aberfan disaster, 60 years ago today, still looms large in the collective memory here in Wales. At 9.13am a coal tip slipped, engulfing Pantglas Junior school and a row of houses, killing 116 children and 28 adults, including five teachers.Back in 2023, in one of our Easter holiday episodes where we bring a variety of things to discuss together, Tom brought this clip from David Lloyd's excellent 'Radio Moments - Conversations' podcast. In it, journalist John Humphrys talks about the day when, as a young man, he was one of the first reporters to arrive at the scene. We then had a chat about the audio itself, the power of stories, and some things to think about when we tackle this difficult subject with our pupils.We thought it was worth dusting off this clip from our episode for our listeners, as we remember Aberfan today. 

Wales has an increasingly popular Welsh medium sector and, in secondary at least, an increasing problem finding enough teachers to staff the classrooms! With a government policy to reach a million Welsh speakers by 2050, it’s clear that the target won’t be met without thinking beyond those people whose families have spoken Welsh at home for generations. Sporting a fresh new title of Dr, our friend and colleague Sioned Dafydd joins us in the studio to talk about her doctoral research, which seeks to understand the identities and attitudes of those people becoming Welsh medium teachers. How can we best support those who are on the fence about whether they can make the grade, to see themselves as Welsh medium teachers of the future? If you think you might be one of those Welsh medium teachers, and have questions about what’s possible, do get in touch with us here at Cardiff Met. We welcome people whose language spoken at home was not Welsh, and those who have come back from a spell over the border doing a degree in English. You might be surprised at what you can do!——————————Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cyncoed Campus on 3rd September 2026

Planning - a huge part of the working life of any student teacher, and (in the opinion of many of us who work in ITE) the key to all sorts of aspects of the process of learning to teach. We spend hours banging on about it, our student teachers spend hours writing them, and yet an experienced teacher appears to do the whole thing in their head, and be able to replan the whole thing on the fly during a lesson if needed. To a new member of the profession it looks like magic, and to someone who teaches new teachers, it makes the whole thing pretty tricky to capture and make sense of. Today, Emma and Tom are in the studio discussing a 2011 article by three colleagues from the University of Oxford: Katharine Burn, Hazel Hagger and Trevor Mutton. In it, they use earlier work by Calderhead which outlines what experienced teachers’ planning looks like, and discuss the learning journeys of several student teachers they worked with at Oxford. The findings point to some unexpected light-bulb moments about how the process of learning to plan is deeply intertwined with the process of learning to teach, the way that planning evolves over time, and how we as ITE tutors in university or school might go about supporting new members of the profession as the learn to plan, and plan to learn. Thanks to Katharine, Hazel and Trevor (friends of the podcast all) for the very interesting paper, and we hope we did it some justice in our discussion. ——————————————Recorded in Studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cyncoed Campus on 11th August 2026

As teachers, we can work all the magic we like, but if a pupil’s not in our classroom, there’s not much impact to be had. In the wake of Covid, there are more and more pupils who are missing significant amounts of the school year. Somehow, we’ve got to season 9 without having an episode specifically about this important issue, but today we’ve managed to find a guest who can help with the details. Scott Norman-Stephenson supports attendance for a cluster of primary schools in Cardiff, and he’s with us to discuss something that can often, in the media, be reduced to simple headlines about an ‘attendance crisis’ or descend into finger-pointing at parents. Scott tells us about what supporting attendance looks like on the ground, the kinds of strategies he uses, some of the underlying issues feeding into the problem, and why he’s definitely not like a traffic warden!—————————Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cyncoed Campus on 11th August 2026