Beyond Good
A podcast about teaching. We discuss teaching and learning, pedagogy, lessons and classroom practise, management and leadership, teaching of mathematics, training and trainees, mentors and mentoring, behaviour management, being a head of department and running a faculty, SLT and much much more!
Episodes
115 episodes
Policies
Femi and Matt discuss the concept of school policies and policy documentation, and what makes them more or less effective.We're not on social media but we love to hear your thoughts, feedback, reflections and requests so please send us a...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 33
•
34:45
Micro Interactions
Matt and Femi discuss those brief interactions with students that set the tone for the lesson, or help transform the way students think about themselves.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 32
•
42:41
'Holding To Account' & 'Won't, Can't, Forgot'
Matt and Femi dive into the phrase that you so often hear amongst senior and middle management in schools: "Holding people to account".
•
Season 3
•
Episode 31
•
36:13
Starting A School From Scratch - Michaela Khatib
Matt and Femi speak to the executive head teacher and founder of Cobham Free School, Michaela Khatib, about the remarkable journey to plan, start and grow a school from nothing to over a thousand pupils.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 30
•
49:30
Teacher Knowledge
Matt and Femi discuss the need for teachers to have a basic understanding of how learning happens, as well as barriers and solutions to the problem.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 29
•
46:21
Private vs State Schools
Matt and Femi discuss Femi's experience of working in both state and private schools, what the major differences are for teachers and what each can learn from the other.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 28
•
39:41
Accountability Culture AND Power of Video
This episode has 2 unrelated topics... In the first half of the episode Femi and Matt discuss what it means to have a culture where you can 'hold colleagues accountable' for the benefit of the whole team. In the second...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 27
•
47:00
Improving is Hard!
Femi and Matt discuss why improving our teaching (or anything) can be so difficult, and how that influences their thinking around coaching and PD.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 26
•
40:19
My team are not doing what I asked!
Femi and Matt ponder the all too common phrase "people just aren't doing it"!
•
Season 3
•
Episode 26
•
30:03
Disagree then Commit
Femi and Matt discuss the concept of 'disagree then commit' in the context of working in a school team or SLT.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 25
•
41:39
Peter Lee - Headteacher at Q3 Academy Langley
Matt and Femi talk to Peter Lee about how he has managed to found and maintain a school which not only achieves outstanding results, but also has not had any supply bought in for over 8 years! Among many other things they discuss workload...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 24
•
1:03:27
Reflections on 6 months of Coaching
Femi shares his reflections and lessons learnt with Matt on the last 6 months of doing regular coaching - several times per week.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 23
•
46:20
Drop-in Culture
Prompted by Pritesh's tweet regarding the number of observations completed and feedback given in the autumn term, Femi and Matt discuss attitudes and culture around drop-ins.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 22
•
43:50
Refusal
Femi and Matt wrestle with the concept of students who refuse instructions and what schools can do about it.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 21
•
42:34
The Lost Art of Planning
Femi and Matt's discussion is prompted by an article of the same name:https://thinkingflexibly.com/2024/10/18/the-lost-art-of-planning/They discuss the pros and cons of planning lessons, designing lesson sequences and preparing reso...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 20
•
49:46
Front-loading Your Explanations
Matt and Femi discuss explicit teaching (direct instruction), questioning, AfL and much more!
•
Season 3
•
Episode 19
•
37:09
Katharine Birbalsingh
Matt and Femi talk to Katharine Birbalsingh, founding member and head teacher of the Michaela Community School in Wembley Park.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 18
•
1:09:20
Barry Smith on Classroom Teaching
Following on from their video analysis of his lesson, Matt and Femi talk to Barry Smith about some of his principles for classroom teaching. Starting from a lense of MFL teaching, we extract the general pedagogical principles that Barry b...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 17
•
1:08:00
Metacognition with Nathan Burns
Matt and Femi chat to metacognition enthusiast Nathan Burns about metacognition, knowledge, knowledge organisers and much much more.Check out Nathan's resources on his website:https://www.mrmetacognition.com/
•
Season 3
•
Episode 16
•
48:41
The Enactment Gap & Developing Teachers
Femi and Matt discuss the enactment gap - teasing apart what it is exactly, diagnosing solutions to the problem and then get into the pragmatism of supporting teachers to improve elements of their practice - trying to figure out when and how to...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 16
•
40:04
Q3 Academy Langley & Participation Ratio
Femi tells Matt about his recent visit to another high performing school - this time Q3 Academy Langley in the West Midlands.This brings up the topics of participation and thinking ratio - leading to a spirited discussion about 'pair talk',...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 15
•
1:02:57
Thinking about Professional Development
Femi talks to Matt about how he is now thinking about PD - from individual all the way to whole-school.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 14
•
31:55
Duties and Interactions with Students
Matt and Femi discuss duties, handling pupils, being authentic, leadership, supporting colleagues and much more!
•
Season 3
•
Episode 13
•
35:52