Heads & Tales Highlights 2023
Episode 2
Emilie Spire – Noala Founder
Did you have any mentors when you were younger?
I’m the seventh of seven siblings! They were mentors to me – they pushed me on and encouraged me to catch up with them. I’ve also always met people along the way such as Nicolas Brusson (co-founder of BlaBlaCar) who made a genuine effort to mentor me. There is not one day that goes by when I do not ask a question of a mentor, or someone more experienced than me.
Mentorship can help you fast track your progress. I’ve grown up thanks to mentors. They have been so important to me.
Episode 4
Anthony Wallersteiner – Headmaster of Stowe
If you could make one great change to the British educational system, what would it be?
I’d love everyone to access private education. As a school we’ve raised £100million to support young people coming to the school. That’s 100 places in perpetuity at Stowe.
If we could give everyone this opportunity it would be a great thing. We don’t want to see a public/ private divide. Private school teachers certainly don’t want to see a divide.
I only ended up in the Private sector because I failed my Maths O-Level meaning I couldn’t get a PGCE. I ended up missing the Maths exam to go and see Led Zeppelin!
Episode 5
Ed Fidoe - Founder and CEO of LIS
How did School 21 start?
The date 7th September 2012 is etched in my mind, and because it was just after the end of the Paralympics in London, it was a magical time to be in Stratford.
I was at Mckinsey when the free school policy was agreed and, almost instantaneously, I quit my job and got the best introduction of my life to Peter Hyman.
Peter was the only person I met who was genuinely interested in education and disadvantage. He’d been a teacher for ten years after working in No.10.
I’d already been in a school that had started from scratch so I knew what it took. I found a site in Stratford but we still had to convince parents to go to a school that didn’t exist physically. We couldn’t tell them the address of the school, nor did we have teachers.
I stood outside nurseries and primary schools having to drum up interest. I was dressed down by the police for putting up banners in a local park!
Episode 6
Sally Coates – Executive Principal at Holland Park Academy at Director of Secondaries at United Learning
You started in Peckham as an English teacher. What was it like?
It was the rule of the jungle. Starting as a teacher in the 1970s was tough. Behaviour was terrible – there were 11 forms of entry at my first school which was enormous. Children weren’t known well by the school and discipline was poor. You had to survive by getting it right in the classroom. There was racism, sexism and fighting in the corridors.
The bottom set got very poor teaching. There was no accountability or league tables. No one knew how schools did.
Episode 7
Olly Newton - Director of the Edge Foundation
Did you have experience of mentorship at a younger age?
Near peer support is so crucial when you’re at that age. The gulf between Year 9 and Year 12 feels huge!
I got a scholarship to an independent school; the quality of the education was good but super traditional. We didn’t have an outlet for creative and technical work. I have a very creative family but that wasn’t part of my education. I didn’t really click with the people at my school: my parents were hot metal typesetters! It was an early insight into the challenges around equity and privilege in the system.
I don’t regret any of it, I was very lucky, but it opened my eyes to the changes needed in the system.
Episode 8
Tom Ravenscroft – Founder of Skills Builder Partnership
You wrote a book, The Missing Piece. Tell us more about that.
I wrote The Missing Piece back in 2017 as I was sick to death of hearing about cognitive load theory! It didn’t resonate with my experience of teaching. I tried to be more critical around the consensus that knowledge was the only thing that mattered.
In the book, we also drew out some essential skills that students should learn and ways in which they could be taught.
Episode 10
Vikas Pota - Founder & CEO of T4 Education
You founded T4 Education. Why?
We were at the beginning of the pandemic. People were struggling. All teachers were saying the same thing: what does the new normal mean for us? Leadership, collaboration, wellbeing and technology: those were the four pillars we started with. 103,000 teachers showed up to our first meeting!
People come because of community. Communities are so enriching. They are a dynamic form of organisation. They want to be part of something bigger. We gave space, teachers are curious and hungry for that. So now we see T4 as a community platform.
There’s so much focus on top-down reform in the UK and we don’t take the workforce along with us. You must find a way to work directly with those at the coal face.
Episode 14
Ed Kirwan - Founder of Empathy Week
How did your interest in homelessness lead to the development of Empathy Week?
While working with different organizations, I came across the Liverpool Homeless Football Club, which introduced me to the Homeless World Cup. Attending the tournament in Mexico opened my eyes and provided valuable learning experiences. I met an Indian man who ran the Indian team and, after learning about my teaching background, he offered me an opportunity to facilitate a leadership course alongside their football program in India. I lived with him in Nagpur, India, for three months and realized that my filmmaking skills could be coupled with education to show students a different perspective on life, one that fosters empathy instead of sympathy. I recognized the unique chance to expose students to a life they would never otherwise see, impacting their own lives and relationships positively. This experience sparked the idea for Empathy Week, which has grown and evolved since then.
Episode 16
Sandra Davis - Partner in Family Law at Mishcon de Reya
Are there any specific moments or challenges that stand out in your journey?
Oh, there's one particular moment that I can never forget. Early in my career, I was doing a split training contract, torn between two different paths. I had a foot in mainstream work and another in family law. It was quite a dilemma for me at the time. But my mentor, the female partner, challenged me to make a decision and commit to family law. She saw potential in me that I couldn't fully recognize at the time. Thanks to her, I made the choice to pursue family law wholeheartedly, and she played a crucial role in guiding me towards partnership. Her belief in me and her mentorship gave me the confidence to take on challenging cases that I initially thought were beyond my capabilities. Looking back, I'm so grateful for that turning point in my career.
Episode 18
James Dahl, Master of Wellington College
What is one failure you’ve had from your teaching career?
My first 13 weeks as a teacher were a total failure! I got everything wrong. In my very first lesson, a boy asked me ‘Are you related to Roald Dahl?’ and I completely lied saying I was related to him and his family and that James and the Giant Peach had been written about me...
Two days later I was walking through the school and Anthony (the headteacher) pulled me over to introduce me to the parents of the boy who had asked me the question.
They exclaimed: “We can’t believe you’re teaching our son Latin and you’re Roald Dahl’s grandson! We used to live next door to Roald in Great Missenden. Did we meet you at his funeral?”
I was so embarrassed in front of these parents and my headteacher on just my third day of teaching and I had to fess up straightaway.... It really taught me the value of being honest and authentic.
Episode 19
Helen Demetriou - Associate Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Cambridge
What role does friendship play in a child's education?
Friendship in education is something I've been deeply passionate about. One of my earliest research projects with Jean Ruddock focused on the pivotal transition between primary and secondary school and how friendships played a significant role in that process. Friendships contribute greatly to the development of social and emotional skills, which are, in my view, the building blocks of holistic learning. Remarkably, longitudinal studies even established a strong link between childhood friendships and improved academic performance in later years.
Episode 20
Will Orr Ewing – Founder at Keystone Tutors
What’s your take on GCSEs and A-levels?
I’m really in favour of seeing the innovation that some schools are doing. Those big public exams have lost some of their market power. Is that a recipe for the rest of the country? No. A lot of teachers and schools can’t necessarily be trusted to make the right decisions and are perhaps too easily swayed by new trends. Things like project-based learning, which have now been proven to be badly managed, indicate that what’s best for a Latymer isn’t necessarily best for the country. The biggest culprit is probably the way exams are taught towards. In far too many schools, independent and state, from Year 9 you get this incredibly monotonous focus on the exams, assessment objectives – ‘how to answer a 4 mark AQA question’ etc.. Therefore, I’m not sure a national policy would work to eradicate that.
A bit more breadth at A-Level would have been bad for me personally! I knew what I wanted to study, and I didn’t find it intellectually narrow. My Maths and Science are terrible, but I’d try to cure that a school level by having survey courses, things like ‘Physics for Future Presidents’ – which give people a grounding across a broad range of things.
I’m from bottom-up organic growth and if you can bring teachers with you, it’s really exciting and I’m all for that kind of experimentation.