Ep 2 - Lessons from the dugout: Insights from elite coaching to transform classroom practice with Graeme Murty

In this episode I sat down with former Premier League footballer and current Sunderland Under 21s manager Graeme Murty to explore the parallels between elite coaching and teaching, and how educators can apply these principles to their own classroom practice.

We discussed the following:

• How do you cultivate a high-performance culture within a football academy, and what lessons can teachers and school leaders take from this to create an aspirational and ambitious learning environment?
• Effective planning is essential for progression in both the short term and the long-term development of young players. How do you ensure that skills and knowledge build in a logical sequence over time, and what parallels exist between structuring football training and curriculum design in schools?
• How do you introduce desirable difficulties in training without overwhelming young players, so that they embrace failure as part of their development? And how might teachers apply this to classroom challenges by reframing failure as a tool for learning rather than a setback?
• How do you coach young players to develop mental resilience and prepare them to perform at their best under stress, and how can teachers help students develop similar composure in high-stakes academic situations like exams?
• Confidence can often be fragile for some teenagers. What role does feedback play in elite coaching and how do you build self-belief while maintaining high expectations for both players and staff?
• What strategies do you use to keep young players engaged and motivated, especially through setbacks? What can teachers learn from this when supporting students who might struggle academically?
• Many people assume that talent identification is simply about spotting raw ability at face value, but in reality, it's a complex process that requires looking beyond immediate performance. How does this deeper approach to evaluating potential shape talent identification in football, and in what ways might similar misconceptions affect how teachers assess student ability in schools?