Rethinking Education
"Civilisation is a race between education and catastrophe." (HG Wells) In this podcast, we take Wells at his word. Hosted by Dr James Mannion and David Cameron, Rethinking Education features long-form conversations with fascinating guests about how we might create a more diverse, intelligent, responsive educational ecosystem that works for *all* young people. If this sounds interesting to you, welcome to Rethinking Education: Education's Critical Friend: https://rethinking-ed.org/podcast
Episodes
July 4, 2025 • 106 mins
In this powerful and practical conversation, Dr James Mannion and The Real David Cameron are joined by the inspirational Amjad Ali – teacher, leader, inclusion expert, founder of Try This Teaching and author of A Little Guide for Teachers: SEND in Schools – to explore what it would take to fix the SEND crisis.
With over 20 years of experience across a wide range of educational settings, Amjad brings a wealth of knowledge and deep c...
Mark as Played
June 24, 2025 • 124 mins
In this joyful and thought-provoking episode, we’re joined by Tom Veck and Andy Hawkings from Rocktopus – the world’s greatest rock band for kids (and educators, as it turns out).
At the last Rethinking Education conference, Tom and Andy did something truly remarkable: in front of a live audience of 500 people, they wrote a brand new song on the spot. With lyrics provided by the audience and four chords chosen entirely at random, t...
Mark as Played
June 21, 2025 • 34 mins
In this short episode of the Rethinking Education podcast, James Mannion speaks with Dr Kulvarn Atwal – a highly respected headteacher leading not one, but two schools: Highlands Primary and Uphall Primary in East London.
Kulvarn is the author of The Thinking School and The Thinking Teacher, and a long-time advocate of distributed leadership and research-informed practice. He shares insights into how his schools are developing cul...
Mark as Played
May 30, 2025 • 135 mins
In this powerful episode, we speak with two leading commentators on education and children’s rights – Warwick Mansell, independent investigative journalist and founder of Education Uncovered, and Dr Naomi Fisher, clinical psychologist and author of Changing Our Minds.
We dig into the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill currently making ita way through Parliament, and ask: who gets to decide what’s best for children?
Warwick ex...
Mark as Played
In today’s episode, I bring you a fascinating conversation with John Tomsett and Mary Myatt – two people who’ve done so much to shape thinking about curriculum and leadership in schools over recent years.
Mary Myatt is an education adviser, writer and speaker. She started out as an RE teacher and has written extensively about curriculum, leadership and school improvement – books like High Challenge, Low Threat, The Curriculum: Gall...
Mark as Played
April 24, 2025 • 112 mins
Lewis Wedlock is an academic, mental health professional and masculinities educator from Bristol, England.
He has spent the last five years working with thousands of young men across the UK in secondary and higher education, engaging them in topics such as feminism, allyship, accountability, sexism, misogyny and VAWG.
He has designed and delivered several interventions for schools looking to transform their masculinity school ...
Mark as Played
March 19, 2025 • 111 mins
In this special episode, Dr James Mannion and The Real David Cameron take a look at the education systems in the four nations of the United Kingdom and ask: what can we learn from one another?
Graham Donaldson has been central to development in Scotland as chief inspector, advising government as well as leading on quality assurance. And remarkably he has also been central to the development of Curriculum for Wales in the role of c...
Mark as Played
March 3, 2025 • 243 mins
This episode features an astonishing conversation by two remarkable educators, Hywel Roberts and Tim Taylor. Tim kindly stepped in as a guest host for this episode, to explore some of the big ideas that underpin Hywel’s excellent book, Botheredness: Stories, stance, pedagogy.
LINKS
Buy Botheredness - https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/botheredness
Follow Hywel - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hywel-roberts-67ba032b/
Follow Tim - https:...
Mark as Played
February 24, 2025 • 96 mins
In this episode - our first rodeo as co-hosts - we are joined by Dr Debra Kidd, the author of A Curriculum of Hope, and by Tina Farr and Clare Whyles, the headteacher and deputy head of St. Ebbe’s Primary School in Oxford. Tina, Clare and the St Ebbe’s team have done some incredible work in recent years bringing a curriculum of hope to life for their learners, and spreading a little joy and belonging along the way.
LINKS
St. Ebb...
Mark as Played
January 16, 2025 • 94 mins
Welcome to this episode in which we get to know our new cohost, The Real David Cameron!
David Cameron is an incredible educator, public speaker and human being whose work I have admired for many years now. He has been a teacher, a senior manager in schools and in local authorities, most recently as Director of Children’s Services for Stirling Council. He was President of the Association of Directors of Education Scotland and has b...
Mark as Played
December 15, 2024 • 94 mins
In this episode I’m speaking with Mick Waters and David Cameron, two of the editors of a wonderful new book Unfinished Business: The life and legacy of Sir Tim Brighouse - a tribute and a call to action. It’s a long title and rightly so - there’s a lot to say about Tim and about the ideas he pursued throughout his remarkable career.
Mick Waters is a former head teacher who works closely with teachers and leaders in schools, MATs ...
Mark as Played
November 26, 2024 • 112 mins
Clare Sealy currently works as the Head of Education Improvement for the states of Guernsey. Prior to this, she was the Headteacher of St Matthias Primary School in Tower Hamlets for 22 years. In 2018, the Times Education Supplement named her as one of the 10 most influential people in the world of education. In 2022, Clare was awarded an OBE for services to education.
Oracy – in case you’re unfamiliar with the term – was coined ...
Mark as Played
October 29, 2024 • 71 mins
In this episode, my guest is Sir Anthony Seldon – a figure who truly needs no introduction in education. However, for those less familiar with his remarkable contributions, here’s a bit of context. Anthony has held some of the most influential roles in education, most recently as headmaster of Epsom College. Before this, he served as vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham and was headmaster at Wellington College and Bright...
Mark as Played
October 11, 2024 • 99 mins
Welcome to the Rethinking Education podcast!
In this episode I spoke with Curtis James from Class Divide, campaign group which recently ran a successful campaign to change the school admissions code in Brighton and Hove.
But if anyone is looking at their local schools and thinking ‘School X has 15% of pupils eligible for free school meals, and School Y has over 60%. This doesn’t seem right. I wonder if there’s anything we can do ...
Mark as Played
September 23, 2024 • 120 mins
Welcome to the first episode of Season 5 of the Rethinking Education podcast!
As you may be aware, Estonia has consistently been the highest performing European country in the PISA assessments in recent years. This episode features my recent conversation with Gunda Tire, Head of International Assessments (PISA & TALIS) at Estonian Education and Youth Board.
Gunda very generously gave me almost 2 hours of her time to take a whirl...
Mark as Played
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 100 scientific papers and 9 books, and the co-author of a further 6 books. His books have been published in 28 languages. And on ResearchGate, the largest scientific and academic online network, his Research Interest Score places him in the top 4% of scientists.
It’s fair to say that Rupert is something of a controversial figure. This can be seen in the response to his first...
Mark as Played
In the week that the general election was called, I bring you a timely conversation about some of the questions an incoming government needs to grapple with.
Meena Kumari Wood is a former HMI and leader of FE colleges who now works across the British and International Education sectors. She held senior leadership positions in English schools and Further education colleges, including as Principal of a secondary academy and Princip...
Mark as Played
May 19, 2024 • 137 mins
René Kneyber and Valentina Devid are two of the founders of Toetsrevolutie (Test Revolution), a teacher training cooperative based in the Netherlands which specialises in formative assessment, summative assessment and curriculum design.
René and Valentina are also two of the four authors of an excellent new book - Formative Action - the English translation of which was published in April 2024.
René was the first person to intro...
Mark as Played
May 2, 2024 • 112 mins
Ife Obasa is an educational consultant, activist and sought-after speaker who advocates for greater representation in education - among many other strings to her bow.
Ife spoke at the 2023 Rethinking Education conference about why we need representation in education more than ever - a topic that we discuss in some detail in this episode.
Ife’s work centres around mentoring and empowering young people to make their voices heard a...
Mark as Played
April 5, 2024 • 141 mins
Peter Higgin is the Artistic Director and joint CEO of Punchdrunk Enrichment, a charity that creates transformational theatre for education, community and family audiences.
Punchdrunk Enrichment is an independent charity which was founded in 2008 to take the pioneering practice of immersive theatre company, Punchdrunk, into schools and communities. Listed amongst the 50 most influential artists of the last 50 years (Sky Arts, 2022...
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S. centering Latino stories, hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maria Hinojosa Every week, the Peabody winning team brings you revealing, in-depth stories about what’s in the hearts and minds of Latinos and their impact on the world. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for exclusive episodes, sneak peaks and behind-the-scenes chisme on Latino USA and all our podcasts. www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus