Category: Podcast

  • What the Ogden Trust can do for you

    What the Ogden Trust can do for you

    If you are one of the heroes who wouldn’t call themself a physics teacher… but teach physics anyway, meet the Ogden Trust: their SKPT programme is designed to give you the professional recognition for your physics teaching!

  • GCSE Astronomy (via Teams)

    GCSE Astronomy (via Teams)

    GCSE Astronomy can be a great way to get enthusiasts hooked and can be more accessible than you think. William H joins us to make the case for a partnership approach to astronomy.

  • Don’t be scared of Ionising Radiation

    Don’t be scared of Ionising Radiation

    When it comes to emotive topics in physics teaching, radioactivity is up there. We have experienced colleagues who would refuse to work with school radioactive sources, even though there you generally encounter more risk while boiling a kettle. But you need to register, store and handle them properly or you could land your school with…

  • That Einstein Fellow

    That Einstein Fellow

    The US government wants to hear about physics teaching. So much so that they fund a Fellowship that takes a teacher to Washington DC so that they can inform education policy. Thomas meets with Michael Stewart, the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow 2023-24.

  • Chat(GPT)ting

    Chat(GPT)ting

    Everyone has been talking about it for a year or more so high time your finger-on-the-pulse physics teaching nuggets got to grips with ChatGPT (other AIs are available).

  • Retention Done Well

    Retention Done Well

    Keeping hold of good science teachers involves a culture that respects their professionalism and Doug Simon of Heathland School in Hounslow joins Thomas and Robin to share how his school maintains a culture conducive to science teaching.

  • Retention – Full Interview

    Retention – Full Interview

    We thought that Mark Whalley had a lot of interesting things to say on retention and couldn’t fit them in to the main podcast. Here is the full interview as promised. We mention the previous episodes on force and weight, here are a few: Join in! Please share ideas or successes – or indeed questions…

  • Retention

    Retention

    Senior Lecturer from the University of Chester, Mark Whalley joins Thomas and Robin to give some low-cost ways that schools might support retaining physics teachers.

  • Ways to talk about… Energy

    Ways to talk about… Energy

    In the last episode, Robin and Thomas were delighted to welcome Charles Tracy to talk about teaching energy at KS3. Charles generously agreed to come back for the next episode: energy at KS4 Charles lays out the rationale for talking energy using the correct terms: using adverbial forms really helps to enshrine the principal that…

  • Ways to Teach… Energy to 11 Year Olds

    Ways to Teach… Energy to 11 Year Olds

    There’s no two ways about it, the story we used to have on energy was bad. Inconsistency, incoherence, subjectivity: words to send a shiver down the spines of any scientist. Something had to change. The response from IOP was the ‘stores’ and ‘pathways’ model. This was championed by our podcast guest this evening. Thomas and…