Exploring harmony in our educational settings with Richard Dunne & Hilary Wyatt.

In this episode, we look at the idea of harmony in education, discussing art, music, geometry and nature and how these aspects of a curriculum can bring harmony both to children and adults, parents, teachers, the staff body and the wider community.

Richard Dunne is a former state school headteacher with a 30-year career in education. He is founder and director of The Harmony Project, which puts nature and sustainability at the heart of learning. The organisation works with schools both in the UK and around the world to develop harmony in education.

Hilary Wyatt is the Headmistress of St James Nursery & Preparatory School in London. She has taught for 30 years and held senior leadership roles for 17 of those years—15 of which were in London prep schools, including eight as Head of a Pre-Prep and seven as Headteacher. In addition, she is an ISI schools inspector and the mother of two daughters, both of whom attended St James' Senior Girls' School.

Links & Notes:

• More information on The Harmony Project can be found here: https://www.theharmonyproject.org.uk/
• St James Prep School is a a co-educational independent day school for children aged 2–11 in West Kensington, London. It is part of the St James network of schools, including the Senior Girls School on the same site in Olympia and the Senior Boys School in Ashford. More information can be found here: https://www.stjamesschools.co.uk/prepschool/
• Viviane Robinson, mentioned in the episode, is an emeritus professor at the University of Auckland specialising in organisational and educational psychology. Joe Kirby's blog has a neat summary of some of her research: https://joe-kirby.com/2023/04/15/problem-solving-viviane-robinson-and-the-shoulders-of-giants-1/
• Miles Richardson is a Professor of Human Factors and Nature Connectedness at the University of Derby. You can read more about his research on his blog: https://findingnature.org.uk/
• David recommended Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths by Maisie Chan. It is brilliant, both for middle grade readers as well as adults with a great sense humour. Read for the Romanesco, stay for the excellent character of Nai Nai.
• This blog post by Susan Davis explains more about the principle of Cynefin, defined by Richard as 'rootedness' and 'a sense of place': https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/editorial-doing-cynefin-exploring-ideas-on-belonging-connectedness-and-community-in-the-curriculum-for-wales
• More about the new Curriculum for Wales can be found here: https://hwb.gov.wales/curriculum-for-wales/

What would a dream school look like?

Join us - co-hosts David Marshall and Isabel Rich - and our guest, Dr Rebecca Torrance-Jenkins, as we discuss what a dream school might look like…

In this episode, we chat about some of the aspects of life in a school that perhaps is not working for pupils, particularly for those who have learning needs.

Rebecca discusses a panoply of solutions to make school a better learning environment for all students. She talks us through some changes we can make to the pastoral, social and curriculum offering to enable children not to survive at school but thrive. We even discuss the smell of the classroom and how this can alter a child’s ability to learn!

Rebecca specialises in translating insights from neuroscience and psychology into practical, transformative tools and tips for schools, children’s charities, and learning environments. She is all about creating spaces where the human brain can truly thrive which I am sure we can all agree is just what we strive for as teachers.

Links & Resources:

Rebecca’s website: https://www.drtorrancejenkins.co.uk/about/

As a neuroscientist and educationalist, she argues that we should (and can) design education around how children’s brains actually learn, rather than around timetables, buildings, or pre-set curricula.

Her not-for-profit programme in the North West of England won a She Inspires award, and she founded a Prep science department in a school named ‘STEM Prep School of the Year’ 3 years later.

As a writer and researcher, she bridges academic insight and real-world impact, including a forthcoming Cambridge University Press chapter on neuroscience-informed policy for SEND. She is also a council member of the educational neuroscience think tank Learnus, and a senior learning consultant for an EdTech platform—helping shape the future of education.

An interesting article about the Japanese headteacher in Cornwall, mentioned in the episode: https://medium.com/solomonkingsnorth/the-extraordinary-case-of-mr-yamazaki-18739ebb4980

Welcome to Education Sense, a new podcast from the team behind The Rest is Education!

This week's episode is brought to you by David Marshall and Isabel Rich. Together with teacher, Steph Vega, we'll be discussing Daniel Willingham's seminal education text Why Don't Students Like School? We will summarise what the book is about and also tease out some of the practical tips about how we can all become better classroom teachers. It's an episode that covers theory about how the brain learns but also some usable strategies for all.

Resources:

The first edition of Why Don't Students Like School? came out in 2009 with a new updated edition published in 2021: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55874986-why-don-t-students-like-school

Brief mention is also made of Daniel Willingham's new book, Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy. We recommend this book as a great resource for FE students and those studying for higher level exams: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59366180-outsmart-your-brain

In this episode, we use a Thinking Routine from Harvard Project Zero to guide the discussion and enable us to get to the heart of some of the cognitive principles raised in the book. We chose CONNECT, EXTEND, CHALLENGE as our Thinking Routine: https://pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Connect%20Extend%20Challenge_0.pdf

Steph is EDIJ coordinator and Head of Constructive Thinking at a primary school in North London. You can find out more about Harvard Project Zero, beloved of Steph and our teacher learning community: https://pz.harvard.edu/