The NEurodivergent peer Support Toolkit (NEST) is a set of free resources for staff in mainstream secondary schools who wish to facilitate peer support for neurodivergent young people. The toolkit was co-created by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, neurodivergent young people and a neurodiverse group of adults who work with neurodivergent young people. The project was funded by the Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre Scientific Advisory Board. In this episode Katie Cebula and Catherine Crompton talk about how the NEST came about, what it involves and how it could support pupils in your ..read more

This is the 7th podcast from the RE-STAR team and Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke and Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou share the findings from work package one. This episode explores how the RE-STAR team has collected qualitative data through innovative methods that really allow the voices of young people with ADHD and Autism to be heard. They also share the findings about the upsetting experiences of young people with ADHD and Autism, what these experiences are (and if you are a teacher you might be surprised) and the intensity of those emotional experiences and as well as how these differ for neurotypic ..read more

This is the 3rd episode in the failure series of podcasts this term. We are staying with the theme of feedback to errors this week. Professor Janet Metcalfe discusses her paper on learning from errors and in particular how one teacher uses an interactive approach, encouraging students to work out why they made an error rather than simply correcting them, and the impact it had on the students’ learning. But as always there is discussion plenty of wide ranging discussion on this topic. If you wish to access the paper here is the link: Metcalfe J, Xu J, Vuorre M, Siegler R, Wiliam D, Bjork RA. Le ..read more

This episode is the 4th in the ‘Talking to Psychology Teachers’ Series and Paramjeet Moon, psychology teacher with 24 years experience, talks about her love of psychology and the myriad of ways in which it has influenced her teaching practice, from cognitive psychology, working memory, interleaving, relationships, the teenage brain, seating arrangements and much more this conversation is full of great tips for any teacher wishing to tweak their practice to make it just a little better.   If you want to watch the ‘Kevin becomes a teenager’ it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d ..read more

This week Karen Duffy and the Psychology PGCE students of Manchester Metropolitan University have taken over the podcast.  Take a listen to this lively conversation about the dreams, fears and expectations of teachers just entering the profession.  A reminder too, for those of us who have been here a while, about the joys of the classroom.  With just a hint of how a knowledge of psychology has supported these trainees through the past year ..read more

In this week’s episode Purvi (Vi) Gandhi shares her knowledge about implementing effective and evidence based strategies to improve mental health or mental fitness in schools. Vi has recently published a book 'A little guide for teachers: Student Mental Health' with lots of ideas of how teachers can support the mental health and fitness of the young people in schools. In this interview we discuss the language we use around mental health, why mental health is so important in school and how we can support our pupils to thrive and much more.  If you would like to find out more about her book ..read more

On World Mental Health day 2024 Psychology in the Classroom discusses Mindfulness. We eschew the ‘Crystals and Muesli’ version and reframe it to ask how to be more attentive, calmer, more grounded, more aware, more responsive, less anxious. Willem Kuyken and Maggie Farrar join me to discuss, how we can make moments in our day to be mindful and how this can help us align ourselves better with our personal values.  You can find the podcasts on the Myriad Trial into Mindfulness in schools via this link: https://changingstatesofmind.com/mindfulness-miniseries This is the link to Willem’s webs ..read more

This week Lyndsey Hayes talks about how she has learned to support learners who don't have English as their first language, the challenges this poses and some really practical tips to help them learn.  This is the second podcast introducing psychology teachers talking about how psychology has influenced their practice. Below are the links to some useful resources that Lyndsey mentions: International House, London: https://www.ihlondon.com/course/content-and-language-integrated-learning-clil/ Some Ideas on encorporating CLIL into your lesson: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional ..read more

In this final summary interview with Prof. Dr. Suzanne Narciss, we review all our learning about failure over the last few months. There is much we can do to encourage our students to learn from errors, including interactive formative assessment and feedback strategies, prompting reflection and adaptive strategies for dealing with errors and using other people’s errors. As teachers we need to help students overcome their fear of failure by creating a positive error climate and supporting students to develop a more positive error mindset. But this is an area that is challenging to research and ..read more

More than one in 10 children ‘almost always’ or ‘often’ fear failure. But where do they learn this from? This fear can often pass from parents to children. Parental communication about failures and setbacks plays a critical role in shaping a child's perception of mistakes. In her research Dr Elizabeth Peterson found that: Clear action plans without discussion of collaborative resources increased children's fear of making mistakes.  When mothers acknowledged their child's emotions and discussed collaborative problem-solving, there was a notable decrease in the child's fear of mistakes ..read more