In this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Rebecca Birch, a teacher of English and the Director of Research and Practice at a top 50 independent school in Sydney, Australia. She shares her journey from a career in fashion and advertising to becoming an English teacher. Rebecca emphasises the importance of evidence-based practice and the need for teachers to be sceptical and critical of educational trends. She also highlights the challenges of implementing explicit instruction and the need for standardised teacher preparation programs. Rebecca calls for a clear hierarchy of importance within teac ..read more

In this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Tom Bennett, the Director and founder of researchED and school behaviour advisor to the UK government. He shares his journey from running nightclubs to becoming an influential figure in the education sector and we find out how teaching saved him. Bennett delves into the challenges he faced as a teacher, how he got into writing about behaviour, and his eventual role as the UK's Department for Education School Behavior Advisor. He highlights the integral role of setting clear behavioural expectations and embedding routines in creating a conducive learning ..read more

In this episode of the Knowledge for Teachers Podcast, Brendan Lee speaks with Sarah Powell. Sarah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Texas at Austin. She has pretty much dedicated her whole career to researching word problems in maths. She has also contributed to a couple of papers that have recently been released for the Centre for Independent Studies and we touch on those as well.    However, the main focus is Word Problems and we go through everything from Attack Strategies, to the dangers of using keywords and delve into the wor ..read more

In this conversation, Brendan Lee speaks with James Dobson, an experienced teacher who has been expertly applying the art and science of learning when teaching students in their first year of school (Kindergarten/Prep/Reception/Foundation). He discusses the importance of evidence-based practice, the use of Direct Instruction programs, and the challenges and rewards of teaching young children. James shares insights on maintaining sanity in the classroom while balancing work and personal life. We also delve into James' weekly timetable, looking at phonemic awareness, phonics, handwriting, writin ..read more

In this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Dr. Ray Boyd, the Foundation Principal of Dayton Primary School. Throughout the interview he shares his journey into education leadership and the pedagogic shift he led at his previous school West Beechboro P.S. He reflects on the mistakes made and lessons learned during his time there and discusses the surprises and challenges of starting a new school.  Dr. Boyd also explains the vision and mission of Dayton Primary School and how he communicates it to the community. Dr. Boyd underscores the vital role of fostering success and creating robust supp ..read more

Brendan Lee provides his key takeaways from the Knowledge for Teachers Podcast for 2023. This year he spoke to people such as Tom Sherrington, Daisy Christodoulou, Christopher Such and many more. Find out what he took away from these conversations. He has split this episode into three sections: Science of reading Science of maths Implementing the science of learning   ..read more

In this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Dr. Tim McDonald who is currently the CEO of YMCA WA and previously led Catholic Education WA, the Minderoo Foundation and was the Education Lead for Knowledge Society. Recently, he wrote a paper for the Centre for Independent Studies titled: Teaching Behaviour: How Classroom Conduct Can Unlock Better Learning. Throughout this conversation, he touches on a lot of the key points from the report and talks about what schools can do to build a behaviour curriculum. He also answers some of the tough questions on things such as phones in schools, exclusions a ..read more

In this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Jessica Colleu Terradas the Senior Officer Teaching and Learning Literacy and Instructional Coach in Canberra and Goulburn Catholic Education. In 2022, she travelled to the USA, England and France where she met with leading experts to investigate effective literacy screening and instructional practices to support older struggling readers as part of her Churchill Fellowship. She details some of the findings from her report in this chat.   She speaks about her amazing experience meeting people like Anita Archer and Stanislas Dehaene and goes through ..read more

In this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Jessica Del Rio the government and public finance lead at Equity Economics. She has recently been involved in a couple of major reports that have highlighted the poor literacy standards across Australia.  Raising the grade: How schools in the Australian Capital Territory can lift literacy outcomes for students and the economy, written for the ACT Alliance for Evidence-Based Education and funded by the Snow Foundation  Saving Money by Spending: Solving Illiteracy in Australia, commissioned by Code Read Dyslexia Network Australia In this conve ..read more

In this episode, Brendan Lee speaks with Bruno Reddy CEO of Maths Circle (Times Tables Rockstars and Numbots). He is the former head of Mathematics at King Solomon Academy and one of the pioneers of mathematics mastery, as we know it today. As you will hear, he is hugely passionate about mathematics and has thought long and hard about what needs to be done to teach it effectively. Some of the things that are just starting to become common practice now, like retrieval practice, spaced practice and variation theory, are things that he was talking about 10 years ago.    Resources mentio ..read more