Education Matters

The Hannah & Lucy Show | Teaching Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech. Three words that can empty a staffroom, derail a GCSE lesson and, apparently, start a national news story. Hannah and Lucy wade into one of the most contested questions in education right now: what does free speech actually mean in a classroom, who gets to define it and why has a GCSE Citizenship textbook ended up making headlines in the press? A Pearson Edexcel revision guide, used in schools across England including in Norfolk, tells 16-year-old pupils that freedom of speech "should be limited so it protects rights and does not discriminate against others." The Free Speech Union called it wrong in law. Parents complained. Someone photographed the page. The press got involved. The school pointed, quite reasonably, at the exam board. And somewhere in the middle, a perfectly sensible piece of citizenship education became a culture war flashpoint. Hannah and Lucy pick this apart with their usual blend of honesty, legal curiosity and mild chaos. Lucy goes down a research rabbit hole and emerges with the actual legal framework: Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the UK Human Rights Act, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the crucial distinction between freedom of speech as a right and freedom of speech as an absolute. Spoiler: it has never been the latter. In UK and European law, free speech is a qualified right, constantly balanced against public order, the rights of others and the prevention of harm. Which is, it turns out, pretty much what the textbook said. But the bigger conversation is the one happening in schools every single day. How do you teach students to debate controversial topics safely when some of them have been on a Tommy Robinson march? How do you stay politically neutral as a teacher when your moral instincts are pointing firmly in one direction? How do you manage a classroom discussion about online radicalisation and disinformation when the platforms your students are scrolling operate under almost no accountability? And what happens when a pupil invokes their rights every time you ask them to wait for the toilet, because someone has blocked it with a rubber glove? Do teachers actually have freedom of speech themselves? The answer, by the way, is a fairly firm no. Hannah draws on her own classroom experience throughout, from facilitating debates on genuinely difficult topics to navigating the moment a colleague casually deployed "boys will be boys" and lived to regret it. There's a sharp thread running through the whole conversation about the difference between having an opinion and having a fact, and why teaching young people to tell those two things apart might be the most important work schools can do right now. Whether the topic is immigration figures, the UK Online Safety Act, the 2024 riots or what legalising drugs would actually mean in practice, both hosts keep returning to the same question: how do you teach civil, evidence-based debate in a world that keeps modelling the opposite? John, Foz, Paul and the rest of the live audience are in the comments and in full voice throughout with several of their contributions stopping the conversation cold. John's point that patriotism and xenophobia are not the same thing, and his distinction between freedom and licence, are worth the listen on their own. It gets frank. It gets funny. It doesn't entirely resolve. But as Lucy points out, neither does the topic. JBL is already lined up for a full ethics and morality episode, and it cannot come soon enough. A wide-ranging, honest conversation about free speech law, teaching controversial topics in the classroom, political neutrality in education, online misinformation, critical thinking, the UK Online Safety Act and what it actually means to give young people a voice without handing them a megaphone and no map.

Education Matters | Rachel Harper

What does it actually take to protect children's wellbeing in a world where smartphones reach primary school age? Rachel Harper, principal of St. Patrick's National School in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, has spent three years finding out. The answer it turns out is simpler and more effective, than expected. Rachel tells the story behind It Takes a Village, a community initiative that began as a response to rising anxiety among children returning to school after COVID. It grew into an international conversation about children's mental health, online safety and what genuine collaboration between schools, parents and communities can actually achieve. Rather than imposing a ban, eight primary schools in Greystones introduced a voluntary code asking parents to delay giving their children smartphones until secondary school. The response was immediate. "As soon as I started talking about it at our principals' meeting, everybody was expressing that they were seeing something similar," Rachel explains. Hours after the letter went home, the Irish Times, Virgin Media and RTÉ were in touch. The Guardian picked it up. Requests arrived from Canada, Australia, the United States, Switzerland and right across Europe. Three years on, the initiative has shaped national policy, contributed directly to Department of Education guidance on the voluntary code and earned an invitation to present at the European Commission in Brussels. But this conversation goes far beyond phones. Rachel speaks honestly about the spike in childhood anxiety she witnessed at school gates after COVID, how teachers were spending significant parts of their day managing anxiety-related challenges and why a community-wide questionnaire that drew over 800 responses became the turning point. There's a candid discussion of the ethical balance between supporting parents and avoiding judgment, the courage it took as a group of principals to put their names to the same letter and why solidarity changed everything. "It takes somebody to step out," she says, "to be brave." Year two brought something genuinely compelling: transition year students running peer-education workshops with primary school children. Sixteen-year-olds, trained by their teachers, led sessions on online safety, digital literacy and what using social media is really like. The younger children listened in ways they simply wouldn't with adults. The older students grew into the role. There is evident mutual benefit. By year three, online safety ambassadors were operating within the primary school itself, older pupils delivering workshops to children as young as four and five. A message about screen time, Rachel notes, lands "much, much better" when it comes from a trusted older peer. The evidence is encouraging. Secondary schools report that children who went through the programme arrive in first year more confident, with stronger problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Teachers are freed from managing social media fallout in the classroom. Parents feel supported rather than judged. For anyone in education wondering whether this kind of community-led change is possible, Rachel's advice is clear. Start with a conversation. Pair up with one other school. Don't try to do everything at once. "Even if you're helping one family," she says, "you're really making a difference." A rich, grounded conversation about children's wellbeing, school leadership, digital literacy, community action and what courage in education actually looks like. #EducationMatters #ChildrensWellbeing #OnlineSafety #DigitalLiteracy #SchoolLeadership #ChildMentalHealth #SmartphonesAndKids #PrimaryEducation #ItTakesAVillage #PeerEducation #EducationPodcast #CommunityWellbeing #ParentingInTheDigitalAge #EducationPolicy #TeacherPodcast #IrishEducation #StudentWellbeing #ScreenTimeKids #TeachingAndLearning #SafeOnline

Teaching Matters | Drop-ins, Cheeseburgers & Exam Stress

What does a school leader actually learn from a five-minute classroom drop-in? Should canteens be doing more to feed children well and are 45% of parents really more stressed about GCSEs than their own kids? This week on Teaching Matters, host Paul Hazzard is joined by the experienced and forthright John Gibbs and Dr Shauna McGill for a wide-ranging conversation that covers school leadership, food policy and the very real human cost of exam culture. Classroom Drop-ins: Genuine Support or Covert Surveillance John makes the case that unannounced classroom drop-ins are, almost without exception, a form of surveillance dressed up as professional development. He argues that any headteacher not teaching at least 20% of their timetable is missing the point and that middle leadership exists precisely to bridge the gap between the classroom and the senior team. Shauna brings a more measured perspective, pushing the conversation toward what a drop-in is actually for. Is it pastoral? Is it tied to a school development plan with clear and shared goals? The distinction matters enormously. Paul rounds things off with a question nobody quite wants to answer: how would senior leaders feel if teachers dropped in on their meetings? School Canteens, Healthy Eating and the Cheeseburger Problem Today’s second story is about school food policy and the ongoing tension between nutritional guidance, parental responsibility and what pupils themselves actually want. With government standards tightening, the panel explores the limits of choice, the reality of food poverty and whether schools can be expected to fix what wider society hasn't. Year 7s at Richard Challoner School in New Malden get the last word and they're not surrendering their cheeseburgers without a fight. GCSE and A-Level Exam Stress: Who's Really Suffering? A recent survey suggests that 45% of parents are more stressed about their children's exams than the children themselves. John shares a quietly devastating story from his time as an invigilator: a student who asked to leave ten minutes into an English exam and what that moment revealed about years of accumulated failure. Shauna speaks candidly as a parent of a young person currently sitting GCSEs, reflecting on the difference between supporting a young person and absorbing their anxiety on their behalf. Paul raises the uncomfortable reality of hothousing: children drilled to peak for school-age public examinations and then struggling badly once they reach university. The panel agrees that exam results shape identity in ways that follow people for decades and that the system, accurate as it looks, is far less reliable than most people realise. John's "banana" of the week draws on research into sanitised history teaching in Florida and what Schopenhauer's bleakest philosophy has to do with student wellbeing, tolerance and inclusion. The conclusion? Honest and difficult is always more useful than polished and comfortable. About Teaching Matters Teaching Matters is a weekly panel show from Education Matters, the digital platform that brings outstanding people, practice and ideas to a global audience. New episodes every week, covering issues, policies, debates and human stories that shape education today. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode 👍 Like and share if this one got you thinking 💬 Tell us where you stand in the comments #TeachingMatters #EducationMatters #EducationPodcast #SchoolLeadership #ClassroomObservation #GCSEStress #ExamSeason #ALevels #TeacherWellbeing #UKEducation #SchoolFood #HealthySchools #ParentalAnxiety #TeacherTraining #ProfessionalDevelopment #StudentMentalHealth #RetrievalPractice #Metacognition #PSHE #TeacherPodcast

The Hannah & Lucy Show | Teaching Morals

Hannah & Lucy bring their experience to a pressing questions facing schools today: what does it actually mean to teach morals, values and self-discipline to young people in 2026, and who is really responsible for doing so? As usual it’s a candid look back at how things have been since the last show. Hannah shares a striking story from teaching a group of Yr10s who refused to wait for an escorted toilet visit, claiming it was a violation of their human rights, threatened to text their parents and ultimately walked out of the lesson. This becomes the stimulus for the bigger story - the erosion of self-regulation, deferred gratification and respect for shared rules. What’s the role of parents? Are schools fighting a losing battle? Hannah and Lucy discuss the very real difficulty of bringing parents on side without alienating them and the importance of schools having honest, transparent conversations with families whilst not apportioning blame yet explaining and persuading on the nuances of school policies. The duo explore the story of a youth football team on tour, where parents reportedly organised and purchased misogynistic t-shirts for their 15-year-old children to wear, photographed them and posted the images on the club's official Instagram page. Hannah reads out the slogans which include deeply inappropriate sexual references and both hosts reflect on what it says about adult role models when it is the parents, not the children, are driving this kind of behaviour. They draw a sharp contrast between a teacher or coach doing the same thing on a school trip. The double standard is stark and the safeguarding implications are deeply concerning. This leads into a broader discussion about the collapse of the moral compass. How the lines between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour have become increasingly blurred and what responsibility adults in public life carry for that. From political figures to social media culture and the influence of TikTok on how young people process information, Hannah and Lucy explore how misinformation, coercive narratives and the absence of credible role models are making it harder for teachers to be heard even when they are the most qualified and well-intentioned people in the room. The episode also tackles the dopamine economy. How constant access to phones and instant gratification is fundamentally changing how students engage with learning. Hannah describes the experience of teaching intelligent, capable students who are not disruptive out of disadvantage or difficult home circumstances, but simply out of boredom because sustained focus and genuine effort feel incompatible with the world they inhabit outside school. Hannah and Lucy provide their views on strict disciplinarian schools, acknowledging their striking reputation for parental respect and high standards while questioning whether their rigid approach is truly a scalable or even a desirable model. Both agree that the answer lies somewhere in the middle, a learning environment that combines empathy and challenge, safety and structure, without veering into authoritarian territory. The episode closes with a discussion about a school that responded to repeat poor behaviour by inviting parents to shadow their children in lessons for the day. A move that generated controversy but proved remarkably effective. The hosts reflect on the power of accountability, the importance of self-discipline as a life skill, and how schools can better communicate to families that enforcing boundaries is not the beginning of the problem it is the response to one. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙖𝙝 & 𝙇𝙪𝙘𝙮 𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙬 – 𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙢, 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙𝙡𝙮 𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙚𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙢𝙨.

Education Matters | Managing Behaviour

An in-depth conversation between three experienced professionals, Sam, John and Paul, that explores the complex nature of discipline and behaviour in schools, emphasising the importance of relationships, understanding individual needs and fostering self-discipline among students. Sam, John and Paul share insights on behaviour management, the role of love and respect and practical strategies for creating positive and effective school environments. Key topics include: * The meaning of discipline as teaching, not punishment * The importance of relationships and love in managing behaviour * Strategies for consistent and fair discipline * Understanding individual needs and reasonable adjustments * The impact of school culture and ethos on behaviour Sound Bites * "Consistency builds trust and respect" * "Love and respect are pedagogical superpowers" * "De-escalation strategies prevent conflicts" Chapters 00:00 Understanding Discipline in Education 02:39 The Role of Zero Tolerance Policies 05:24 Behaviour Management Strategies 08:01 The Importance of Context in Discipline 10:56 Navigating Special Needs and Behavior 13:40 The Impact of Care and Relationships 16:41 Identifying and Addressing Abuse in Schools 19:10 The Role of Self-Discipline in Education 21:57 Creating a Supportive School Culture 24:52 The Balance of Challenge and Care 27:32 Final Thoughts on Discipline and Education 36:20 Understanding Discipline and Support in Education 39:11 The Role of Teachers in Classroom Management 45:12 The Importance of Immediate Intervention 48:40 Building Relationships for Effective Discipline 51:10 The Interplay of Relationships and Discipline 54:36 Creating a Unified Approach to Discipline 01:02:30 Preventative Strategies for Classroom Management