Space to Think: Conversations In Education

Conversations in Education is a space to think - not to be told what to think. A place where educators, researchers, leaders and thinkers can be honest about uncertainty, tension and the real complexity of working in learning spaces, with children and young people and the communities they are part of.

Space to Think: Conversations In Education is a education podcast hosted by Sarah Philp, with 48 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Sarah Philp hosts Space to Think: Conversations In Education, a education show with 48 episodes published.

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  Space to Think: Conversations In Education

  E43. The Practice of Creating Spaces of Possibility with Sheila Ball

  Sep 29, 202641 min

  Sheila Ball is a doctoral researcher at Leeds Beckett University, where she leads the Flourish programme and her work centres on Nancy Kline's Thinking Environment. Her doctoral work is about cultivating spaces of possibility in education, and in this conversation we unpick what that actually looks like in practice. Together we explore: The role of attention in the Thinking Environment. Why three minutes can be a surprising amount of time. How judgment and pace work against thinking in schools. Trust and equality as outcomes of practising together. The Flourish programme and the value of imperfect, small-scale experimentation. Why there’s no silver bullet, and what that means for how change actually happens Sheila's closing question: How can schools be spaces where everyone genuinely feels they matter? You can learn more about the Flourish Programme here , where you’ll also find vignettes from past participants.

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  Space to Think: Conversations In Education

  E41. UNCRC and Rights as a Powerful Tool with Bruce Adamson

  Aug 31, 202640 min

  Bruce Adamson is a human rights lawyer and CEO of the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities. He was Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland from 2017 to 2023, where he led work on incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law. In this conversation, we explore what a rights-based approach actually asks of schools and what it risks becoming when it doesn't. In this episode: The origins of the UNCRC and what it means for it to sit in Scots law Article 29 and the aim of education as the Convention sets it out Why a values-based approach to rights matters more than a compliance one The Lundy Model of participation and what meaningful pupil voice looks like Working with the rights of one alongside the rights of all Inclusion, learning disabilities and what classrooms can teach us about diversity Resourcing as a rights issue, and what happens when it doesn't follow the responsibility Rights as a powerful legal tool for holding decision-makers to account Mentioned in the conversation UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - https://www.unicef.org.uk/what-we-do/un-convention-child-rights/ Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities (SCLD) - https://scld.org.uk Scottish Government guidance on the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act - https://www.gov.scot/publications/united-nations-convention-rights-child-incorporation-scotland-act-2024-statutory-guidance/ Supporting Children's Learning: Code of Practice (fourth edition, 2026) - https://www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-childrens-learning-code-practice-statutory-guidance-education-additional-support-learning-scotland-act-2004-fourth-edition-2026/ Professor Laura Lundy's model of participation - https://participationpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Compressed-PP-_-Lundy-Model-Explained-2.pdf Sonia Livingstone and the 5Rights Foundation - https://5rightsfoundation.com Callum's Law (restraint and seclusion) - https://www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/bills/s6/restraint-and-seclusion-in-schools-scotland-bill United Nations (Convention on the Rights of the Child) (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2024/1/contents Learning Disability Week (SCLD) — https://scld.org.uk

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  Space to Think: Conversations In Education

  E40. Conversations in Education: With the Messy Bits Left in with Simon Botton

  Jun 23, 202642 min

  What does it really take to lead a school and what keeps people going? Simon Botton is an executive headteacher in South Gloucestershire, leading two primary schools and serving as Head of Inclusion for a seventeen-school multi-academy trust. He has been a headteacher for nearly twenty years and is the author of Head Teachering: A Practical Guide with the Messy Bits Left In . Simon wrote the book because he was concerned about a profession telling its story badly, editing out the doubt and difficulty, and in doing so, making headship feel unattainable for those considering it. This conversation is the antidote to that: grounded, honest and quietly hopeful. Together we explore: Why Simon wrote Head Teachering and the question the book is trying to answer. The edited certainty of leadership culture online and why leaving the messy bits in matters. Moral purpose as the thing that sustains and what Simon means by measuring success in decades. Isolation in headship: what it looks like when leaders retreat and why connection is not optional. The wellbeing realities of twenty years in the role - compartmentalising, exercise and the difference between long hours and productive ones. Coaching new heads through overwhelm - arriving with no trust in the bank and learning to live with the chaos long enough to address it. Whakapapa: the Māori concept Simon draws on in his final chapter about legacy, responsibility and what we pass on. What would it mean to lead in a way that still matters fifty years from now?

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  Space to Think: Conversations In Education

  E.39 Elly Chapple on edges, presence and doing the work

  Jun 9, 202656 min

  In this episode I chat with Elly Chapple - TEDx speaker, author of Diagnosis: Human and founder of The Power of the Pause training. Her work draws on two decades of walking alongside her eldest daughter, Ella. Her book is not, she is careful to say, a book about disability; it is a book for every human. It is about presence, vulnerability and what we lose when we let the fast, overstimulated version of life set the pace. In this conversation Elly and I talk about: Why the work of education starts with the adults, not the children. Sympathy versus empathy and why empathy has to linger. The bin lid, the front brain and what gets in the way of being present. Edges: knowing where ours are and honouring other people's. Why difference doesn't threaten us, it reveals us. The small practices - breath, pause, safe relationships - that bring us back to ourselves Links to Elly's website, her book Diagnosis: Human and TEDx talk are below. Website - https://ellychapple.com/ TEDx Talk - Diversity is the key to our survival: The Shoeness of a Shoe Diagnosis: Human

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  Space to Think: Conversations In Education

  E38. When We Know Better: Karen Gebbie-Smith and Angela Johnston

  Jun 2, 202647 minS0

  <p>In this episode, I'm joined by Karen Gebbie-Smith, ASN Support and Development Officer with Aberdeen City Council, and Angela Johnston, Head Teacher at Daneston Primary School. </p><p>Karen has built a series of professional learning book groups for senior leaders across the city and in this conversation, we focus on one of the early texts - Good Autism Practice for Teachers by Karen Watson. Angela has participated in the group and has found the text and the process so engaging and useful that she took the model back into her own school and watched it ripple outwards — into cla...

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