Luke Searle, Learning Designer at University of Southampton talks with Carolina Barnes, Jisc community specialist about making maths accessible. 

Luke was celebrated a community champion of 2025 for being co-chair of the Jisc accessible maths working group. 
Luke shares how the community is helping provide tailored approaches to help make maths more accessible and how this has been achieved through the support and passion of the community. 

You can connect with accessible math JiscMail list https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=ACCESSIBLE-MATHS 

Podcast transcript = https://repository.jisc.ac.uk/10010/1/podcast-six-accessible-math-with-luke-searle-community-champion-2025.docx

Digifest community hub 2025: Making maths accessible with Luke Searle

For this episode the podcast returns to Ireland and specifically the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland at Derry where Caitriona Mullan is based, and which has featured in the academic work of Dr Giada Lagana.

Caitriona is a Derry native and has specialised in cross-border collaboration and policy across Europe in her career in European Union (EU) Affairs, Regional Development, Local Government, Health & Social Care and Communities policy.

Giada is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow & Lecturer in Politics at Cardiff University. Giada's 2021 book 'The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process' on Palgrave outlines the European Union’s approach to conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. It is available here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-59117-5

Giada and Catriona discuss the importance of not only the EU in the peace process in Northern Ireland but the role of communities and community leaders, in particular women, in ensuring that that policy framework is complemented by community dialogue and collaboration.

You can follow Catriona at:

x.com/catrionamullan
linkedin.com/in/caitriona-mullan-4a46234

You can follow Giada at:
linkedin.com/in/giada-lagana-035474159
https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/laganag

The Irish Association of Contemporary European Studies website is: https://www.iaces.ie/

Follow the podcast on Bluesky at: https://bsky.app/profile/cdpodcast.bsky.social

________________________________

Produced by Russell Todd (russell@russelltodd.cymru)

My book Community Development, Social Action and Social Planning: A Practical Guide (co-written with Alan Twelvetrees) is available to order from Policy Press: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/community-development-social-action-and-social-planning-6e


Ep.49 - Cross-border community collaboration in Ireland

Welcome to Episode 11 of Series 3 of School Assembly – yes, we’ve actually reached the final episode today! So, School Assembly – if you don’t know – that’s the podcast where we find out what it takes to build a school from the ground up. And, for the last 12 months we’ve been following Dan McShea, Foundation Principal of Notre Dame P-12 College in Bells Creek, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. It’s the final episode and that’s where we get a chance to reflect on the journey but also the podcast experience. We’ll be finding out about Dan’s expectations going into the role compared to the reality; there’ll be the usual key learning, challenge and achievement, what’s planned for the next 12 months, and there’s also an invitation to visit! 
Host: Jo Earp
Guest: Dan McShea

School Assembly S3E11: Series 3 Final

When is the right time to communicate organisational change, and how can we strengthen people’s resilience to change? Can a better understanding of neuroscience help manage and implement the change process more effectively? 

CIPD Director of Profession David D’Souza, is joined by author, international speaker, and consultant in the field of neuroscience and change management, Hilary Scarlett. 

HR People Pod – Ep 28: Hilary Scarlett special – Neuroscience for organisational change

Associate Professor Brendon Hyndman is our guest today. If that name sounds familiar to you – Brendon was actually the guest in our first episode of The Research Files all the way back in 2014. After recently taking a pause from academics and spending time working back in the classroom, Brendon is now Associate Dean Academic in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Charles Sturt University, where his main research interest is on the more informal learning and behavioural experiences of students at school. An obvious example of this is school playground experiences – and so our conversation today is all about setting up for healthy play spaces and behaviours in a school setting. 

As you’ll hear Brendon share in this episode, the impact of healthy play spaces can be profound on students’ feeling of belonging, physical activity opportunities, ability to take risks and intellectual stimulation, just to name a few examples there. He also shares plenty of practical considerations for teachers and school leaders this space. 
Host: Dominique Russell
Guest: Brendon Hyndman


Setting up for healthy play behaviours at school

Despite Russia’s war of aggression, Ukraine is rewriting the future of its education system. The New Ukrainian School reform programme is a bold initiative to move away from Soviet-era style schooling and to instead embrace a more modern, student-centred approach. It was launched in 2016, two years after Ukraine's pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted after months of mass demonstrations. In this episode of Top Class, former Minister of Education and Science Liliia Hrynevych (2016–2019) joins OECD Editor Duncan Crawford to discuss Ukraine's reform journey. She talks about the country's ambitions, the challenges and why even amidst conflict, Ukraine remains committed to transforming how it teaches the next generation.



Reinventing education in Ukraine with former education minister Liliia Hrynevych

Today we're joined by Pauline Martinot, a medical doctor who specialises in child health and prevention. Dr Martinot pursued a research career in cognitive neurosciences on the developing child and did her PhD at NeuroSpin CEA Paris Saclay. Today, she works as an AI medical and scientific Director at Doctolib in France. 

Dr Martinot is also the lead author of the groundbreaking study that points to the first year of school as the time and place where a maths gender gap emerges in favour of boys. The results of this study were published in the paper titled Rapid emergence of a maths gender gap in first grade, published in Nature last month. The paper reports the results of a 4-year longitudinal assessment of language and mathematical performance of all French first and second graders, representing over 2.6 million children. The researchers found that boys and girls exhibited very similar maths scores upon school entry, but a maths gender gap in favour of boys became highly significant after just 4 months of schooling and reached an effect size of about 0.20 after one year. In this episode, Dr Martinot joins us on the line from France to share how her colleagues went about conducting the study, some more key findings, and the impact of this research on schools and teachers around the world. 
Host: Rebecca Vukovic
Guest: Dr Pauline Martinot

Addressing the maths gender gap in the early years

Would capping the qualifying period for unfair dismissal protection at six months be a reasonable compromise for employers? With hybrid working perceived to have a negative impact on managers’ ability to lead teams effectively, what could organisations be doing differently? And what impact is AI having on the prospects of the latest wave of graduates entering the labour market for the first time?

CIPD's Amy Crutchfield, is joined by Beth Samson, People Director at Investors in People; Garin Rouch, OD Consultant at Distinction Business Consulting; and Alison Hodgson, Market Director – CIPD Ireland.

Recorded: 25 July 2025

HR People Pod – Ep 29: Unfair dismissal | Hybrid working | Graduate jobs

For episode 50 Russell heads to Cardiff's Grangetown district in the south of the city to chat with two of the founders of Grange Pavilion's Youth Forum (GPYF) - Nirushan Sudarsan and Shoruk Nekeb.

They tell the story of GPYF's origins as a project within the wider Community Gateway project in Grangetown, a long-term community-university civic mission project. They also give a flavour of some of its activities and how GPYF acts as a crucible for discussions about global citizenship, resistance and organising for young people.

We also hear from other members of GPYF: Eleeza, Mahima and Amira.

You can find out more Grange Pavilion Youth Forum:

instagram.com/gpyouthforum/
https://grangepavilion.wales/youth-forum-page/

To learn more about the Community Gateway project: 

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/community/our-local-community-projects/community-gateway

Follow the podcast on Bluesky at: https://bsky.app/profile/cdpodcast.bsky.social

________________________________

Produced by Russell Todd (russell@russelltodd.cymru)

My book Community Development, Social Action and Social Planning: A Practical Guide (co-written with Alan Twelvetrees) is available to order from Policy Press: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/community-development-social-action-and-social-planning-6e

Ep.50 - "Being the change you want you to see": Youth-led action with the Grange Youth Forum

Thinking about your own school, how are you helping students understand the many opportunities and pathways open to them, and the training or further education requirements they’ll need to reach their career goals? We know schools play a crucial role in supporting post-school pathways, and recently at Teacher we’ve been exploring many facets of careers education. Today’s episode of Teacher Staffroom will bring you up to date with this coverage, and we’ll also share some of my other recent highlights from our content – which, by the way, is freely accessible at any time over at our website, teachermagazine.com. Don’t forget, like all of our other episodes of Teacher Staffroom, we’ll be posing some questions for you throughout this podcast, so feel free to pause the audio as you go, gather some colleagues, and discuss together how these stories might be relevant to your school context.
Host: Dominique Russell

Teacher Staffroom Episode 68: Supporting post-school pathways

The psychological contract – those unwritten expectations between employer and employee, so fundamental to building trust and engagement at work – has dramatically shifted. Once based on the promises of security and long-term service, employees now expect the contract to more closely reflect their values, offer flexibility, and align with a deeper sense of purpose. 

Join Nigel Cassidy and this month’s guests – Trish Hewitt, Founder and Managing Director at Haylo HR, and Nelli Rowsell, People Manager at Advantage Smollan – as we explore what happens when these evolving expectations go unmet, and how a breach, whether real or perceived, impacts employee engagement. 

Podcast 221: Employee engagement and the evolving psychological contract

Hear how communities across education and research are bringing people together to share and learn.

We cover learning and teaching, adapting to AI, accessibility, licensing and much more.

Digifest community hub 2025: Making maths accessible with Luke Searle

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