Why do new teachers have a tough time transitioning to full-time teaching?
Our 80th interview is Vaughan O’Connelly, a PhD student at Cambridge University, researching teacher workload and its impact and student attainment and teacher retention.
What does teacher workforce data tell us?
In this podcast, listen to Vaughan and Teacher Toolkit founder, Ross McGill, discuss his educational upbringing and his move into teaching from New Zealand to London, and why Vaughan stepped away from the classroom. We also discover more about what research methods he using for his PhD and how Vaughan is using the school workforce census to manipulate school data at a system level to unpick trends and insights across education.
How can research improve education?
We ask Vaughan how student attainment is calculated and learn more about the data around student attrition, timetables and distributed leadership. Digging deeper into literature reviews and research methods at PhD and EdD level, we also ask about his hopes for his research over the coming academic year and what Vaughan wants to see changed within the English education system. Listen carefully to what he has already discovered in his research and how we can hope for change across our education system.
Day-to-day research, COVID-19 and technology…
Finally, Vaughan offers some tips to aid teacher-workload and how he is approaching day-to-day life as a PhD student – perfect advice for teachers who want to become researchers. To finish, at the time of the recording the UK government has just placed the country into lockdown, we speculate on how technology will be useful during COVID-19 pandemic and how schools, parents and young people may adapt…
Listen to the Podcast (24 minutes)
You can follow Vaughan on Twitter and contact him via Cambridge University.
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