High school teacher Mustafa Sakarwala speaks with Nandini Adusumilli (PhD student at Sleep and Education Research Lab at UCL) about why sleep is a core foundation for children’s and teenagers’ attention, learning, and exam recall.

Full show notes and links: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/sleep-memory-and-academic-performance

Sleep, memory and academic performance | Sleep Education and Research Lab

Chloe Morgan and David O'Connell share their journeys to becoming UCL advanced facilitators. They join this episode’s hosts, Mark Quinn and Nancy Karmali Belmonte, for a discussion on the power of facilitators in supporting other teachers to learn.

Early career teachers all have busy school days; Chloe and David reflect on how facilitators can create safe spaces for ECTs to reflect on their practice.

It’s about designing sessions for thinking, they say, and creating spaces for growth.

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/being-and-staying-curious-staffroom-s06e05

Being and staying curious | The Staffroom

Peter tells the story of how he was diagnosed with dyscalculia at 10 years old.

Liz and Helen chat with Peter about his dyscalculia diagnosis. They explore the barriers people face as children and adults to identifying this under-researched and misunderstood specific learning difficulty.

Peter shares the impact the diagnosis had on his experiences at school, expressing feelings of shame, and his journey to come to terms with the diagnosis as an adult.

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/i-saw-it-thing-be-ashamed-lived-experience-dyscalculia

Image: Emily Gee and Mia Borthwick meeting at the adults with dyscalculia lived experience event at UCL IOE. Photo courtesy of Elisabeth Herbert.

I saw it as a thing to be ashamed of | Lived Experience of Dyscalculia

Mark Quinn speaks with Dr Gergo Baranyi about researching environment and health with a lifecourse approach, using data that follows people over time.

Dr Baranyi describes how linking cohort data to administrative and geospatial sources can paint a richer picture of exposure than using a single home address alone.

They discuss how these methods can connect housing and neighbourhood conditions to outcomes that matter, including schooling.

Full show notes and links: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/podcasts/how-poor-housing-shapes-school-outcomes-and-why-place-matters-research-real-world

How poor housing shapes school outcomes and why place matters | Research for the Real World

Scott and Mia discuss the negative impact dyscalculia has had on their wellbeing.

Scott and Mia talk to Liz and Helen about the negative emotions they associate with mathematics in and outside of the classroom. They explore how this differs from the way adults without dyscalculia might feel.

They mention anxiety, panic, shame, anger, and frustration, as well as low self-esteem that follows them long after they have left school. They share how their dyscalculia not only affected their learning at school, but also their experiences in workplaces.

Finally, Scott and Mia describe how they put in the work to rebuild their confidence in adulthood.

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/which-green-day-song-helps-you-get-train-station-time-lived-experience-dyscalculia

Image: Emily Gee and Mia Borthwick meeting at the adults with dyscalculia lived experience event at UCL IOE. Photo courtesy of Elisabeth Herbert.

Which Green Day song helps you get to the train station on time? | Lived Experience of Dyscalculia

Rose shares the daily challenges she faces as an adult living with dyscalculia.

Liz Herbert and Helen Williams speak with Rose about how dyscalculia affects her day-to-day life.

Touching on school, employment, friendship, shopping, and even splitting the bill, they explore the barriers and difficulties one can face when living with this specific learning difficulty.

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/living-dyscalculia-lived-experience-dyscalculia

Image: Emily Gee and Mia Borthwick meeting at the adults with dyscalculia lived experience event at UCL IOE. Photo courtesy of Elisabeth Herbert.

Living with dyscalculia | Lived Experience of Dyscalculia

What if we could trace the arc of a generation from the very beginning to understand how our earliest environments shape our adult lives? Coming up on Research for the Real World [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/about-ioe/ioe-life/podcasts/research-real-world], we explore the work of the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centre-longitudinal-studies] by following cohorts born in the 1950s all the way to a new generation arriving in 2026. Join our IOE researchers as they unpack decades of unique data to reveal how housing, basic skills, and geography influence lifelong outcomes, and discover how these insights are driving real-world interventions to tackle deep-rooted inequalities.

Catch up on previous episodes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/about-ioe/ioe-life/podcasts/research-real-world
More IOE Insights: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/podcast

Preview: How we're in it for the long haul, following generations of data | Research for the Real World

Teddy Morgan advises leaders on how they can help fellow ECTs to thrive in their first years.

Teddy, Mark and Elaine talk about the importance of feeling a sense of connectedness to the place where you teach – a sense of feeling valued for the work you do.

Good leaders shape school cultures; they talk about how leadership can help teachers understand how meaningful their work truly is, from admin tasks to marking.

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/jan/messages-senior-leadership-team-staffroom-s06e04

Messages for the Senior Leadership Team | The Staffroom

How can we sustain creative futures in our local communities?

In this final episode, Anne, Barry and Gus join our host Liza to discuss how established institutions can build long-term, sustainable relationships with East London’s creative community.

This conversation unpacks how shared resources, collaborative mentorship, and inclusive infrastructure can uplift underrepresented creative entrepreneurs across the Olympic boroughs.

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/jan/building-sustainable-creative-media-ecosystems-our-olympic-boroughs-creative-landscapes

Building sustainable creative media ecosystems in our Olympic boroughs | Creative Landscapes in East London

Dr Wilton Lodge says it's not enough to just decolonise our curriculum.

Wilton, an Associate Professor (Teaching) at UCL, discusses how teachers can confront their own biases about what knowledge is powerful, and be more responsive to the diverse cultural perspectives in every classroom.

"Inequality in education is not accidental. It is produced through curriculum choices, pedagogical practises, assessment systems and institutional cultures...

Addressing this requires educators to move beyond surface level ideas of inclusion. It means critically asking questions such as whose knowledge is being taught, whose voices are heard, and whose experiences are centred in our classroom."

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/jan/culturally-responsive-pedagogy-staffroom-s06e03

Culturally responsive pedagogy? | The Staffroom

The official podcast featuring our academics, alumni, students and other brave thinkers, brought to you by IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society. We're the world's leading centre for education and social science research, courses and teaching, and a faculty of University College London (UCL). Powered by UCL Minds - bringing together UCL’s knowledge, insights, and ideas through events, activities, and digital content open to everyone. More from IOE: https://ucl.ac.uk/ioe

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