One of my highlights of the year has been producing the Mind the Gap podcast with Emma Turner. We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, never taking it too seriously but, with the support of the MindRocket Media production team and John Catt, we’ve kept it going and gradually, much to our surprise and joy, it seems we’ve found an audience. Sean, our producer, tells us that our average audience is now around 1800 per episode and the Spotify stats suggest we’ve reached people in 56 countries. Emma and I are blown away by that! We try not to think about it too much because our off-the-cuff, no-questions-prepared approach (amateurish some might say!) wouldn’t work if we felt we had people listening in at the time of recording. It’s a strictly one-take enterprise.

The podcast can be found via Anchor – and then via links to a wider range of platforms – here: https://anchor.fm/mindthegap-edu

You can watch the youtube version via the links on the playlist here. This image showcases the range of fabulous guests we spoke to in 2022. (Ignore the views because these are always out of date and over 80% of our audience listens to the podcast version).

Our brief is to talk to a range of people from across the education world as we see it, with a subsidiary aim to include people who have published books where that’s interesting. We try hard to curate our guest list to bring a breadth of perspectives and this year’s guests were all superb and, taken together make a fabulous combination. The Sam Strickland episode was an especially huge hit, coming at the start of a school year, Sam’s take on behaviour management and school leadership went down really well. But, without exception, all our guests bring a refreshing honesty and sincerity to the conversation. There are always lighter moments – there’s something about the informality of it that allows people’s humour to shine through – and each episode is packed with insights and inspiration from these wonderful people, reflecting their contributions to the world of education.

Amongst interviews with our stunning guests, we also do some Head-to-head episodes, just the two of us talking. The format we established this year was to ask each other unseen questions to prompt discussion and put each other on spot to express an opinion. It’s fun to do. And our final episode of the year has the format of taking turns to share a gift .. a person, event, book or idea from that stood out for us this year. Here it is….

It’s perhaps a little unusual to have spent so much time on line with Emma relative to the time we’ve actually spent with each other in real life.. but the partnership we’ve established is rather wonderful and I feel lucky to have been given the opportunity to work with Emma in this way. It was fabulous to meet people in the US and Australia this year who told me they listened to the podcast and were huge Emma fans! That comes as no surprise – I am too. But one serious resolution for 2023 is to find more time to meet in person!

We already have some excellent guests lined up for 2023 – I can’t wait to talk to them all. Thanks to Sean our producer for his commitment and to the team for all the behind-the-scenes wizardry ( I have no idea how our zoom chats turn into the finished product). Thanks to the John Catt team who sponsor the show and allow us to do what we like. Thanks to all the guests who gave up an hour of their time to chat to us, usually at odd times of the week; it’s so often the case that people have are doing this whilst managing their children and pets in the background – leading to some lovely guest appearances! Most of all, thanks to everyone who listens, watches and shares the podcast – we’re grateful for your interest and encouragement.

Happy New Year! More to come.