We conclude the series by meeting the four teachers who were presented with their Teachers Inspire award for 2023 at a special event in DCU in May. The awards were presented by our curator, and podcast host, Louise. The awardees for 2023 are: Jill Farrell, a primary school teacher in County Limerick, Joe O'Driscoll, who was a primary school teacher in County Cork, Dublin secondary school teacher Meg Offiah and Ursula O’Mahoney, a primary school teacher in County Tipperary.  Two were nominated by parents and the other two by former students. After the event they joined Louise to record this episode, which closes our podcast series.

For our penultimate episode we talk to Joyce Abbott, a teacher who inspired a student to name a hit TV series, set in a school, after her! The former student is American comedian and actress Quinta Brunson and the show is Abbott Elementary. As well as popular characters, great scripting and touching storylines, it portrays the huge efforts made by teachers, often with little resources, to do the best for their students. Joyce spoke to Louise from Philadelphia about the programme, her love of teaching, what she recalls about Quinta and why, even though she is retired, she is still passionate about education.

Providing teachers with the opportunity to work with student teachers while also progressing their own studies, is at the heart of the Teacher Fellowship Programme. It is a unique programme offered by DCU and the second group of teachers began their fellowship a few months ago. Louise is joined by two of them – primary school teacher Emma Farragher and secondary school teacher Niall Farrell. They tell her why they applied for the fellowship, what they enjoy about it and what they will take from it back to their classrooms.

The Teachers Inspire awardees have come from primary and secondary school level.  One question we have frequently pondered is why there are so many more women than men picking teaching as a career, particularly in primary school. To discuss this, Louise is joined by Dr Alan Gorman who is Assistant Professor in the School of Policy and Practice lecturer in DCU Institute of Education. He trained, and worked, as a primary school teacher before moving to third level and in 2022 he was awarded the DCU President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. They discuss the possible reasons behind the gender divide and also hear from Alex Finnegan, who says he wanted to teach since his own days in primary school. He is recently qualified and teaches 5th class.

For the final time in this series we meet one of the 2022 Teachers Inspire awardees and the parent who nominated her.   Some of the most moving and powerful nominations are from parents and often it is because the teacher has noticed ‘something.’   Joining Louise is Gemma Maher, who is now the principal at Rathcoole Educate Together National School in county Dublin but, as you will hear, the nomination goes back a few years.   It was made by Kirsten FitzGerald who explains that Gemma played an important role in validating concerns about her daughter who at the time was one of Gemma’s first class pupils.   Gemma and Kirsten also recall teachers from their own school days.

DCU is unique when it comes to autism because in 2018, it became the world's first designated autism-friendly university and plans were announced last year to make it an even friendlier campus for autistic staff and students with the launch of phase two of the autism-friendly project. In this episode Louise is joined by Fiona Earley, the Autism Coordinator in DCU, and by Clíodhna Harrison, a DCU Computer Science graduate who found out she was autistic during her time in DCU. Fiona talks about the research that has gone into the project and the changes that have been made on campus.  Clíodhna shares her experiences about how everyone she met in DCU was ‘doing their best to ensure that every neurodivergent student gets what they need, as well as educating others about neurodiversity.’ She says this sends a message of acceptance and equal opportunities.

The teenage years bring challenges for all young people.    For this episode Louise is joined by Jacob Donegan who by the age of six knew he was not in the right body.  He tells her about the day he saw a story in a magazine about a girl who ‘transitioned to the boy he was,’ and he turned to tell his father, “that’s me.”   Now in his twenties, Jacob has been very open about his transitioning journey on social media. He has 1.2 million followers on TikTok alone.   He chats to Louise about navigating his journey and where he found support. He recalls a teacher in secondary school who was understanding and gave him the, “freedom to be who I was.”   He is hopeful that schools are becoming more supportive of trans students and tells Louise about an all girls school with one trans student and the school reached out to Jacob and asked him to send in a video they would play for the whole school.   Jacob said, “that's empowering. That's amazing. That's beautiful to see.”

Louise is joined by Drs Kay Maunsell and Leanne Coll who, with their DCU colleagues, deliver a ground breaking Graduate Diploma in SPHE/RSE. The students are experienced secondary school teachers from across the country and they are the first group to study on the programme which is the only specialist teacher development programme of its kind at post primary level in Ireland.  Leanne and Kay tell Louise it is underpinned by a rights-based and inclusive approach and they discuss how sex education has changed since Louise was in secondary school! One of the students on the programme – Galway teacher Annemarie Browne – shares her experience and how she wants her students to have a positive experience of SPHE/RSE. Louise also hears that the future for quality comprehensive sexuality education is looking good.

It is time to meet another of the Teachers Inspire awardees of 2022.   Ruairi Farrell is the Principal of Greystones Community College but some 15 years ago he was a Year Head in another school where he intervened after becoming concerned about a student.   The student was Ciara Nolan and in her nomination to Teachers Inspire last year she said he was ‘always looking and making sure everyone was okay but when he realised I was suffering, which was probably before I even realised I had a problem, he had called me out of class one day and asked me to speak to the counsellor.’   She had developed an eating disorder and while it was many years ago, she never forgot what he did.    We hear Ruairi discuss what it meant to have been nominated, the teachers that inspired him and what he has in place in his school to support today’s students, including a psychotherapist.   Louise talks about having an eating disorder when she was in secondary school, attending counselling and how she thinks having a psychotherapist in school is a very positive initiative.

Her memoir ‘Poor” has been a bestseller for months, it has won two awards in recent weeks and in this episode Dr Katriona O’Sullivan joins Louise to talk about the teachers at primary and second level that she has never forgotten.  Some showed her how to wash, another nurtured a love of reading and literature. But they also did much more: they made her feel empowered and cared for. In many ways they epitomise what Teachers Inspire is about.  Education, and access to it, remain very important to Katriona who is a psychologist and a senior lecturer in Maynooth University.

Free play and fun, Lego and Barbie all get a mention in this fascinating discussion Louise has with Prof Hamsa Venkat, the Naughton Family Chair in Early Years/Primary STEM education in DCU.    They hear from children, parents and the facilitator of a Brickx club where, without realising it, young children were solving engineering and maths problems as they designed and built amazing creations during free play using Lego.   Prof Venkat says it is important to grow enthusiasm around STEM for children in early years and primary school settings as in Ireland, and other countries, she said not enough secondary school students are planning for careers that involve STEM subjects.    She also talks about the importance of supporting teachers who introduce and develop STEM learning in those settings and Louise shares her story about having a Barbie doll that said ‘math is hard.’

Two secondary school principals join Louise to discuss one of the big questions for parents, and students, when it comes to selecting a secondary school.   Louise chats to secondary school principals Alan Mynes, Ballymakenny College, Drogheda and Seán Stack, St Joseph's, Fairview, Dublin who share their experiences and discuss mixed and single-sex schools.    Seán’s father was a teacher and he attended mixed schools at primary and secondary level. St Joseph’s began to accept girls this year and he explains “there wasn't a moment that we said, oh we're going co-ed. There probably was a moment we said, well, hold on a second, why are we not looking at this?”   Ballymakenny College is a mixed school but Alan went to single sex at primary and secondary level and he is, as it happens, a past pupil of St Joseph’s, Fairview!   He says it comes back to “if a student is happy, regardless of whether it's co-ed or single sex,” that there are different school models and, “there's a school for everybody.”   Both tell Louise about the teachers they remember fondly from their school days.

There is no better way to start the 2023 podcast series than with one of our most recent awardees.   Louise is joined by Joe McAndrew who may have retired over twenty years ago from Banagher National School but his influence on former pupil Ann Loughney never faded.   Ann tells Louise, “it wasn't hard to think of a million reasons to nominate Joe. He’s just been so inspirational to me all of my life.”   Joe’s classroom was welcoming and supportive and even though it was the 1980s he never discriminated against girls. They were taught about car engines and computers just as the boys were and Ann said, ‘he never made you feel small or silly for asking any question.’   Joe tells Louise about his love of technology and how, as he prepared his pupils for the changing world of technology, he shared his love of engineering, tech and science with them.    ‘I realised that in this new technological age there will be no difference, or no reason for any difference, in gender or whether you are rich or poor, or anything else….I was very anxious that everybody should be treated with fair play,’ he said.   Teachers Inspire is now open for nominations for 2023 at teachersinspire.ie

For the final episode of this series the podcast comes to you from DCU, the home of Teachers Inspire.  A special event was held there for the four teachers who are our Teachers Inspire awardees for this year at which Louise presented them with their award. The teachers are Gemma Maher from County Dublin, Joe McAndrew from County Mayo, Jennifer Hutton from County Carlow and Ruairi Farrell from County Wicklow.   Gemma and Jennifer were nominated by a parent while Joe and Ruairi were nominated by a former student.   For this episode they tell Louise what it means to them to have been nominated and the positive impact the awards have.

Professor Mathias Urban, Desmond Chair of Early Childhood Educate and Director of the Early Childhood Research Centre at DCU is Louise’s guest.   He talks about DCU’s decision to use a donation from Mr Dermot Desmond to set up the only dedicated research centre at university level in Ireland that looks at questions around early childhood from an interdisciplinary angle.   He tells Louise about early childhood education and care being a fundamental part of the education system in Ireland and they talk about the factors that impact on childrens’ lives, including malnutrition and housing.   Prof Urban tells Louise about the teachers who inspired him and how with the work he is doing, ‘we're preparing the next generation of teachers, but also researchers and hopefully policymakers in this field.”

In this episode Louise is joined by Dr Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin.   An Assistant Professor in the School of Mathematics & Statistics at UCD, Dr Ní Shúilleabháin talks about her love of education and how she did not initially set out to be a teacher. She tells Louise she is someone who “never thought that they were good at maths,” and she had failed her maths test at Christmas in sixth year. It was a grind that helped make the difference - “it was literally somebody else explaining it in a different way.” “I really think mathematics is down to how it is explained to you and if we do more of that discussion and that peer learning and that dialogue in the classroom, mathematics becomes the subject that it is in real life and not the subject that it reflects in a book.” Now working with future science and maths teachers, Dr Ní Shúilleabháin says there is a lack of women in the sciences and specifically in STEM and with Louise she shares stories about a Barbie doll that said, ‘math is hard.’ She also talks about chairing The Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss.

In this episode Louise hears about a unique programme that DCU offers student teachers at primary and secondary level. The STEM Teacher Internship Programme – known as (STInt) – provides 12-week paid summer internships in STEM roles. Professor Deirdre Butler from the school of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies tells Louise the programme, “is actually globally unique.” She explains what makes it unique and outlines the positives for the student teachers, the students they go on to teach and how the STEM industries also benefit. Louise chats to primary school teacher Niamh O’Malley who has completed two STInt placements, in Microsoft and with ESB. Guests from the companies involved are often invited to visit classrooms. Niamh says it has helped break misconceptions about “female jobs and male jobs” and she said, “a big part of it is breaking those kinds of barriers and letting children know that they can be whatever they want.”

This episode looks at DCU’s Changemaker Schools Network which is a collaborative, professional, learning network of 19 primary schools from all over the island of Ireland who are creating systemic change in education. Louise hears from Fiona Collins, the network coordinator. She tells her the network aims to support teachers to lead programmes of change in their schools and to support schools to address society's most pressing challenges such as mental health, inequality, and climate change. The work is grounded in the four pillars of empathy, creativity, leadership and teamwork and Fiona says, “our overall ambition is to transform and reimagine the education system and to empower our students to thrive in this ever-changing world.”   Louise then chats to Frank Keane who is principal of Scoil Bhríde Shantalla in Galway City which is one of the Changemaker Schools. He tells her that joining the network, “was like finding your own tribe.”   Louise hears about Creative Nation, Sea Schools and a Mentoring Programme that have been introduced to the pupils and he says, “it's the fact that it's child led that inspires us every day.”

Every year Teachers Inspire receives nominations that continue to remind us of the role teachers can play and how sometimes a single sentence or suggestion can make a powerful impact. The nominations for 2022 have closed and are being reviewed at the moment. The four awardees will be announced in the near future.   In the meantime, for this episode, Louise introduces us to two of the nominators.   The first is Sarah Doran who went to Pobalscoil Neasáin, Baldoyle, Dublin. Sarah had a tough time in her early teens and did not sit her Junior Certificate. She joined Pobalscoil Neasáin in transition year.    Sarah, who now lives in London, has nominated a teacher who was her year head - Aisling Mhig Shamhráin. She says Aisling, ‘essentially saved my life,’ and taught her resilience and to, ‘be myself and not worry about it.’   Then Louise chats to Caitlin Green who nominated Marianne O’Reilly, who was her teacher at Mercy College, Beaumont in Dublin. Caitlin talks about her grief after the death of her grandmother and how Marianne noticed that she was not herself and mentioned it to her parents.   Her intervention came, ‘at a really crucial moment in my life,’ says Caitlin who is now at college and plans to be a primary school teacher.

DCU Alumni can be found around the globe and in this episode Louise is joined by two who remain deeply committed to education. They are Dearbháil Lawless, the CEO of AONTAS, Ireland’s National Adult Learning Organisation and Kevin Shortall, principal of St Aidan’s Community School in Tallaght. They share their personal stories about accessing education and what, and where, education has brought them.  An access style programme meant Dearbháil was on the DCU campus for one day a week initially. The lecturers she saw there inspired her and a few years later she was teaching on a DCU degree programme. ‘My heart is in DCU,’ she tells Louise. Kevin left school at 16 and going to college then had never occurred to him. A meeting with a trainee teacher when he was 19, led him to begin the next stage of his journey in education which was to repeat his Leaving Certificate. ‘It set me on this kind of trajectory and put me on the path that I've been on for more than thirty years,’ he says. There is much laughter as they share their stories, including talking about the educators who inspired them, with Louise.