This conversation traces Professor Li Wei’s path from classroom teacher to Director and Dean of the UCL Institute of Education, showing how lived experience drove his research questions. He explains language shift in three generations and why some children become English‑dominant despite living in multilingual homes. With deep expertise in bilingualism and multilingual education, he shares evidence‑based ways to support heritage language maintenance. There's practical insights for educators, families, and early career researchers alike.

More IOE Insights podcasts: https://uclioe.info/podcast
UCL Institute of Education: https://ucl.ac.uk/ioe

In an increasingly digital landscape, what can teachers do to guide, safeguard and support their students?

Teacher training is largely designed for an analogue world, but teachers now find themselves in exactly the opposite of that. Disinformation and misinformation are on the rise and conspiracy theories have become ubiquitous.

In conversation with our hosts Mark and Elaine, Jeremy Hayward weighs up the consequences of all this for the profession and provides some much-needed practical guidance for teachers and leaders.

"I don't think we're adequately preparing young people for a life online... We need a real reform of the curriculum, and we need to spend more time reflecting on why we believe what we believe."

Full show notes: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/disinformation-misinformation-and-conspiracy-theories-staffroom-s06e06

More IOE Insights podcasts: https://uclioe.info/podcast
UCL Institute of Education: https://ucl.ac.uk/ioe

We explore retirement readiness, gender gaps in pension wealth, and the real-life consequences of inequality across the life course.

Dr Amy Harrison speaks with Dr Sam Parsons about what long-running birth cohort studies can reveal about people’s lives as they approach retirement.

Full show notes and links to research: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/worked-more-still-got-less-research-real-world

More IOE Insights podcasts: https://uclioe.info/podcast
UCL Institute of Education: https://ucl.ac.uk/ioe

What does a PhD journey look like when you paint it rather than write it?

Louise and Tooba are two international doctoral students at the UCL Institute of Education, and in 2026 they are navigating the third year of their PhD programmes. Each month they will meet to sit down, talk, and paint. These sessions turn reflective conversations into visual stories, using art to bring their PhD experience to life on the page - their 'PhD Sketchbook'.

In this episode they explore the beginnings of their journeys: the “seeds” that motivated them to start a PhD, their paths to London, and the small moments that help an unfamiliar city slowly feel like home, all shared over canvas and colour.

You can see the artworks they created during this episode on the UCL IOE student blog, and on the IOE Instagram account.
Full show notes and links: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/painting-our-way-through-research-belonging-and-london-phd-sketchbook

10-year-old Sofia hosts a friendly conversation with her guest Shania, a 9-year-old from Mumbai, about what sleep looks like in their day-to-day lives and compare bedtime routines.

Full show notes and links: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2026/mar/childrens-sleep-routines-bedtimes-dreams-and-how-sleep-affects-mood-and-school

Podcast produced by UCL Sleep Education Research Lab.

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

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

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.