The Soul of Education

Avanti Schools Trust

We have built a system that measures everything a child can do and almost nothing of who they are becoming. We test knowledge and neglect character. We track progress and lose sight of purpose. Then we wonder why so many young people reach adulthood capable but quietly lost. The Soul of Education brings conversations about what we left out. Each episode, Dr James Biddulph MBE, CEO of Avanti Schools Trust, sits down with educators, scientists, artists and thinkers who are asking the harder question: not how do we raise attainment, but how do we raise well-rounded human beings.  This is not nostalgia, and it is not criticism from the sidelines. It is a serious attempt to put the inner life back at the centre of schooling, grounded in the work of running real schools.

Episodes

  1. 2d ago ·  Video

    Are Schools Killing Creativity? Professor Pamela Burnard on The Soul of Education Podcast

    In ancient Ujjain, the first thing students learned was how to sing. Then how to dance. Then how to play an instrument. Logic came later. Somewhere along the way, we flipped it. In this episode, James Biddulph, CEO of Avanti Schools Trust, sits down in Cambridge with Professor Pamela Burnard, his first teacher in initial teacher education, PhD supervisor and friend of nearly three decades. Together they ask what happens when the arts are pushed to the margins, and why reclaiming them may be essential to preparing young people for an uncertain world. This episode explores: Why the arts are a way of knowing, not an add-on for Friday afternoonsWhether arts education is just for the middle classesMoving beyond “creativity” to plural creativitiesCuriosity, AI and the risk of a rush to mediocrityWhat schools can learn from a Coldplay concert about hope and belongingThe Vedic idea that truth is one, but sages call it by many namesPam also answers the challenge head-on: is this all just a cosy Cambridge conversation? Her answer begins in a small country town in Australia. A conversation about curiosity, relationships, and education as an act of love.

  2. Oct 22

    Telling Children the Truth About the Planet | with Professor Emily Shuckburgh CBE on The Soul of Education Podcast

    How do we tell young people the truth about the state of the planet without taking away their hope? In this episode, James Biddulph, CEO of Avanti Schools Trust, is joined by Professor Emily Shuckburgh CBE, climate scientist, government advisor and founding director of Cambridge Zero. Emily shares her journey from mathematician to climate scientist, from studying the oceans around Antarctica to bringing together researchers across the University of Cambridge to work on solutions to climate change. Together they explore the rise of climate anxiety in children, why honesty matters but is never enough on its own, and the skills young people need to shape a better future: knowledge, creativity, and the confidence to lead change in their own families and communities. They discuss breaking down the barriers between academic disciplines, why hope is not a luxury for the privileged, and the biggest question Emily believes is facing political leaders today: how do we rebuild faith in there being a future? In this episode: Emily’s path from fluid dynamics to climate science and Cambridge ZeroHow the ocean connects Scotland to AntarcticaBalancing truth and childhood when talking about climate changeThree skills every child needs for the futureWhy education needs more conversations across disciplinesRebuilding collective faith in a better futureThe Soul of Education podcast is a place for conversations about reimagining the purpose of education.

  3. Oct 5

    Learning Without Limits | Dame Alison Peacock on The Soul of Education Podcast

    What happens when we stop labelling children by ability and start trusting in their potential? In this episode of The Soul of Education, James Biddulph, CEO of Avanti Schools Trust, is joined by Professor Dame Alison Peacock, Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching. Before leading the professional body for teachers, Alison was Executive Headteacher of The Wroxham School, where her work on Learning Without Limits challenged fixed ideas of ability and showed what schools can become when they are built on trust. Together they explore: Why fixed notions of ability hold children back What it means to treat teaching as a true profession How we keep great teachers in the classroom Building school communities where both pupils and staff can flourish What education is ultimately for An honest, hopeful conversation for teachers, leaders, parents and anyone who believes education should nourish the whole child. 🎧 Listen to The Soul of Education wherever you get your podcasts 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes #SoulOfEducation #Education #Teaching #SchoolLeadership #LearningWithoutLimits

  4. Sep 7

    Learning from the Living World | Richard Dunne on The Soul of Education Podcast

    Ask a child to draw nature and most will draw something they are standing outside of. Richard Dunne left headship to found The Harmony Project, convinced that the way we structure learning teaches children a quiet falsehood: that they are separate from the living world rather than part of it. In this episode he tells James Biddulph what prompted that decision, and what a curriculum looks like when it is built around the principles that govern the natural world instead of around subject boundaries. The conversation moves from theory to the ordinary detail of running a school. Harmony principles applied to curriculum design. What changes when interconnection is the organising idea rather than an occasional topic. Why school food and the menu are not a side issue but a daily lesson in the same argument. Richard also makes a case that will land with anyone teaching climate to teenagers. Young people are not short of information about the state of the planet. They are short of agency. An education built on anxiety produces paralysis. One built on hope, and on the evidence that children can act, produces something else entirely. The episode closes on the harder question: what would need to change across the sector for this to move beyond individual schools willing to try it.

  5. Sep 7

    Where has all the Joy gone in Education? | Nitesh Gor OBE on The Soul of Education Podcast

    Somewhere between Reception and Sixth Form, the joy goes missing. James Biddulph and Nitesh Gor both describe waking up to the same question: where has all the joy gone? In this opening episode they trace that question through the evidence and into the harder argument underneath it. Edurio's 2025 research found that only 45% of secondary pupils feel physically and mentally well, falling to 31% by the age of 18, with interest in lessons collapsing across the same years. Anthony Seldon puts it more bluntly, describing a system in which the joy is squeezed out of school and replaced by fear and anxiety. He calls it deeply sad and entirely avoidable. So which is it? Is joy a soft outcome, the reward that arrives once the real work is done? Or is it the precondition for any learning at all? James makes the practitioner's case from two decades in schools. Nitesh argues that joy is not a feeling to be engineered but a spiritual state to be uncovered. The conversation ends where the word itself begins. To educate, from the Latin, means to lead out. Not to fill a child, but to draw out what is already there.

  • 5 Episodes

About

We have built a system that measures everything a child can do and almost nothing of who they are becoming. We test knowledge and neglect character. We track progress and lose sight of purpose. Then we wonder why so many young people reach adulthood capable but quietly lost. The Soul of Education brings conversations about what we left out. Each episode, Dr James Biddulph MBE, CEO of Avanti Schools Trust, sits down with educators, scientists, artists and thinkers who are asking the harder question: not how do we raise attainment, but how do we raise well-rounded human beings.  This is not nostalgia, and it is not criticism from the sidelines. It is a serious attempt to put the inner life back at the centre of schooling, grounded in the work of running real schools.

Information

  • Creator
    Avanti Schools Trust
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Soul of Education
  • Show Website
    The Soul of Education

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