Heads & Tales

Heads & Tales is a podcast series from mentoring company Oppidan Education where leaders from the world of education discuss their life and career.

Heads & Tales is a education podcast hosted by Oppidan Education, with 107 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Oppidan Education hosts Heads & Tales, a education show with 107 episodes published.

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  Episode #109

  Tracy Fedonchik

  Aug 11, 202624 minS1

  Tracy Fedonchik is head of school at St Luke's School, a K-8 school on a rare two-acre campus in downtown Manhattan. She came to education as a career changer in her late twenties, quitting a job as a vice president of sales and marketing to volunteer in a third grade classroom at the Dalton School, where she stayed for more than two decades before taking up headship in 2023. In this episode, Tracy reflects on what makes a New York education distinctive, why she leads through a conference table rather than a desk, and makes a heartfelt case for K-8 schools and the value of letting children stay children for longer.

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  Episode #108

  Dr Carl Ward

  Aug 4, 202619 minS1

  Dr Carl Ward is one of the most influential voices in national education. He advises Number 10's policy unit, chairs the Foundation for Education Development and has run City Learning Trust in Stoke-on-Trent for close to 15 years, making him one of the longest serving trust CEOs in the country. In this episode, Carl argues that the Secretary of State should govern the education system rather than lead it, explains why democracy struggles with the kind of long-term planning that education needs, and makes the case that despite all the complexity we layer on top, education remains fundamentally simple: a single act between a child and an adult.

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  Episode #107

  Jennifer Wallace

  Jul 28, 202623 minS1

  Jennifer Wallace is the New York Times bestselling author of Never Enough and Mattering, and a former producer at CBS's 60 Minutes. Her work began with a 2019 article covering two national policy reports that named students at high achieving schools as a group at serious risk, two to six times more likely to suffer from clinical anxiety and depression than the average American teenager. In this episode, Jenny explains why the pathway to high achievement is paved with mattering rather than pressure, why belonging on its own doesn't go far enough for young people, and the one thing about AI that keeps her up at night.

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  Episode #106

  Dr Alex Curtis

  Jul 21, 202623 minS1

  Dr Alex Curtis is head of school at Choate Rosemary Hall, the Connecticut boarding school whose alumni include JFK. He has led the school for 15 years, but his journey started on the other side of the Atlantic – at St Paul's Boys in London in the 1980s, where rigour and discomfort were treated as the same thing. It was only at Swarthmore that he discovered learning could be joyful. In this episode, Alex reflects on why American schools have freedoms their British counterparts don't, shares his philosophy on fundraising and explains why he thinks banning technology is a mistake. Also: VAR should end tomorrow.

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  Episode #105

  Alastair Chirnside

  Jul 15, 202625 minS1

  We recorded this conversation with Alastair Chirnside when he was warden of St Edward's School, Oxford. This month, it was announced that he will become the next Head Master of Eton College. Alastair was Henry's classics teacher at Eton, but his route into education was far from conventional – he spent five years in fund management at Schroders before deciding that finance was not for him over a 30-year career. In this episode, he reflects on what it means to arrive at a school and read its culture before trying to change anything, the two concerns that sit at the front of his mind (VAT on fees and boarding schools staying connected to society), and his advice via Wayne Gretzky: you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

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