Transcript: ECF Staffroom S04E02

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Elaine Long 
Welcome to the ECF Staffroom. I'm Elaine Long.

Mark Quinn
And I am Mark Quinn.

Elaine Long 
We are programme leaders for the UCL Early Career Teacher Development Programme. Why are we in the staffroom? We are here because this is where the best professional learning conversations always take place. This is where problems can be aired bluntly and where solutions can be explored.

Mark Quinn
Over the course of this series, we will hear the voices of different colleagues as they come in the ECF Staffroom. We will hear from early career teachers themselves and from the mentors and induction tutors who support them. We will talk about all things ECF, the challenges and the joys. So, why don't you enjoy a coffee with us, perhaps even grab a biscuit and sit down to half an hour of ECF Staffroom chat.

Welcome to the ECF staff room, Cesc Masdeu. I personally delighted that you've joined us in our staffroom Cesc. We're really looking forward to listening to you and hearing all your wisdom and your stories from Barcelona. I want to introduce you properly in a second, but. But you've just joined our staff room, so you have to take a seat.

Cesc Masdeu
Hi. Thank you.

Mark Quinn
I want to introduce you properly in a second, but you've just joined our staff room, so you have to take a seat, take a rest, you've had a busy day at school. I know, my first job is to fix you a drink, anything I can get you.

Cesc Masdeu
I'm served. I already had my coffee this morning. you're really. I always have this little ritual every morning. I currently prepare my coffee, which I bring with my moka pot and take it to school so I can enjoy, during break. So, I'm sorry. I only have one coffee a day.

Mark Quinn
So, you are what is known as a cheap date. Cesc. That's right. I presume, I can't interest you in a biscuit or anything, can I?

Cesc Masdeu
Oh, do you have a peanut butter cookie? I’d love that.

Mark Quinn
That that sounds disgusting. And I'm sure I don't, but I'll have a look anyway.

Elaine Long
So, before Mark insults you any further, so I just want to say how honoured we are to have you in the staffroom, especially as come all the way from Barcelona seems to be exhausted from the flight and even more in need of that peanut butter cookie, which we will oblige. 

Cesc Masdeu
It's a pleasure to come to London. A beautiful and colourful city. So, thank you.

Elaine Long
And you brought sunshine with you, so that's good. I know our listeners will be very keen to find out why you're here and what your role is. So please, could you introduce yourself for our listeners and describe your role, and we always like to ask which parts of it give you the most joy.

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah. Well I mainly a, secondary education teacher but I have, a leadership role in my school, an education coordinator. but apart from that, I'm also, consultant, and a digital trainer and also, and I’ve been participating for five years now with the UCL colleagues, the CEL staff with the Spanish programme.

So, that's one of the parts of my job that I enjoy the most. But I would say on top of that, is my relationship with my students as a mentor, also as a tutor. and opportunity to engage with them and to help them throughout the school year. So that could be a summary.

Elaine Long
What's day to day life for you like in school? What's your day been like today?

Cesc Masdeu
Well, today was a busy day. So, for our class, meetings with families. So, very, very busy day and throughout the week. yeah, that would be a normal day for me. I've got, lots of meetings with, parents and with colleagues. We have lots of preparation meetings with teachers because we plan and design classes together. Yeah, quite a lot.

Elaine Long
That sounds nice. Alot of collaboration.

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah. Even though being the coordinator, I still deliver lots of classes and I'm also a tutor, a group tutor, so I'm pretty busy.

Mark Quinn
So that leadership for learning programme that you mentioned says, I should disclose that you and I work on that programme together. We have done for or since just before the pandemic, I think. We co facilitated that programme, together in the past as well. I've certainly learned a lot from you working on that programme. I think we've had a lot of fun along the way as well.

Cesc Masdeu
We did. It was so fun, and I've learned so, so much from you, Mark. 

Mark Quinn
So enough about me. The more important thing is, and one of the reasons we wanted to speak to you today is because, you are now part of the running of, mentoring programme for novice teachers in Catalonia and on behalf of the education department there. So, what we're interested in knowing is why, first of all, did the Catalonia government decide it needed that mentoring programme and why do you think they asked you to establish?

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah, it's a good question because they never directly mentioned, but the thing is, there's an ongoing, debate here in Catalonia, I would say in Spain, also in Europe, but there's this there's debate surrounding teacher quality and also teacher training, you know, when the Catalan government was, you know, at the beginning of this debate, there was already or it has already been established the need for improvement, both in the initial teacher training and the induction.

And universities have already been making quite a lot of progress. We started with, like maybe six, 6 to 8 years ago. There wasn't even a master’s in education, right, for teachers. So, they implemented that, and they already have their debate about how to improve that initial education training or teacher training.

But the Department of Education, there's these two different departments and they've got different competencies. So, the Department of Education felt or assume, I guess, they felt the need to further advance somehow, also their own way. This for them has been, I assume also, a way of aligning with other European countries that have proved that mentoring programme are very effective and, you know, it helped to improve teacher quality and they correlate quite a lot with students learning improvement. So, yeah, that's kind of the context. In that scenario the LID centre, the leadership centre, directed by Anna Jalong here in Barcelona, was already a well reputed centre for leadership and teacher training and professional development.

It's a centre that has partnered with or is collaborating with the CEL from the university and you know, also being able to access CEL’s knowledge and experience and being able to learn from you guys and trying to incorporate as much as we could to our context. I think that was also key for the government to contact the LID the leadership centre in Barcelona and yeah, that would be it, yeah.

Mark Quinn
So that's interesting isn't it. So, it's interesting to note that the Catalonian government had, were tapping into a wider literature in Spain and in other parts of Europe, but I think also further afield into the high potential of mentoring to raise the quality of teaching and through that, raise the outcomes for children in schools.

Cesc Masdeu
I should also add, that, you know, most recently, we had the PISA results, and you know for Spain were quite bad and you know, from the different regions in Spain, the Catalan ones were particularly low and that started a debate also or maybe it boosted a debate that was already in Catalonia around the education system around the teacher quality and also a wider reflection on education. 

There was this initiative from the Catalan government to put up a team of experts that have been for three months analysing more deeply the results and just recently published 100 and some pages of recommendations and one of the recommendations, there’s lots of recommendations, but the, there's an important section of these recommendations that regard to teacher quality and teacher training and the importance of investing in teacher education and in programme like that.

So, there's a lot of attention now. There's a lot of interest, now in teacher education and in initiatives like the one that that the Catalan government tasked us with, and just to clarify what the Catalan government asked us was to design, or to draft that first a guide for the mentors, and then also design a training programme for mentors.
So that's been doing since 2022. 

Mark Quinn
I've seen this guide. It's a thing of beauty, Cesc. We're very jealous of it. Actually, we have to do something like that ourselves, I think. But it is really interesting, isn't it, that the government reached out to a leadership centre such as yours, as you said, run by and Anna Jalong your colleague and ours.

It is through that, of course, that we became interested because you and Anna both have a relationship with our centre at UCL. And I know Elaine wants to ask you a bit more about the connections between the work that you've been doing and ourselves.

Elaine Long
Yeah. I mean, the problem with the work you've been doing Cesc, is that you're forcing us to up our game as well in creating that really good guide. So, I know that you visited the centre here in London to help you make some plans for your mentoring programme and you met some experts on mentoring and spend time with some of our ECF delivery partners.

So, I'm interested in more insight you learned from that visit and then how did it inform that the mentoring programme you put together for mentors in Barcelona?

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah. Well, that was a that was a great experience. That was such a well planned visit to London. But I also want to say that before July 2022, we had a meeting with with Greg Ross and Mark Quinn in which we already discussed some of the questions.

And that was that was really helpful because it helped us to focus you know, more, I would say. Well, they helped us think on the on the impact and the results we wanted to see and that was, really good.

Mark Quinn
What I remember, Cesc, is that you called us in to give you some advice, and we gave you no advice. We just gave you lots and lots and lots of questions.

Cesc Masdeu
Those were very powerful questions and that helped us better frame the visit that we had in October and yeah, it was great in many ways. First because as I said, it was so well planned. We were very well welcomed. We felt, you know, very well taken care of and it was, you know, what was scheduled was really good. So, we could really get a deeper understanding of the system, the English system. So, we also took the opportunity to take more people with us. We brought a big team of experts and leaders that also helped us to learn more about the ECF programme and what mentoring was.

We had a meeting with Mark and Greg and they explained more about this on site and education mentoring. We also had meetings with Janet Roberts from Berkshire Teaching School Hub and Polly Clegg and Caroline Daly from, from the Faculty of Education and Society. We got the great opportunity to visit two schools.

First one was, Chesterton Primary School where we met with Denys Wallace and Katie Colley from Wandle Teaching School Hub, and we could observe mentoring practices firsthand. That was really, really insightful. And we could ask lots of questions that we had because we were all thinking how this could apply in the Catalan context and also were so related to the resources because we realised that we had this huge responsibility because we were counting with a huge amount of resources and we were seeing very effective and efficient use of resources in England so that was quite shocking.  

Then we visited also Mulberry School for Girls and had a meeting hosted by Ruth Smith and Tessa Blair from the East London Teaching School Hub, and we had opportunity to engage directly with mentors, with early career teachers and also with facilitators. We had very interesting, very interesting discussions with them.

We could kind of, see what we wanted to or what was a good, you know, set up with for a programme in Catalonia. It was also great to observe the online learning community session facilitated by Fiona Evans, and that was very very interesting because we were seeing early career teachers reflecting on their teaching, on the questions that they were dealing with and challenges.

That was very interesting because we were designing a guide for mentors. That helped us see what the challenges could be, the questions and the problems that they would deal with, you know, so yeah, that was very helpful.

I remember, by the way, an early career teacher saying that she was doing great and that she was, you know, doing, I mean, like, scoring ten in each of the items that they had and that was very interesting because, for me as a teacher,  experience, I'm sorry to say, teacher, in your experience, there were many things that I thought I would I wouldn't do as well. I'm very critical about.

So, it made me realise, it made us remember that evidence is so important in a programme like these, because novice teachers want to do very well and want to kind of be judged very well. But, you know, the mentoring programme we're designing and the, the mentoring models work with are developing the programmes, they are not focussed on judging, but they are focussed on supporting development and learning. So, so yeah, it’s just an anecdote but it was very interesting to see that.

Throughout the, the whole visit, we gained a lot of insight into mentoring practices within ECF programme and its potential applicability to the Catalan context. So yeah, that was great. We were also very surprised by the number of roles within the mentoring context, within the English mentoring context. That made us reflect deeply on how these different roles could be kind of adapted or applied to our own context. 

Thanks to that experience we were able to bring with us lots of ideas, lots of reflections, lots of questions, even more questions. We already had at the end of the trip; we already had an idea of how we could adopt the onsite mentoring approach to the Catalan context. 

It helped us redefine the materials and the guide we were already designing or writing and also, something we hadn't even had the time to think of which was the training. So, yeah, we were at the stage of just barely started writing the guide and it helped us also think about what we wanted the training to be like. It was really, really good, a really good experience.

Elaine Long
Cesc, obviously you should be aware in England, mentors have to follow a curriculum, the early career framework. So that's the mentoring around mentoring. Do you have a similar framework in Catalan for novice teachers or is that more flexible for the mentor to decide themselves what they should learn about and what evidence they should draw on?

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah, it's much more flexible and it's also more like atomised. exactly. So, the thing is that we've got the universities, we've got them. We had, we used to have and we will still have to, I think, cohabitate with this other model, which is the kind of the novice teacher training, which is some kind of capsules that new teachers have to take and then they are evaluated by this. At the same time, this programme was being designed and implemented, a new competence framework for teachers was being developed, now is also published, although a lot of teachers that don't know yet, but we've been using it.

So, mentors and also our mentees in the sensei programme, the name of the programme is sensei, know and use and they've been also, taking training in many other aspects or items like, for example, teaching, use of evidence. So yeah, we've been to coordinate with this other, the stakeholders I would say because, co-teaching, the co-teaching part of this pilot was given to a different centre, a different institution.

So, we've been coordinating and seeing what they were. So, to wrap up, I mean, it's like an opportunity also in terms of, you know, designing a plan for early career training and development.

Mark Quinn
Am I right in thinking that it's you're still at a pilot stage with your sensei programme? 

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah. 

Mark Quinn
But you have launched it. You've been going through this academic year so far. So, I just would really like to know what kind of scope it has? How many, how many teachers are involved? how big is it? What are you picking up so far about the impact of it?

Cesc Masdeu
This this, school year, the mentors were selected. They were very well selected, I should say. There were 100 mentors. So, we've got this first generation of mentors, 100 mentors that have been mentoring 250 teachers from different schools, all public schools, from different Catalan regions and administrations.

So, from the start of the school year, the programme was already started implementing, but we first had the session, a training session with mentors in July. So, we did the first session and then we done another three sessions with them. So, we finished last Wednesday.

It's been a great experience. So, from the guide and the training programme side, we got a very good evaluation. I mean mentors are very happy with the guides, with the materials and the training and they also expressed very high impact of that guide and the training on their work and on their ability to support their mentees, the novice teachers. Although we’ve been internally evaluating, we have revised the materials the training will.  Next year, the impact will be evaluated. 

So, we will have like an audit on schools, that will also evaluate the impact because, while this, first year was possible thanks to the European funds, the Catalan government had lots of funds and now there will be a second year. So, same mentors, different mentees and we will have to design some continuation plan, development plan for mentors, but the idea is to evaluate the impact and replicate it.

Mark Quinn
So, the evaluation will be next year. Is that right, and will you be conducting that evaluation. Will that be an external evaluation?

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah, it will be an external evaluation. So, we’ve already had an external evaluation regarding the training. Then the idea is to have an external evaluation next year. But they will focus. So they'll try and see what's going on with the novice teachers that have already be on the programme this year. And then we'll have, also an ongoing evaluation next year, now with budgets.
Mark Quinn
What I think, some of our listeners might be interested in, would be just some image of what it's like to be a teacher or be mentored as a teacher in a Barcelona school. So, if you can think of any particular example of an exchange between a mentor and a novice teacher or something that you picked up, you've been told.

Cesc Masdeu
Well, first of all, I would maybe say that it’s a bit complex because, you know, all novice teachers, so all of these teachers were selected among teachers with less than three months experience, so they were very new to the profession.

They had very little experience, and then so they got their teaching hours reduced to half. Okay. And then they got half of their schedule dedicated to training, as I said, on co-teaching, on use of evidence,  on competence framework. So, they were sent in groups of 3 to 2 different schools where they were mentored by one mentor.

In some schools there were more than then one mentor and three mentees. So, they were up to three mentors and up to nine mentees. So, they also formed a learning group. So, what we know is that there's been quite a tight collaboration between them, between mentees, novice teachers and between mentors.

We also have evidence of changing in culture in schools because mentors have been doing quite a big effort because we told them that was very important. They've been leaders of professional development in their schools. So, they've been also, kind of a bridge. So, they've played this bridge role between the novice teachers and other teaching staff, because we have to say, you have to take into account that these novice teachers would co-teach with a different teacher that wasn't their mentor. It was a different teacher. 

So that also was, you know, a point of it was a challenge also for them and it was also an opportunity for teacher development, you know, for the collaborator teachers, that's what they were called. And we've seen in these schools where there were mentors and novice teachers, that there was this learning and investigation culture starting to, you know, to arise and there was also a big collaboration between all the mentors.

So, they had this platform where they share resources, they share ideas, they share whatever they come up with, it's a good idea. And then more recently they started visiting each other and having learning works.

Mark Quinn
The mentors?

Cesc Masdeu
The mentors with their novice teachers, they would go and visit a different school. I mean, we are quite happy, and we've got hope that something very interesting has started and that more collaboration between schools will happen and also that these schools that have had mentors and novice teachers, well, these people will be leaders, school leaders at some point.  I think it's quite interesting what's happened. 

Mark Quinn
Elaine, I think that we're going to have to ask Cesc and his colleagues to come over to London and give us some consultancy as we look again at our progress this time.

Elaine Long
Yeah, I’ve got so many questions I want to ask about that? 

Cesc Masdeu
It could be great.

Elaine Long
It sounds really interesting; your set up sounds really interesting. Novice teachers can have a mentor in a different school, and they would travel to that school to see that different mentor. But also, it sounds like, you know, the amount of time that's afforded to this, sounds really purposeful, you know, the reduction in the timetable.

What really struck me when you said that there was serious thought and attention given to the conditions that need to make this happen. You know, this hasn't been an add on. It's my thinking immediately went to, you know, one of the things we struggle with in England is the recruitment of mentors and it’s not that they're not willing. We have plenty of amazing school leaders, but the problem is that they're burdened with so many other responsibilities in schools that they're not always given the time to do the mentoring. Often it ends up bring as an add on to their busy role at the end of school day. 

So, I’m just wondering if mentors under your programme are given a similar reduction in hours and what impact that has on their appetite and enthusiasm to be mentors because you know, it sounds to me like, if I was in Catalonia, what you're describing, If I was a teacher in school, I’ll be saying, yeah, I want to be involved in this, it sounds really exciting.

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah it is, and it's also shocking. The difference is huge, and this is one of the things that we were very impressed, and this is due to the immense number of resources that come from Europe for this programme. The Catalan government will have to see how this can be sustainable for the for the education budget.

But yeah, the thing is, currently the mentors who have also their teaching hours, that they used to have. Okay.

Elaine Long
They halved the timetable. It’s massive.

Cesc Masdeu
It’s massive.  And they've got plenty of hours for meeting and for observing. So, one of the messages we had to send to mentors was that, you know, they didn't have to use all those hours to be with their novice teachers in class because that could be counter counterproductive.

So, we had to agree with them, and we had to also make them think of how they could use that time wisely and effectively. The second thing is that all these mentors were selected. So, first of all, the Catalan government did like a preselection of schools of centres that could feed for the programme kind of requirements.

They had to be diverse. They had to be, you know, from different regions in Catalonia. They wanted to have innovative centres and also from vulnerable, from backgrounds and context centre. They wanted the diversity and then they conducted some interviews, and they selected the teachers because with the reduction in teaching hours, we could have teachers that weren’t necessarily good or didn't want to work that much.

So, they wanted to choose the best possible ones, and the selection has been incredibly good. So, they are very good teachers, lots of experience, lots of commitment and that was a key aspect and that guarantees the success of the programme. 

Elaine Long
You know, when you talk about as well, the part of the role of the mentor is to help the novice teacher use evidence. What do you mean by that? Do you mean help them to investigate the impact of their own practice? Critically? You know, draw on external evidence from research papers and things like that.

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah, exactly. In the guide and in the first session of the training programme, we told mentors that their role and the mentoring plan consisted in guiding novice teachers throughout an inquiry process or an inquiry cycle.

So we take the mentoring plan as an inquiry process like the one that that CEL designed. So, it's basically, you know, start by what you want to change, what result you want to get, and then go back to the present and see how it’s going on. What are your strengths. What are your strengths and the areas of improvement, and then start reading, looking for evidence, using evidence, think of new strategies, actions and see how this works or not and if this improves students learning.

 So that's what we've seen that’s had the biggest impact, that schools are starting to think this way. And this is huge in Catalonia because we are so used to constantly trying new things, new, what the navigation influencer says is going to work, there’s so many discussions in staffrooms that are based on thoughts or instincts and experience that. You know, that's been a huge impact.

We think that having 250 novice teachers that are now used to working with that inquiry mindset or approach, it’s going to have a huge impact.

Elaine Long
It sounds really, really inspiring, and it sounds like you have a really bespoke programme that starts with the problems of practice that the teachers have and their own strengths and weaknesses, and then moves out from there into to how they can improve things. But it sounds very individualist if you like. What works for one teacher would be very different for another.

And the mentor’s skills are making the programme bespoke to exactly, what that teacher needs. It sounds fascinating and really, really inspiring and it sounds like there are huge strengths around that. 

Is there anything you would do differently? Is there anything that you would change about it?

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah. Well I mean, we've run the training, and the guide role and we're limited in terms of capacity. I could do some things differently when it comes to the programme itself, the bigger programme because, going back to something that you asked me earlier, some mentors also have students mentoring roles and it was too much for them. Apart from that and maybe other small things. 

When it comes to our approach in the guide and training programme, maybe next year we would like to go deeper into the competence framework because we've been informed by that. We've been using it, we've been working with some aspects of that framework which, by the way, one of the items is the use of evidence, as we were discussing just, few minutes ago.  I think this is something that your programme is quite powerful with, and I think we should do more, in-depth, work on the competence framework.

Mark Quinn
There's always a balance there, isn't there? Between having a mentoring programme which is built upon a competency framework, or in our case the early career framework, so that the framework, if you like, drives the mentoring, there’s that side of the equation. The other side of the equation is that the problems of practice and the practice which are actually faced by the novice teacher or the early career teacher should be what drives the mentoring conversation and then the mentor stands in relationship to that to help guide, to help the inquiry take place.

I think you know, if you've got any control over the balance, Cesc, you want to take a good close look at that. But yeah, mentoring for something and about something as opposed as what you'd say, that's where that's where your balance is.

But it is really, really interesting to hear more about how this, and I'm actually fascinated about what might happen next. So obviously you're somewhat dependent on the Catalonian government is somewhat and then upon the financing it will get from the European Union. But I'm thinking about your programme itself because you have a programme and correct me if I'm wrong about how the politics of this works, but as an autonomous region, Catalonia has devolved powers over education, but within a kind of national curriculum context.

That does mean that the different autonomous regions of Spain do have an opportunity to look at each other, to exchange some practice, I suppose, from time to time. Are you getting any interest from other parts of Spain, in your programme, or are you beginning to hear about how a mentorship is beginning to affect teacher development in other parts of Spain?

Cesc Masdeu
First, our primary concern is that this programme is implemented permanently in the Catalan education system. We've run new elections, Catalan elections in May. That wasn't planned. So, we are a bit cautious and we'll see,  if there's, as we hope, some continuation.

What we've learned throughout these two years and what we've been able to see the huge impact it can have. We would like it to expand, we would like this this programme to be replicated in other Spanish regions. I wouldn't say it's our ambition now, but yeah, maybe kind of a wish that some someday this can be replicated and adapted to other regions in Spain. That could be great. Yeah.

Mark Quinn
I'm sure there are elements of the programme which, could be exported to other parts of, well, not just of Spain, but to other places. Maybe those bits which are most dependent on the financing, you know, that very generous allotment of hours, you for mentors and for the novices is the less exportable part, right? Because that does require a huge amount of input financially. 

But the, the ethos of your programme and the kind of the mentoring skills that you've built within your programme, I think that all of that is really exciting. You're right though, you know, walk first, confidently through the streets in Catalonia and get the programme right there. But yeah, I'm sure you'll be looking to expand it beyond,

Cesc Masdeu
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Elaine Long
Yeah, I agree, I think there’s a lot we could, a lot we could learn from you. We're coming to the end of the podcast, and we have a tradition that we give every guest on our podcast a Post-it note. So here is yours on which to write some advice. So, what do you want to write on yours? Who would you like to give it to? You can stick your Post-it note anywhere, on a wall somewhere, on a person's desk, inside someone's notebook or planner, on their forehead, whatever you like. What would you like to do?

Cesc Masdeu
Well, if I had to meet by any chance the Catalan Minister of Education. I would definitely hand it to her because we're starting to face a teacher shortage here in Catalonia and also in Spain. I know you guys in England have been facing this for a long time now.

My advice would be that there's a huge need for an increased investment in education in general, but in professional development programmes and support for novice teachers and also experienced teachers because, the teaching career is so, it's not planned at all. The teaching career consists of, you know, surviving, right? Nothing else, so no development, no benefits from getting training or getting involved in leadership roles. We need to redesign that. Maybe our programme can install this culture of continuous development and support throughout the teaching career.

I don't know, I would ask her to look at our programme and see what we can learn from it because teachers, not only novice teachers, but especially novice teachers, they can feel so isolated, they can feel so lonely, and they need more guidance and support but teachers in general. So that would be the advice.

Mark Quinn
There's a bell ringing in the background, Cesc, that tells us that our time together in the ECF Staffroom is drawing to a close. I think the Minister of Education in Catalonia might be glad that the bell has rung as well, because your list of demands might go on and on and on for her. But I'm sure we'll send a copy of the podcast over to her so she can have a listen as well. 

Mark Quinn
Cesc, I did find that peanut butter cookie, but I really don't know if you still want to eat it, but it's yours if you want it. 

Cesc Masdeu
Thank you. Yeah. 

Mark Quinn
We look forward to seeing you soon, I know we will and in person. Those rays of Barcelona sunshine, I can't wait to enjoy some of those.  It's been a great, great, great pleasure, as always, talking to you, Cesc. Thank you. See you soon.

Cesc Masdeu
The pleasure was mine. It was really, really, really nice, having this conversation with you guys. And thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

Mark Quinn
Our thanks go to Cesc Masdeu for sharing a biscuit with us in the ECF Staffroom.

Elaine Long
Please do get in touch with us if you think you would like to chat about your ECF experience. In the meantime, do join us for a biscuit and a chat with another colleague in the ECF Staffroom.

Mark Quinn
If you've enjoyed this episode, there's more where that came from. Search IOE podcast from wherever you get your podcasts to find episodes of the ECF Staffroom, as well as more podcasts from the IOE.

Elaine Long
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