LearnRadio.Net - A broadcasting platform that reaches anywhere that has an internet connection
LearnRadio.Net is a live Internet radio station created during
the first lockdown to provide a daily interactive learning
experience. We started broadcasting on 20th March 2020 with
a vision to reach children, young people and families in their
homes to help support and scaffold their learning. Our listeners
hear well known authors read from their books. Children then
follow our live writing challenges on our showpage. Uniquely,
no registration or email addresses are required; our Padlets
allow moderated posts to be shown publicly in realtime. It’s a
fast paced format with music tracks and shoutouts playing an
important part for wellbeing.
Last year over 600k listeners joined us and engaged in our
shows. Online-Radio is technically light-weight and can be
enjoyed using older mobile phones with the tiniest amount
of bandwidth. This is perfect for tech-poor households who
possibly do not have access to superfast broadband and the
latest laptop.
We are now a team of educators from across the UK, the two
original founders, Headteacher Ian Rockey in Wiltshire and
broadcaster Russell Prue in Oxfordshire have been joined by
Maria Wojciechowska-Caneda in London and Hazel Pinner in
Orkney.
We have continued our work right the way through to lockdown
3 with our five regular weekly shows that include an after
school book club, educator wellbeing shows with live Yoga and
professional development ideas. We have shows for inspiring
creative educators and a feel good Friday music show. Our
Crafty Cafe shows are on Saturdays; designed to engage and
inspire young creatives with live make-alongs. Pupil voice
and interaction are important elements that run through all of
our shows, with children able to connect and feel a part of the
community.
Children’s mental health and wellbeing have been a primary
concern right from the start and our shows are tailored to support
this through upbeat tracks, familiar voices and opportunities to
get a mention for friends and family, who young people may
not have seen for some time. This fully underpins our ethos of
‘evolution, innovation and connection’ as it highlights how our
shows are ever evolving, particularly throughout lockdown. We
regularly inspire young people to extend their learning. It’s all
part of the validation process and getting that quick win, with
the many elements of success that our shows bring, all going
towards raising self esteem and confidence.
From an educational perspective, we are also evolving to
support the broader curriculum through the introduction
of ‘Bloom’s Taxonomy’. The seeds are sown, and the show
waters those seeds and the listeners grow them, with endless
possibilities for development and enjoyment.
We have recently broadened our focus to take in the Arts, STEM
and Music with our programme output. All of our broadcasts
and showpages are available to enjoy again from our website,
building a huge resource for reference and future use, by
families, educators and colleagues alike. We have a formidable,
deployable solution that does not involve video imagery or
pose any safeguarding risks. LearnRadio also hosts dedicated
shows for specific schools and home users.
Our broadcasting platform reaches anywhere that has an
internet connection. We have even put on a live show to
celebrate a birthday bringing young folks together who have not
been able to meet this year. We are available for commissions
and specific broadcasting projects. At the moment, we’re self
funded and looking for sponsors and supporters to allow us
to continue our valuable work. We have a Radio Academy for
budding radio presenters and podcasters.
Please visit our site LearnRadio.Net where you will find a wealth
of information and every one of our previous shows as a podcast.
LearnRadio.Net
From Engage issue 22.
LearnRadio.Net • September 27, 2021
On Friday evening ( 29 May, 7.00 pm The Actors Church Covent Garden) we had the pleasure of listening to this very special concert, bringing together the Choir of King's College London and the Princeton High School Orchestra in a celebration of international friendship, collaboration, and shared values. This project reflects a commitment to peace, sustainability, equality, and cultural exchange, uniting young musicians from the United Kingdom and the United States through the universal language of music.
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity.
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here
