We conclude the series by meeting the four teachers who were presented with their Teachers Inspire award for 2023 at a special event in DCU in May.

For our penultimate episode we talk to Joyce Abbott, a teacher who inspired a student to name a hit TV series, set in a school, after her!

Louise is joined by two teachers on the Teacher Fellowship Programme to tell her why they applied , what they enjoy about it and what they will take back to their classrooms

To discuss why there are so many more women than men picking teaching as a career, particularly in primary school, Louise is joined by Dr Alan Gorman who is Assistant Professor in the School of Policy and Practice lecturer in DCU Institute of Education.

For the final time in this series we meet one of the 2022 Teachers Inspire awardees and the parent who nominated her.

DCU is unique when it comes to autism because in 2018, it became the world's first designated autism-friendly university and plans were announced last year to make it an even friendlier campus for autistic staff and students with the launch of phase two of the autism-friendly project.

The teenage years bring challenges for all young people. For this episode Louise is joined by Jacob Donegan who by the age of six knew he was not in the right body.

Louise is joined by Drs Kay Maunsell and Leanne Coll who, with their DCU colleagues, deliver a ground breaking Graduate Diploma in SPHE/RSE.

2022 awardee Ruairi Farrell on his nomination and the role teachers can have in a student’s life.

Her memoir ‘Poor” has been a bestseller for months, it has won two awards in recent weeks and in this episode Dr Katriona O’Sullivan joins Louise to talk about the teachers at primary and second level that she has never forgotten.

Free play and fun, Lego and Barbie all get a mention in this fascinating discussion Louise has with Prof Hamsa Venkat, the Naughton Family Chair in Early Years/Primary STEM education in DCU.

Two secondary school principals join Louise to discuss one of the big questions for parents, and students, when it comes to selecting a secondary school.

There is no better way to start the 2023 podcast series than with one of our most recent awardees.

For the final episode of this series the podcast comes to you from DCU, the home of Teachers Inspire. A special event was held there for the four teachers who are our Teachers Inspire awardees for this year at which Louise presented them with their award. The teachers are Gemma Maher from County Dublin, Joe McAndrew from County Mayo, Jennifer Hutton from County Carlow and Ruairi Farrell from County Wicklow. Gemma and Jennifer were nominated by a parent while Joe and Ruairi were nominated by a former student. For this episode they tell Louise what it means to them to have been nominated and the positive impact the awards have.

In this episode, Professor Mathias Urban, Desmond Chair of Early Childhood Educate and Director of the Early Childhood Research Centre at DCU is Louise’s guest. He talks about DCU’s decision to use a donation from Mr. Dermot Desmond to set up the only dedicated research centre at university level in Ireland that looks at questions around early childhood from an interdisciplinary angle.

In this episode Louise is joined by Dr Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, an Assistant Professor in the School of Mathematics & Statistics at UCD. Dr Ní Shúilleabháin talks about her love of education and how she did not initially set out to be a teacher.

In this episode Louise hears about a unique programme that DCU offers student teachers at primary and secondary level. Professor Deirdre Butler from the school of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies tells Louise the programme, “is actually globally unique.”

This episode looks at DCU’s Changemaker Schools Network which is a collaborative, professional, learning network of 19 primary schools from all over the island of Ireland who are creating systemic change in education. Louise hears from Fiona Collins, the network coordinator.

Every year Teachers Inspire receives nominations that continue to remind us of the role teachers can play and how sometimes a single sentence or suggestion can make a powerful impact. In this episode, Louise introduces us to two of the nominators.

DCU Alumni can be found around the globe and in this episode Louise is joined by two who remain deeply committed to education.

Celebrating the influence and impact teachers have had on their students is at the heart of Teachers Inspire. Louise’s guest for this episode is Professor Anne Looney, Executive Dean of DCU’s Institute of Education.

It is thirty years since DCU set up it’s Centre for Talented Youth Ireland for children who are high achievers. We hear from a student who has done a number of the courses and Louise chats to Colm O’Reilly, Director of CTY Ireland.

Louise talks to Rob O'Hanrahan, Dublin about when and why he nominated his English teacher and, Elaine Murray, now living in New Zealand explains why she nominated her teacher from Drogheda.

The importance of wellbeing and mental health feature in this episode where Louise hears about an inspirational teacher who made a huge difference to a 6th year student.

A love of reading and the pleasure, and benefits, of reading to children feature in this episode of the Teachers Inspire podcast.