Shows
The Crafted Conversation#27 - Simon Woodward - What is the real purpose of physical education? And why so many get it wrong.In this deeply grounded conversation, Marcus speaks with Simon Woodward, Head of Sport Sciences & Curriculum PE at Oakham School, about the role of emotionally intelligent leadership in shaping high-expectation, high-safety environments.
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Marcus and Simon explore everything from classroom routines to coaching identity, to philosophical stance of core physical education curriculum design.
This episode is a masterclass in professional presence, where compassion doesn’t compromise standards, and care is expressed through consistency, not convenience.
🔑 Key Messages:
Leadership is love and clarit...
2025-07-3052 minThe Crafted Conversation#26 Adam Clark - What is Coaching? Is football overcomplicating itself?In this episode, Marcus speaks with Adam Clark—coach developer, grassroots advocate, and National League South assistant manager with Slough Town FC, about the purpose of coaching, and the evolution of football thinking.
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From defining what the “game” truly is, to the value of simplicity over jargon, this is a conversation about doing the work that matters, without fanfare. Together, they reflect on player-centred coaching, learning identity, and how coaches grow through honest, humble practice.
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“If we can’t define the game, how can we help peopl...
2025-07-2336 min
The Athlete Development ShowREBROADCAST: The Crafted Conversation | What coaches are not acknowledging in developing young athletes!?This episode is a rebroadcast of episode #25 of The Crafted Conversation with Marcus Sharrad. Enjoy. ---In this expansive conversation, Dr Craig Harrison invites us to rethink the purpose and practice of youth development. It’s not about designing perfect athletes, but about crafting safe, playful, expressive environments where young people can explore who they are, not just what they can do.Marcus and Craig explore the ecological complexity of performance, the importance of letting go of control, and the centrality of coaching the person before the plan....
2025-07-1756 minThe Crafted ConversationEpisode #25 - Dr Craig Harrison - What coaches are not acknowledging in developing young athletes!?Follow The Crafted Concept on Instagram
Episode Summary
In this expansive conversation, Dr Craig Harrison invites us to rethink the purpose and practice of youth development. It’s not about designing perfect athletes, but about crafting safe, playful, expressive environments where young people can explore who they are, not just what they can do.
Marcus and Craig explore the ecological complexity of performance, the importance of letting go of control, and the centrality of coaching the person before the plan.
From storytelling and psychological safety to mentorship and emotional literacy, this episode is a masterclass in...
2025-07-1655 minThe Crafted Conversation#24 Steve Morison - Manager - Sutton United FCEpisode Summary:
Steve Morison's insight is forged in the lived experiences of dressing rooms, personal reinvention, and the acute awareness that what you model matters more than what you say.
This conversation with Marcus goes beyond tactics and into the human science of performance. The CRAFT of performance. It’s a masterclass in leading from the inside-out.
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🔁 Core Principles:
1. Freedom is Built, Not Given
Steve reframes freedom not as lack of structure, but as something earned through clarity, automation, and trust.
“If they know what th...
2025-07-091h 02The Crafted Conversation#23 Dr Sally Needham - The Intersection Between Performance & Neurochemistry🧠 Episode Summary
Dr Sally Needham brings a lens rarely discussed in high-performance coaching: phsyco-social-emotional state for performance.
From early years to elite teams, her philosophy is grounded in polyvagal theory, neuroception, and somatic coherence — or, as she puts it,
“getting the nervous system in the room before the thinking.”
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Throughout the conversation, she and Marcus explore:
How breath, tone, posture, and presence shape safety and readiness
The role of co-regulation in learning, leadership, and change
Why learning...
2025-07-0255 minThe Crafted ConversationEpisode #22 John Mackenzie - Assistant Head of Cocurriculum - The Grammar School at Leeds
John Mackenzie - Assistant Head of Cocurriculum - The Grammar School at Leeds
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"To build performance, we have to start with the person."
This conversation with John McKenzie offers more than insight into coaching; it's a portrait of character-led leadership.
✨ Crafted Concept Takeaway
This episode reminds us that great coaching starts with curiosity, not control. That growth is about relationship, not routine. And that in elite performance, the margins aren’t always technical – they’re human.
"Crafted performance is the product of...
2025-06-2551 minThe Crafted ConversationEpisode #21 - Martyn Bowles - Head of Coaching Walsall FCMartyn Bowles is the Head of Coaching at Walsall FC, a League Two professional football team who lost in the Playoff Final this summer, narrowly missing a chance to head into League One.
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Martyn believes in coaching like a great teacher believes in teaching — with structure, warmth, and a deep understanding of people.
His approach reveals a blueprint for coaching beyond instruction. It’s not ability and coaching experience that drives his values at Walsall FC, but predictable routines, reflective questions, and the courage to build from care.
If...
2025-06-181h 02The Crafted ConversationEpisode #20 Joe Quinn - Head of Rugby - Dulwich College"If you're not coaching character, you're just running drills."
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In this episode, Marcus sits down with Joe Quinn, Head of Rugby at Dulwich College, to explore the tension and alignment between teaching, coaching, and leadership in school sport. The conversation is loaded with real-world wisdom, reflecting how performance coaching can be both technically excellent and deeply human.
Joe makes it clear: great coaching doesn’t pick between developing the player or the person. It does both—at once. Marcus opens space to explore how purposeful session design builds not j...
2025-06-1041 minThe Crafted ConversationSports Coaches: Two Easy Instructional Strategies To Change Your CoachingMarcus discusses the processes of "Think, Pair, Share" and "Checking for Understanding" as two instructional strategies which can transform player/athlete engagement and a coach's live feedback on player/athlete learning.
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2025-02-2423 minThe Crafted ConversationStorytelling for PerformanceStorytelling is an art and not one just for authors and television writers!
Discover how drawing on story and narrative structure can help form performance identities in your environment...
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2025-02-2424 minThe Crafted ConversationStatements as a Means of Measuring LearningIn this solo episode, Marcus discusses the concept of offering statements within the Learning Design in elite sport settings. Statements are a powerful alternative to questions, which allow athletes/learners to demonstrate what they know via retrieval of prior knowledge, elaboration to context, and encoding new information as a more powerful memory trace.
Statements also remove judgement because there is no need to seek a "correct" response.
Instead of:
"how can our system create space out wide?"
We exchange for:
"our system allows us to create space in wide areas. Discuss."
...
2025-02-0419 minThe Crafted ConversationSolo Episode - Questions ??
In this episode Marcus discusses the importance of one of the most underrated tools in the leader/instructors toolkit: questions.
By making questioning a habit, leaders and instructors can:
Start by embracing curiosity and asking "Why?" often.
Move to "What if?" to explore alternatives.
Finally, ask "How?" to take action.
By adopting this approach, individuals and organisations can become more innovative, empathetic, and effective in problem-solving.
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2025-01-2628 minThe Crafted ConversationSolo Episode: How Deep Is Your Processing?!In this solo episode, Marcus delves into the concept of "processing". Imagine the Apple rainbow pinwheel or the Windows egg-timer of old as your device takes time to "think". To process. This is human learning. Our brain's require levels of processing in order to more deeply encode information into our long-term memory...
Drawing on the seminal works of Craick and Lockhart, Marcus considers these levels of processing.
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2025-01-0829 minThe Crafted ConversationDan Crossman - The Realities of Delivering Primary School EducationDan Crossman is the Headteacher of Marlborough St. Mary's primary school.
Dan has a varied and interesting CV in primary education, where he trained and taught in London before moving back into Wiltshire. Dan became a Head early in his career at a small village primary school, and has been the Headteacher of Marlborough St. Mary's for three years. Under his leadership the school has altered its strategic priorities and made significant impacts in KS1 phonics and reading outcomes.
Dan acts in a coaching and mentoring role within the County supporting and facilitating growth in...
2025-01-0850 minThe Crafted ConversationSolo Episode: Pupil/Athlete "Voice & Choice"In this solo episode, Marcus explores the important role of pupil/athlete voices as an empowering mechanism to offer agency; and choices to demonstrate value in their individual and collective competence.
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2024-11-2623 minThe Crafted ConversationDavid Webb - Georgia National Football Assistant CoachDavid Webb is the Georgia national football team assistant coach, supporting their much-documented run in the Euro 2024 tournament, beating Portugal to progress from the group stage and, despite going 1-0 up, losing out to the champions, Spain.
In a wide ranging conversation, Marcus questions David around the Crafted Concepts of:
applying his trade a a coach, and thus teacher, in in international setting
what elite learning looks like at the pinnacle of international sport
how classroom learning and curriculum play their part
identity and culture in group dynamics with limited contact time
the important topic of...
2024-11-101h 12The Crafted ConversationThe Deliberate Cultivation of CharacterIn this episode, Marcus explores the impact of a deliberate and thoughtful approach to building character development into an elite sport or educational curriculum.
This is drawn from the University of Birmingham Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues' excellent foundation of research and application of four pillars of virtues:
Civic
Moral
Intellectual
Performance
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2024-11-0726 minThe Crafted ConversationWhen Learning Design Fails To Inspire Learning!In this week's episode, Marcus explores the concept of Learning Design choices which unintentionally fail to inspire any learning. This all hinges on seminal research by Clark (1989) where a meta-analysis of research where control groups outperformed research groups in learning.
The focus is all on scaffolding, or its deliberate absence...
Keynote Educational are the partner of The Crafted Conversation.
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2024-10-3026 minThe Crafted ConversationReflections: Physical Education & Sport ConferenceIn this week's episode, Marcus summarises his keynote speech at the Physical Education & Sport conference held in London last week, hosted by Keynote Educational. The focus is on The Crafted Concept's core pillars:
Learning Environment
Learning Design
Learning Critique
The second half of the podcast focuses on the question and answer session recorded live at the event for delegates to question Marcus and fellow presenter Chris Dossett, guest on last week's Crafted Conversation.
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2024-10-2241 minThe Crafted ConversationChris Dossett (Part 1) - Lessons in Leadership & Learning: Sport & PE in SchoolsChris Dossett is the Chair of the Professional Association for Directors of Sport in Independent Schools (PADSIS). Having worked in school physical education and sport leadership roles throughout his career, Chris's mission now is to help make the job easier and more enjoyable for those in post.
A self-confessed ever-learner, Chris brings his practical and experiential lens to this conversation, where Marcus challenges the themes he observes in the most successful physical activity providing schools.
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2024-10-1442 minThe Crafted ConversationBradley Busch - Illuminating Learning Science for Performance
"Our craft at Inner Drive is to illuminate research and make it accessible"
Marcus is joined by Bradley Busch, Director at Inner Drive and Chartered Psychologist. Bradley's career has seen him work as a psychologist in elite sporting environments and as a lecturer. His current mission is to make cognitive science and educational & cognitive psychology accessible to instructors to inform practice and enhance learning.
This conversation focuses mainly on elite sport, and ranges from:
cognitive biases
sports psychology
what science tells us about how people learn
building a curriculum of learning
Check out...
2024-10-0640 minThe Crafted ConversationElaboration for Deeper LearningIn this solo episode, Marcus explores the cognitive process of elaboration for deeper learning in the classroom and in the sporting arena.
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2024-09-3018 minThe Crafted ConversationSandro Di Michele - Exploring Performance: Metrics vs. Interpersonal SkillSandro Di Michele is the Sportsbook Director for William Hill Racing. Marcus was Sandro's Performance Coach as the Sporting Director for Swindon Town FC. Here, Marcus delves into Sandro's expertise in data analysis, juxtaposed by the uniquely human skill to connect.
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2024-09-2244 minThe Crafted ConversationAutonomy and Safety for PerformanceInstructional environments hinge on the success of teaching & learning. Marcus explores this week's Crafted Concept, offering insight into the deliberate creation of safe environments where pupil/athlete agency is actively promoted.
2024-09-1422 minThe Crafted ConversationJonathan Mumford: Motivating adolescent boys in education and exploration of feedback methodsJonathan has a wide reaching experiential background in education which has given him the opportunity to explore pupil motivation through the lens of Modern Foreign Languages teacher, middle leader, school improvement consultant, trainee teacher tutor, and professional development speaker. This has led to some interesting insights.
The conversation then pivots towards explorative methods of pupil feedback which dovetail with pupil motivation.
2024-07-2153 minThe Crafted ConversationStephen Belding - Chat GTP: What is it? Why should I use it? How can it inform my teaching practice?Dr. Stephen Belding is Head of Chemistry at Rugby School, with a vested interest in generative AI. In this case, we explore the what, why and how or Chat GTP, which exploded onto the educational scene in early 2023 and changed the landscape forever. Sometimes, the future just appears...
2024-07-2159 minThe Crafted ConversationKatharine Radice: Managing Examination Stress: A Practical GuideKatharine Radice will publish her practical guide to speaking to, approaching, and supporting pupil exam stressors on The Bloomsbury Education List in 2025. This Crafted Conversation explores the practicalities Katharine has unearthed in her research and deep dive into exam stress and pupil anxiety.
2024-07-2146 min