Wolverhampton teacher hails pupils' success as their podcast is up for second global award
Winning another award for a special school's podcast would help in "breaking down the barriers and stereotypes" associated with autism, a Wolverhampton teacher has said.
The TWS Sports Podcast, run by students at Tettenhall Wood School, has been nominated for 'Best Equality and Social Impact' at the worldwide Sports Podcast Awards.
The podcast is hosted by Jacob Graves, Thomas Watkins and Alyssa Dunn, and sees different sporting stars interviewed every week, including Harry Redknapp and Conor Coady.
Their efforts have been praised by outreach teacher Adam Millichip, who helps to run the podcast, who has seen their social skills grown since its launch in May 2021.
He said: "Something the children struggle with is social skills, so we thought it would be a way to help them and do something fun.
"If you listen to the very first episode and the latest season, you can see the growth in them. When it started, it was very much a robotic conversation, whereas now it's more of a free-flowing back-and-forth, so it's about having those conversation skills and making it more natural.
"We've been to amazing stadiums, met some amazing people and that's something the students would never have done years ago. When we started they relied a lot on me and if they didn't know what to say they would look at me and hope I would jump in but now I just sort of sit and watch."
The teenagers at the Regis Road school previously took home first-place at the awards last year, competing against organisations like the BBC.
Mr Millichip, aged 31, from Wolverhampton, added: "It's unbelievable - first of all to be shortlisted for an award last year, we never thought we would see it with multi-million pound podcasts being nominated.
"Then to be shortlisted and to have the possibility of winning again is just unbelievable. It would show the students and the school that all their hard work is being noticed and listened to and it would spread the message of autism.
"Quite often on the podcast the students will talk about their autism and we encourage people to send in questions about it for us to answer, so it's about breaking down the barriers and stereotypes and to share autism in the public eye.
"It helps people to be aware and to accept autism because I think every person probably knows someone who is autistic so it's important to spread that positive message."
People can vote for the TWS Podcast by visiting sportspodcastgroup.com/shortlist-category.
