Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode
of Teach, Sleep, Repeat. My name is Dylan and my name is
Hayden. This is gonna be an unhinged
episode by the Can't Wait for it, Guys, welcome back.
Hope you're happy. Whether you're on the way back
from school because you're in Australia listening, whether
you're on your way to school because you're in the UK
listening, or whether you're asleep right now you're in
America. Or listening at any time other
than the precise moment we released.
It yeah, because this is not a radio show.
You can assist whenever you want.
Guys, how you doing? Hope you're well.
Hayden, are you OK? Yeah, I'm just thinking about
our listeners in 20-30. Wow, what's life like now for
you Right into us? Let us know.
Weird. Are we both still teaching
bloody? I'm not. 2030 Crikey.
I don't wanna think about 2013. Be way too old for teaching.
Then I was thinking about it earlier, 10 years ago.
I was probably deciding to go into teaching scaring them.
Yeah, well, what I've achieved in 10 years, I'm slightly better
at teaching maths. You lost a bit weight recently,
so that's good. Yeah, that's good because I
don't have listeners. I don't know.
I don't actually. I don't actually know listeners
out there. How many of you?
Are occurring. We have listened to.
Be honest. How many?
Wherever We just get like a new few 100 every time we do an
episode or their brand new people.
I don't know how this works. Yeah, but we did do a New Year's
resolution at the start of the year.
For me it was the night sugar. For Hayden, it was to do some
kind of fasting diet, absolute fat of a diet, but to pretend
that it was going to work for him.
How did that work out for you? Uh, I'm pretty good, yeah.
Yeah, didn't. And for anyone who's interested,
it's the 9th of March and I still not eating any sugar in
terms of additional additional sugar and I'm looking great for
it. Yeah.
And Hayden, you are looking yourself.
Thank you. That's really kind of you.
It's funny because obviously I spent a lot of time with Dylan.
And do you? Yeah.
And he has all. This is good.
This is a good thing. But it is funny to see how.
Depressed. This is good.
Because you replaced the sugar without the food, obviously,
just to make out. And every, I reckon, every
single time. I've seen you in the day.
And it's not just to record the podcast.
You've done like lunch or whatever.
Yeah, you've eaten a pint of grapes every time.
Whole. Great friends about this because
grapes are renowned as the most sugary possible fruit.
You eat the whole lot. That's my vice in terms of I
reckon that I eat. I've stopped recently because I
thought I also shouldn't be doing that, but it is natural.
But I reckon I averaged 2 punnets of grapes a week.
Ohh. Yeah, because I tend to only you
tend to see me when I have them because we go to the shop for
dinner for lunch or something. But I've started to drink a
drink called Kefir. This is a health podcast now.
By the way, guys, don't you know about your gut microbiome?
Because I'll be very honest, my some of my friends obviously
listen. To this Ohh anyway, moving on
you know. We have a group chat with my
friends and they're just a bit obsessed at the minute with like
eating clean and helping your gut microbiome.
And not don't eat bread from the shop guys don't eat bread from
the shop. That's not food.
James. James.
James is real real 1 James real from the financial planning you
see in the group chat. Group chat.
Ohh, yeah. No, but he's not someone who's
pushing the whole. No, no, no.
Now it's busy financially planning.
Exactly. It's really well as well.
So if anyone wants any financial planning, yeah, cause James And
that's funny. But anyway, yeah, so I was OK,
I'll try it out. It's good for the gut
microbiome, don't you know? I don't.
I do now, yeah. You told me three times.
You know it's also good for the gut microbiome, 17 cream eggs
being today. Brilliant.
And also not pulling this wire that's connected.
Sorry, not do that. Anyway, anyway, how you been?
How's your? Week.
Yeah, lovely. You.
Fantastic. By the way, if you're listening
to this, do you actually like it when we sit and chat about all
week or do you do you skip past it and you might even hear this?
Or do you just get for it because you're like when honest
to God, one of these guys gonna stop talking about that week.
Don't care. Go on to the.
Episode. No one cares, I reckon.
My gut feeling I'm quite. Insecure.
You've got. You've got microbiome.
My my massive gut feeling is that is that people don't care,
but I'm quite insecure about that because I just think, why
would anyone? Care.
I think mine goes all the way back to there are people
listening every week. What?
We're just two teachers? Who?
They're just two dudes. Get on the microphone, man.
We start talking, man, about stuff we want to change, man.
We're gonna change the world, man.
Wow. How's your weekend?
Yeah, it's been good. So a couple of things.
I'll be quicker this time. Yeah, right.
It's weird because you said you don't care.
You have prepared a whole thing about the week I've.
Prepared it. I don't think anyone will want
to know. OK.
Well forming. Quick thing ready First thing
child update River is now rolling a.
Lot you got daughter. Yeah, I've got a daughter.
You got new house, didn't you? River is now rolling a lot and
she has now decided that she likes sleeping on her front.
She's nearly four months old, very, very anxiety inducing
because every time I look, I go and see her sleeping.
She's on her front face down and I'm just like, oh God, is she
breathing? So that's quite scary.
But other than that, she's really cute.
Just. Crying about, you know, a good
hack for that is as a baby. Yeah, make a baby so big that
they don't like running over anyway.
We've got experience in that. Yeah.
Yeah, that's it. That's it really for me.
One more thing, but we'll talk about it together.
So how's your week? Five weeks.
Absolutely fine. We have been decorating house as
anyone who knows I did gave we we gave birth to a new house and
just after we bought our first child and we've now actually
started decorating process. We've had plasters in and stuff.
It's all coming together. It's a bit annoying.
We're living like a we live. It's basically like living on
the set of June 2. You know our house just dust
everywhere. You've been busy.
Yeah. I don't know if you don't have
anyone knows who watches the video version, but I have been
painting into like a bodybuilder.
Yeah, do like a little bit of a pose.
Yeah, nice little bit of paint. Yeah, So again, I I don't have
anyone else feels like this. Maybe it's a man thing.
I think. I think it's a man thing.
Yeah, done that. It's 95% of artists is gone.
I think it's a man thing because I've watched all the things
being done on the House with DIY stuff.
Hmm. So like Lawrence's really good
at just anything in the house. Should be builder.
Yeah, we we've got someone who come who's came in and did all
the plastering and basically built like a media wall for
right, So we can put our TV in our new fireplace and stuff like
that. And I feel really like
insignificant and just rubbish at stuff because I've got no
those none of those skills that you've tried it with like a dad,
like a dad can put. Like a picture frame the
generation. Yeah, I know, but it annoys me.
It's like the toilets broken. An archetypal that would just
nip in and fix it, You know, like, honestly, I've got
nothing. And so I I just got more and
more annoyed at this process is going on.
Yeah, and because we got these professionals in to do stuff,
which is fine, but it does cost money.
And I know it's good, but it's like, oh, well, I I should be
able to do something myself. What can I do?
So, so I've been painting the toilet, right?
Today. I swear to God, it's the worst
paint job you've ever seen from anyone.
And it took me forever. It was crap.
And at the end of it, I was just like, cool.
I'll just end up paying want to fix this anyway because it's
just crap everywhere. Just leave it a bit of time to
get your pride, your pride, then just pay someone to do.
Basically, I just feel right. I feel the same.
I do feel because we don't have a lot of our listeners, a lot of
female listeners, but we do have a bloke base as well.
I'd be interested to know because I think it's a
generational thing. I don't know if people just
gravitate to people like themselves, right?
But I feel like all of my male friends, at least the vast
majority, are very similar in terms of they have a specialised
skill in whatever their job is, but they're not very good at.
I'm certainly not very good at doing those DIY things.
I wanna fix something. I'm I don't know how to do that.
No, I'm cack handed. But a door slightly off Lauren's
dad would have the door off the hinges.
Yeah, and I feel like every man in that generation, or like my
granddad, Oh my God, he just go round his house and he's like,
yeah, built the whole thing. Would you build the whole thing?
I can't even. Put what was your job?
I was a policeman. Yeah, he was a policeman.
Yeah, I know. That's what I said.
It was just get it. Why did they learn these skills?
Because I don't. I don't know.
Maybe. Maybe they weren't playing
rescue for seven hours. A day, Yeah.
Yeah. They didn't have computers.
That's the difference, isn't it? Yeah, it's it annoys me and it's
it's frustrating and you've got to swallow your pride, Even
learned to do it or solely pride.
And there's only one way you can get good at stuff, which I'm
really crap at doing by the way because if I'm not good at it
immediately, I'm like, well, there's no point doing it then
because I'm not good at it. But the only way to get good is
to do it crap a few times. Exactly.
Yeah. So it's just a constant cycle
of. Alba, Anyway, we did it again.
We waffled on about stuff no one cares about.
So we finish off Mother's Day. Yeah.
So if you're listening, If you are listening when we release.
In the UK it's mother's. Day in the UK.
It was Mother's Day yesterday, and it's a special one really.
Us. Because we're mothers.
We're mothers. Now, first time mothers maybe?
Obviously. Is it like Father's Day when all
the moms get cards saying well done for being the father, see
that online? No that's just joke.
At the minute I'm, I'm, I'm honestly not involved because I
have children. Ohh, You're the means of like on
Father's Day. Yeah.
And there's a lot of like people like Happy Father's Day to all
the mums out there. And it's like the idea is
because they're single mums and they kind of do.
Do we get that? Tomorrow.
No, of course not. Because we're not doing both
roles. That's the point.
That's the point, you idiot. I think I have.
No idea. But it's a special one for us
because obviously we've we've had our children recently, so
it's the first Mother's Day for our gals, which is quite.
Nice. Yeah, got much planned.
Nah, nothing. Same.
Yeah. Anyway, should we move on to
the? Episode.
I expect a Living Father's Day card, though when it gets there,
there's a lot. There's a.
Lot of days I was getting my hair cut this morning and I was
chatting to the Barber and again it is lovely, but there's a lot
of days in the calendar, isn't it Valentine's Day, Mother's
Day, Just have a birthday get. Over it, Lauren's birthday,
Valentine's Day and Mother's Day are all within one month.
Yeah, I kind of used up all my cards.
You want me to trump? Yeah, go on my mum's birthday.
Hmm. Her anniversary and Mother's Day
when it happened were one day after the other.
Ohh, three in a row. So every year they're roughly
the same point. Today it was my mum's birthday
on Thursday. Also International Women's Day.
Shout to the women out there, but today, which is Saturday, is
their wedding anniversary and Mother's Day is tomorrow.
Are you expected to like do something?
For their let me let me just. I'm glad.
You asked because I've never ever even been involved in
someone else's. Anniversary.
Because this is a great thing for the podcast, because I will
never understand it when when two people decide to get married
and get annoyed and expect other people to celebrate it for them.
Nothing to do with me, nothing to congratulations as what I'll
say. Yeah.
Well, it's my wedding anniversary today.
Is it? Yeah, I got no of course it
isn't nothing. Is that actually a thing or is
it just your. It is.
I think it is. I think it is.
You have to you have to tell us like never heard of it.
It's it's an anniversary between two people were, apparently.
Involved You celebrate it your it's like an internal.
There's a reason I'm not We're married.
Yeah. Can't be bothered.
Well, it sounds like you get a lot of gifts though.
Pick your date. Right.
Well, yeah, Might do that. Yeah.
Doubt my birthday. Yeah.
Double up, baby. Yeah.
But it's good for my mum because again, she would have got her
stuff by now. But two reasons why it's good we
can lump all everything in together and just get something
for both. And also my sister's arrange it
and I just do a bank transfer. Fantastic.
That's amazing. That's the benefit, isn't it,
Sisters? She's also arranged for Mother's
Day. So it looks like I've done it.
I get the kudos because we're having dinner here.
My sister is arranged that and bringing the food.
Brilliant job. I'm gonna.
I'm gonna trump you once more. Go on, Lawrence ordered her own
Mother's Day gifts. From me Ohh no now.
She said, I don't know if you've seen anything for Mother's Day,
but I've seen something I like, right?
And I was like, that's what I wanna hear.
Thank you. Yeah.
And she she bought herself some stuff and just basically just
told me how much it costs. Now we really have put off our
female listeners there thinking, you idiots.
No, no, because I was gonna. No.
We've done loads for our partners and stuff, and anyone
who doesn't know, you have to listen, have a podcast.
But the point is, I was obviously gonna get something,
but it would have been crap compared to she wanted this
thing. Yeah, she found this thing and
she wanted it and I was very grateful.
I was just quickly end with the thing I got because you you know
roughly what I got earlier because I used you to cover.
So I got Dylan to. I needed to go out today,
Saturday, it's Mother's Day tomorrow when we're recording
this and I needed to pick up something and pick up or get
well pick it up because I rang them first and I'm saying I need
to find a time to actually go there and get this.
It's just a gift. Did you enjoy the gift card?
And I said Dylan, I need you to message the group chat and say
that you need my help lifting something so I could get out of
the house because I can't be a lawyer attached right now.
I can't get away from it without being suspicious.
So anyway, Long story short, I went to get her.
This is short. Short short, short, short, I
hear. Voucher, I love the long, right?
Yeah, that sort of stuff. Obviously I'm not someone very
experienced with hairdressing. Do you go to the barbers,
actually? Where the jokes?
The lady There, I said. I said cool.
Are you women? This is pricey for you, isn't
it? It's not like standing over a
bath and shaving your head. And she didn't get my joke.
It was really awkward. Then just silence of like, OK
and I had to clarify. I'm talking about me.
I'm bored still. Didn't laugh, still didn't
laugh. I know, Yeah.
Really awkward. She just thought, yeah.
Anyway, so I went this preconception of like maybe like
a £50 voucher. Because I know.
Because I know women's. Haircuts are more expensive.
When he quit. Yeah. 24 was like women's, at
least double. I know that.
I get that.
I was like, she said, oh, you know how much you wanna put on
it. And I was looking at the menu of
the stuff they do as if that means anything to me.
Literally, like a balayage, Please.
I don't know. Yeah, just like something where
she can be here for an hour or two and just have a whole hair
dyed or something if she wants or not.
I don't know, just something that will cover that.
She's like £100. You wouldn't have to pay too
much more. Sorry.
What? 100 lbs?
I was like, yeah, I did that. And we wouldn't have to pay
much, much more. So I have My eyes were open
today for that. Yeah, the price of women's hair
care. Crikey.
Yeah. Crazy, right?
Thanks for that, guys. 30 minutes of nonstop entertainment
there. None.
We said it'd be unhinged at the start.
I did. It wasn't upset.
Change mean Boring. Just that.
What that? Means why do we do this?
Anyway, should we play the dingo and get chatting about something
to do Education. I don't know.
What the plan this week. You've seen the title?
Well, we'll find out. In a minute haven't.
We interrupt this podcast to bring your message from our
sponsor at TCC Repeat Podcast on Instagram.
Hayden have you ever wondered what it's like to follow someone
on Instagram who's quite funny and keeps their finger on the
pulse? Yes.
Well, wonder no more, because you can simply follow us on
Instagram. Ohh wow how?
You can go to Instagram and you can search, teach, sleep, repeat
podcast. You will get memes, you will get
news, and you'll get the occasional story from Dylan when
he decides to do one every now and.
Then wow, can I find out what you guys do for 13 minutes every
time as well? No.
Ohh great. I'll follow straight.
Away now and leave us a five star review at all.
Platforms you're heading? Yeah mate, that was weird.
Sponsor. That was a weird one.
We decided to sponsor ourselves this week because we're not
getting money anyway because we switched out from other our
other three sponsor. Yeah, let's not mention him
again. No, let's not mention, James,
any financial planning anymore. So before we get into it, we are
going to talk this week about kind of leads on from last week
what teachers expect from children to do at home and what
we think would be good for children to do at home in terms
of their learning. Because last week we talked
about where's the line as a teacher in school.
And I thought it'd be really cool to kind of push some
buttons because it's a bit of a topic that gets people riled up.
And when teachers expect stuff to happen at home, we've
obviously done a whole episode about homework as you remember
him. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Remember that. Remember last week?
All I know from last week is people got annoyed because I was
very indecisive. Over it, all right.
Honestly, the amount of messages I got from people like can
Hayden just decide please so that we can moan him being
wrong? Reflecting live on the podcast.
But before we go any further, I we have to mention this, I did a
real about Gillian Keegan. For anyone who doesn't know,
Gillian Keegan is the Education Secretary of the UK.
She is in charge of the Department for Education.
She's been in the job for quite a while now.
When we think about how long people are usually in this kind
of job in this country, it's not very long because it's so
unstable. And and you got to remember the
context here of we've been striking for almost like a year,
right. And there's balloting again for
extra strikes in the UK because she's wanting to give teachers
an A 1% pay rise, like just unacceptable after everything
happened. Anyway, she's on the stage
talking about education. She talks about Ofsted, right.
And she said the fact there's two parts to this.
The first part was she mentioned she went into a school recently
and the school told her about their experience of Ofsted and
she said she was shocked because the, the, the inspector was so
rude. And I honestly, when I was when
I was watching, I was like what you're you're you're shocked She
in in March 2024 she was shocked when her school said they had a
bad experience with. No.
What? What have you been doing?
Do we role play? You're right.
You come into my school, OK? Yeah.
Hi, Gillian. Hi.
Fantastic school.
Thank you. I think it's brilliant.
And I saw no, you've been out Ofsted, you've got good reason.
Yeah, we did. Wanted to talk to you about now
because I know we did get a good rating and obviously.
You know, all the life and as we surely education minister, you
know all about that kind of thing.
Yeah. And I just thought I'd give you
up perspective because we had Ofsted and to be honest.
It was good. Yeah, well, they said good at
the end. But the the experience, the
whole process, it was actually really bad.
They were really, they were really quite rude.
Bad. Yeah, rude.
Yeah. Offset.
Yeah, yeah. I don't know.
Yeah, you seem. Shocked.
They've what? Well, they said they was good.
They're obviously I've not heard.
Sorry. I'm gonna get my PR guy.
Yeah, we've had a bad Ofsted experience.
Yeah, no, I know. It's not normally like that.
No, it is. That's what I'm kind of.
I will do something about that. Well, you're going on stage
soon, so I was thinking. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was
just thinking. Yeah, OK, cool.
Anyway, that's what happened. And then so she mentioned that
she was shocked. Very, very.
I was just like, I almost. I was in despair.
I was like, all right, forget that.
It's what she said. After that was even funnier
because I thought, OK, she's the education secretary, maybe she's
just setting herself up to be like, yeah, sure, it was bad.
And then go on to say some constructive feedback as to what
she's going to do about it, as the person literally in charge
or some ideas of where we go from.
There, which I imagine is exactly what she did.
And it's better, yeah. To, I guess from her
perspective, pretend like she didn't know was rather than be
like, yeah, we've known it's been bad for three years and now
I feel like doing something about it to be like, yeah, I've
now suddenly alert. And because I've now aware of
this, I'm of course gonna action this straight away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously.
And that that I I can understand that politically, especially if
she went on to say some really constructive stuff.
Yeah, she didn't know because all she said was I was really
shocked. And to be quite honest, I would
have punched them in the face. OK.
Is that her advice? That's what we should.
Do. And that was it.
Yeah, she did. She would have punched him in
the. Face was that not followed up?
Ohh. No, that followed the
interviewer said, Ohh, we are recording this.
And she went, Oh yeah, well, as you know, as a politician you
expect to get people attack you, but not as a school leader, not
as a school. Don't expect someone to be rude
to you as a school leader. I was honest to God.
I was like, you're the person who's being rude to us for years
of of saying we're striking for no reason.
What's wrong with her? Yeah, I don't get it.
Because she she's there going, Yeah, I think school leaders
wouldn't expect to be talked to like that.
You. Talk to us like that.
Every time we say we're striking for the reasons you're saying
you're shocked about. I can't believe her brain went
to physical violence. No.
It's like politicians are so well trained and saying the
right thing. Exactly.
So I just find it weird that it slip through the net there.
And she said that. I bet you regret it immediately.
But if you're in the staff room, you hear that kind of language,
you'd laugh it off and you just go past and you you would
probably you wouldn't know they're not being serious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like so I I get the whole thing.
We sensationalise it a bit sometimes when it's politicians.
But let's just for once she's she's the Department for
Education leader, the, you know, the Secretary of State, the
government who's in charge of it.
And she said she'd punch them in the face like she's the one in
charge of what can possibly change in this situation.
And her response is she'd punch. Do you know where you know you
could do Gillian, you could sort it out instead.
You also have the power over that.
Person. If only you were the person in
charge of the whole thing. Of the person getting.
Punched Ohh. Wait, wait, wait a minute.
You are why me up. So yeah.
That's mad. Mad.
Yeah, that's a little bit of better news for this week.
Thank you. Yeah, no problem.
Blouses. Yeah, well, I just didn't know.
Yeah, but I'm still doing. You don't know anything.
No, I just can't believe that body Ofsted.
Honestly. I've told them to be nice.
I have. And they've.
Still, put him in mental anyway. Hate him.
Yeah, we're gonna have a nice chat now and these are my
favourite things where we can just think, reflect on our
experience and you know what, Give our advice out to other
people, both teachers and parents.
For this one, I suppose you don't.
You don't necessarily have to be a teacher to get out of this.
If you're a teacher, maybe you can message us and say do you
agree or the other things you'd rather get from children at
home. However, quite simply, Hadem
Yep, you are a teacher. I am OK, it doesn't really
matter where you are in your teaching career, it doesn't.
But what would you? Want a child to be doing at home
alongside their time in school? Mm-hmm.
To maximise their education and their ability to learn.
Anything in the world, I can pick anything.
Yeah. What what do you want from a
child if you if if a parent came up to you the highest priority
right. What what can I do at home?
What can I do at home to help and and and you have to you
think just from your point of view, quite simply what would
you say? Read, read, read, read, read.
So just to me it's like it's not even on the same level as
anything else. Read books with them so much.
Why? Because I mean firstly from my
perspective just like on on the ground floor you do just notice
that the children that read more generally generally do just
perform better at school and enjoy school more and they can
just read to one. But yeah but there's actual
there's loads of evidence and data isn't it to show that kids
that read more generally obviously you get your outlines
is someone does well actually this I know the kid that read
loads and they didn't do very well in this at all yeah.
But generally children that read lots one enjoy learning more and
two generally just do well academically.
So it's like, can we can we just do more of that, do more of?
That, OK. So that's interesting.
Let's strip it back a bit because what we're talking about
is basically for a child to develop and learn as they go
through. First of all, they spend four or
five years at home, maybe doing nursery sometimes or better.
Preschool. Yeah, before they even get into
the school system. We know how important that is.
OK, So I I don't think we're going to sit here and chat about
what we should be doing in those early years because you know,
plays fundamental. Socialising with children's
fundamental obviously early sounds and reading and numeracy
and writing and stuff. Fundamental.
Let's look at it now from the point of view of your your child
is in the school system, at school, they're getting on fine.
They're not one who needs loads of which support and help.
They don't have a specific. You know, very average.
Middle run-of-the-mill child that's at home.
Because what I've noticed is a lot of people who may be resent
the school system, umm kind of they don't like being told that
they should be also doing stuff at home with their child's.
True. And there's a bit of a you know
a lot of a lot of parents absolutely understand this but
there's a there is a big chunk of the population who kind of
think well they go to school don't they.
So you know that's their education sorted, that's the
teachers job and kind of get their back up a bit of the
teacher ever suggest that what they could be?
Doing ever had that as an actual parent in front of you on like a
parents evening or something saying that's your.
Job. No, I've I've had parents say
they'd rather prioritise other thing with their home.
Time I have and have you I've I've had like multiple parents
in my career. Like rudely be like, no, I'm not
doing that. I'm not doing your job.
If they can't do this, you you teach him.
I was like, whoa, OK. It's just timetables and they're
in your six. Yeah.
So how would, how would you go about that then let's talk first
I guess about the macro stuff in terms of approaching it.
Do you think it's suitable? Because last week I spent a lot
of time saying that it's absolutely not the job of a
teacher to be teaching a child how to brush their teeth, how to
how to be potty trained. That's that's absolutely on the
parent. So there'll be a lot of people
saying I'm a hypocrite maybe this week, but I I just think
it's different when it's your own child.
You're the number one, you're the you're the number one leader
of their life, essentially, and you supplement it by sending
them to school and you. Supplement.
You outsource a bit of that time?
Yeah, exactly. So go and do something.
Exactly that. But it's your responsibility and
the day is the development of that child, It's mine to develop
them in a way where I'm leading curriculum, helping them.
It's almost like an MOT. Yeah, I was gonna say.
Well, the point is, again, so would you ever, You'd never go
take your car to the garage, you would never know.
But you said to the garage have an MOT and they're like, cool,
OK, I need to fix this, this and this because I'm a specialist
engineer. Only I can do that.
So I'm going to fix that because obviously you can't.
However, here are some advisories.
Maybe top up your oil. Maybe you could just.
You know I'm not good with. Cars check your tyres because
they probably about six months on them.
Exactly. And, you know, change the tyres
to go somewhere and change your tyres, you look up the right
thread, the right, you know, that's your.
Job, yeah, but they're not doing it.
They're they're not doing it there and then and then over the
year you maintain the car. Yeah you look after the car.
It's it's it is also your if you would never turn around to a
garage and say but passing MOT this year why is this gone
wrong. Yeah.
So I'd. I'd see it the same kind of
things. Your child, you're in charge of
that car, you're in charge of that child development, Yeah.
And I think the the attitude has to be that they're going to take
a role in that. Like, I got a new analogy for
you. Think about this.
What if you take your car to a garage for about 6 hours every
day of the year, minus, minus, you know, a bunch of sort of
half terms, let's call them, and like weekends.
Let's call on that. Would you would you still expect
to have to do the daily maintenance on your car if it
was at the garage 6 hours a day? Not daily, not daily.
But I would expect that whenever I use the car, me outside and if
I use the car, I wouldn't be harshly braking.
I would, I wouldn't be rinsing the clutch, right.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'd be looking after, yeah. And they're like, what's that?
I need to add some oil. Let me do some times tables to
your car. We do a bit of reading, yeah.
Yeah. And that actually falls down at
some point. But I think we can all agree
that there has to be some kind of expectation as to they're
not. Use your child.
You gotta do something. Yeah, OK, So what we're going to
do, we'll go through all the different things you can do at
home, OK? And again, really interested if
people agree or not. We might disagree cause we've
not talked through this remotely as teachers.
We're going to say what we would want children to be doing at
home in different aspects of their learning.
If you're just a parent this thing utility.
If we're asking too much, I don't know.
But do you have reading, by the way?
We never went back to. That yeah, we started reading.
I'm gonna start reading. So readings are #1 for me.
I'll start, I'll start off by saying, well, I think in terms
of reading. Always do.
In terms of reading, either I asked you a question with my
answer already in my head, I'll wait for you to finish, or I
started by so I'm going to start my one here.
I'd I'd agree with you. In terms of readings #1 so you
know if your child is struggling to read, first and foremost work
with your school to find out what level they're at, what
looks a suitable for them, Read with them as much as possible,
try and find a niche for them that they're interested in.
Because at the end of the day, why is reading important?
It does unlock literally everything, because if a if a
child really a positive reader who can read, well, it allows
them to learn about history, it allows them to learn about
geography, allows them to do research and that all them
enrichment kind of activities stem from reading.
So I do completely agree with you there.
And even maths, if you think about the big chunk of the maths
paper, if we're thinking about stats from a teacher point of
view. But then if we just forget that
and think about life, mass is always in context of
understanding without a situation, understanding what's
going on, being able to read something and and and know this
is what we need to do. Yeah, it's problem solving.
Cause my kids are often ask why are we doing this?
Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's a really
rubbish answer to be like this is gonna come when you come up
on your desk. It's such a bad answer, even
though it's real, that is true. Is going to come up in your
test, and that test will have some very, very small bearing on
your life the way it direction it goes.
That's interesting because in terms of in terms of what I
expect from home, where are you in this barometer?
Because in school I think it's perfectly acceptable for me to
be thinking about end of year goals, end of year targets and
and even end of key stage targets in terms of their test
and that's what the schools judge them.
If ever I ask someone to do something at home or expect of
them to do something at home, the goal posts are completely
different. I I don't actually expect
anything at home to do with my targets in school with the
children. Everything I think about what
I'd want a child to be doing at home is based around enrichment,
enjoyment and overall academic success.
So that's the same with reading. I would never say to it.
I never ever expect a child to go home and be practising 3 mark
inference. Questions.
Yeah, from a reading. Text.
Never. I I'd want them to find out
whether you know they could be some of my kids at school.
Right. And I say to them that they're
sticker album with the with footballers and stuff and
there's little paragraphs about the teams that I was like that's
read read, read that just read read that for a week.
I don't care. Read the newspaper.
Do whatever you want and what you're.
Interested, so it won't help me answer the tests.
Yeah, don't care. I don't care.
I think that's why readings on a different level, because I think
reading is way more integrated into literally being able to be
a functioning member of society. Yeah, do you know, I mean it's
it's so much more important to read.
It's such a bigger hindrance if you if you're struggling to.
Read and if you can't, do a conjunction.
Exactly and and and equally with maths.
I think maths. Even though I'm more passionate
about math because I enjoy the subject, yeah, I still don't
think it's anywhere near AS. Important.
Well, all you need to do is look at society today and whether we
agree with it or not, and I think it's a problem.
I do think that we need to boost maths in general, that the
attitude towards it, but we are a functioning society and far
more people and read while they can do maths well, yeah, so that
just kind of sums up. To me, yeah, but then but then
again it's just like but can people get on more easily in
life if they can't do maths at all?
No, exactly, I think so. I think you mean if you can't
read it's way more noticeable. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm
saying. We're in a functioning society
where people are much. More able to see you're actually
using that point. No, no no, no that that's that's
that's kind of justifying why reading so important.
So, thinking about maths, then what you know, What's your
expectation as a teacher? What?
Would you? OK, very quickly, let's.
I think each time we go through something we should just say at
the end, be very blunt as teachers, what do we want?
Children. To be doing right, so we gonna
finish reading. Out then, Yes.
So let's finish up reading real quick.
So in terms of reading, what I'd expect them to be doing at home
is I would say this, read as much as possible and a minimum
of half an hour a week is what I would say to someone.
But read as much as possible. And I don't care what you're
reading. Yeah, that that's what I would
say. And the goal posts, nothing to
do. The test, that's simply because
it will help them develop. Yeah, and I say minimum half an
hour, but read as much. As possible, quite a low amount
actually. I probably I I think I'm quite
harsh with this then and I'm quite strict on minimum, but I
think 10 minutes a day and I think that's my minimum.
Maybe that's a bit mean. OK, so would you be happy with a
child chunking it? Missing a day of reading, but
doing. Half.
Now these rules can be bent slightly I suppose, but like
really strict. It was 1 chunk a week though I'd
be a bit like yeah, in terms of OK, you've missed, you've
missed. One Would you Would you go as
far to say, read every day? Well, yeah, I think so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reading every day, I think.
I think it's gonna have a huge impact.
To be honest with you. But I think that's easy to
attain if we kind of get away from it has to be their reading
book at school. Because it could.
It could be as simple as when you're cooking, they're read the
ingredients in the back. Yeah.
That's reading just. Yeah, that's I think.
I think. But I agree with you then we
need to expand that scope probably.
And and then parents won't feel as bad for not meeting these
targets. Because I think what happens a
lot of the time is as schools, we have these very rigid rules.
Like you said, you read X amounts per week for X amount of
time. You get these signatures in your
book. Yeah.
Realistically, from my point of view, I don't really care about
all that. I know.
I know there's reasons why we do it and it's to try and get a
minimum threshold. But I personally would get rid
of reading records and just foster this environment of
reading for pleasure. Reading for the sake of it.
Reading ingredients on the back of something when you're cooking
a Curry that we're gonna get later on.
Which we're gonna convince everyone and you know just just
anything out loud. Yeah, this environment of your
reader and you can read whatever it could be.
The lyrics on a Spotify song. Yeah.
You know I love the idea of just you know, they're listening to
Taylor Swift. Cool.
Spotify has this speech now where the bricks come up.
So you could be singing along and just and reading as you go.
Put the subtitles on the telly when you watch the telly that's
reading. Like all of this I think, should
count towards reading. And I think this macro idea of
becoming a reader is a huge thing.
We can push at home in general if we have that, Yeah.
And it should be an expectation this will leave it on.
I think that's the highest, highest priority.
And yeah, it's an expectation, you know, you mentioned maths.
I want you to quickly talk about the rest of English though, OK?
Because I think this is different tiers here where we
will get onto maths. I'd say reading and maths are
probably the most important, and that's kind of leading into what
we're gonna say now. And I I think I know where you
stand here. So what?
What would be your expectations as a teacher?
Yeah, very bluntly. Well, we'll expand after.
What would you say to a parent a child must be doing at home with
writing. Must be doing at home.
Not not not like not not your what you could be doing to.
Help. I don't.
You would. Controversial.
Nothing. Hmm.
Honestly must be writing. Nothing.
I'll do that at school. They do plenty of writing at
school. If six hours a day of writing in
various subjects not enough, then just leave them alone.
Don't read some books instead. I don't know.
That's why I think you remember we are talking about the
average. If someone came to me and said
my child is really, really struggling this thing, obviously
I'm going to give them advice and be like you should be doing
some of these. Activities just face off again.
Is. I think I'm ignoring children
especially, but I think something.
No, no, no. We've we've established all
that. Yeah, If anyone skipped to this,
then you missed all the establishment.
You're gonna miss all that. That's fine.
Yeah. And so, so writing genuinely,
then. If if a child in your class did
absolutely no writing all year last year with them.
Outside of school. Yeah, outside of school, you'd
be like that's. OK, yeah, because I think that's
basically what happens now. Yeah.
I think anyone that does, it's always like an extra bonus, like
wow, well done, you've done. You know, I had, I had a kid
and. I'd encourage it though.
Right. Yeah.
Good. Yeah.
Yeah I actually quite often place my kids ohh go home and
maybe we're doing independent right.
Yeah we've planned it. If they're interested.
Like I have a little practise tonight.
I see you can write a paragraph bring it in.
I will have a look at it. You know you can improve it
tomorrow. They never do but you get the
odd odd time. So there's a kid.
I won't obviously can't say the name on the podcast but if
someone that you talk a couple of years ago and I know you were
really fond of this of this kid and he brought in a story a
script. He brought in a script recently
written this whole script. Him and his mate.
How cute is this? Him and his mates have written a
script and they're all characters in it.
I'm a character in it. You're a character in it and
it's just like just it's not just a funny story.
And he was really wanted me to read it.
Yeah. And all I wanted to do.
I didn't care about the quality of the writing.
At this point. It was like I am just going to
big him up so much for for doing some writing at home, because
that's quite rare. And like you said and it's never
an expert, I don't have an expectation that they do that,
but when they do, it's a bonus. So pretty.
Cool. OK, this is really interesting
because I find that I find writing for pleasure something
that we've kind of lost in the curriculum.
We always talk about reading for pleasure.
We always talk about reading for the sake of it.
Read something you're interested in.
We don't sit there and judge how well they read words every
single time. You just read something for
pleasure. Yeah.
I think because we've lost writing for pleasure in the
curriculum. I, you know, I'm not saying I do
this, but I think best practise would to be to encourage it at
home a bit more. So I I would think that it not
not as often as we're saying in terms of reading, but I think
there's room for us to say to parents, let them write, just
let them write. Let them decide what they're
going to write about. Because in school it's very
structured. We're doing a newspaper report
for these three weeks, then we're doing a character
description for these three weeks.
We might not do a play. Yeah, we might do it once a
year. Yeah.
Yeah, right. They might not do it in a whole
year across across the. Curriculum.
And that might be the thing. And that's thing they enjoy.
So, you know, we I've always go back to this moment with writing
because it was exactly what I'd want them to do at home.
And what I don't want to happen at home with writing is parents
to think that they have to sit there and correct, you know, the
use of a conjunction or commas in the wrong place because
that's hard to do, that's hard to teach well.
And I want to take that away from parents at home.
Reading's different. We, you know, we expect the
level of reading and you can read.
It you just have they, I mean, would you help?
Them read the words were straightforward exactly.
And and then that's much more easy to control.
Yeah, writing it can. There can be some
contradictions. We're gonna talk about a lot in
matter. I was about to say this links
really well. Yeah, so we'll move on.
We'll move on to maths in a second.
But I guess my overall point here is encouraging writing for
the sake of writing and celebrating it no matter what
they get down in the paper to aren't honestly, in this
instance don't care about capital letters, don't care
about full stops. But we can, we can mention them
if it's awful and we know it's a target for the children.
Yeah, but being creative, like I think writing such an important
part for children to develop that, that we lose in the
curriculum. I think there is scope to say to
children and parents at home, let them just be creative
because whenever a child does that, I'm over the moon.
So actually, doesn't that show that it's a really good?
Thing. Do you value handwritten stuff
differently to type type stuff? I think of interest.
Do I value handwritten stuff more?
But I think I'm outdated and probably wrong, so I I don't
think that's correct. And I wouldn't necessarily want
to predicate that to my children, but I think within a
few years that went well. Be an outdated thing.
A lot of people will say, you know, fine, motor skills, fine,
early development, fine. But if they've got that, is it
better that they Start learning how to type quickly and
accurately? Probably.
But yeah, I know, but are we
just old already? Like to kids these days, even
having a PC, like people are just have iPads and phones and
things, so it's very different and already they're typing with
thumbs. It's just completely different
experience. I've had it before, apparently,
where children now, when they go to school, they go into an IT
suite, They're touching the monitor.
They think it's nice. Yeah, because it's like the
easiest access thing, isn't it? A tablet?
Yeah, I don't know. So yeah, writing.
I'd say much lower than reading, but I wouldn't.
Project so same as me, like you don't have an expectation they
do X amount of writing at. Home, but I would facilitate and
encourage it. As much as well, so, so far
then, all we're saying is we expect reading at home.
So let's think about maths, because you mentioned you made a
really good point about how writing is very nuanced and
there's a lot of really tricky rules of writing that.
I'm not saying parents don't know these things, but
generally, even as a teacher it takes quite a few years to
actually fully grasp the writing curriculum because it's so
ridiculously complex. Maths is kind of similar and
we've talked before about mass and new mass and I've spoke to
loads of parents who say ohh, we didn't learn it like this back
in my day and there there does kind of risk factor with that
doesn't there That if if we have a maybe a huge expectations that
you need to do all this maths at home like almost the whole
curriculum. We give you this homework portal
maybe that does the whole curriculum.
We set you homework every week that children are maybe going to
develop misconceptions or get confused because their parents
are saying no don't do that way. Your teacher said just move the
decimal point you know what I mean stuff like that.
So what's your opinion on doing maths at home and what your
expectation is, I guess for parents doing maths at home with
their children. Yeah maybe it's because like you
said we're control freaks a little bit in terms of maths and
we know maths so well. I would genuinely draw the line
at wrote facts. I I would, I would be more than
happy if just at home all they're doing is if they're
early enough, learning their number one to 10.
Yeah. Learning the number 1 to 20
within 20, like 8 plus what is 13 Yeah that kind of stuff.
So valuable and there's only one answer.
So just learning that, practising that, practising that
times tables of course division facts the other way.
So you know, I've never, not never, but very rarely have I
met a child by year four, let's say, who has completely mastered
all of those, wrote facts quickly and accurately to the
point where they don't really need to get quicker or more
accurate. Yeah, So because that's the
case, I would say to any parent out there who wants to do stuff
with maths at home, until your child has completely mastered
that, leave the rest to school. Yeah, yeah, yeah, do those
things. I yeah, I agree.
We have a lot of similar opinions, obviously, because
we've created a whole shooting company where we help.
We help parents at home do these things and because we've then
thought, what are the main things that these guys can be
doing at home 1st? And we call it our foundation
skills right. Yeah.
There's one more though. There's one on add to this.
There's one thing from the curriculum.
You probably guess what it is by the time I finish time.
Yeah. Time one I just time it's.
There's no link, right? There's no links.
I can't find the link still. I just.
I can't teach it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not enough. Time.
But don't you find, Like with a lot of the curriculum, there are
links like you know if you've been learning column addition,
you know you can link it to something else if you've been
learning, rounding to the nearest 10.
Yeah. The place value is an intrinsic
link in. It links to place value.
Yeah. Time is base 12.
Yeah. It's, it's nothing to do with
anything. Yeah.
And then a one is five. It'd be like, literally as it
is, as random to children as doing in the middle of after
five years of curriculum green light going to lesson binary.
Yeah, exactly. Is that right?
Sorry. What?
What's this? It's just a whole, you know, you
been learning this one place value system and you're still
struggling with that? Yeah, here's another one.
So yeah, time is tricky and this is something that I probably
sound really old, but it's definitely true.
It's definitely true that over time, children have become less
and less and less confident with reading a clock face.
Yeah, digital time is not so bad.
Do you know why reading an analogue analogue clock?
You know why we don't use them? As you don't see it.
Yeah, they don't see it. Yeah.
And it's like almost a rarity, my kids, if I show them an
analogue clock in school, because we always have one in
the classroom. But I've shown on the board and
they're like, oh, I've got one of them in my kitchen, like,
like, it's like a little shiny toy.
Yeah, it's like asking like an old Roman numeral thing.
Ohh, I've seen one of those types.
Before. But I would argue that again,
I'm thinking of my year go ahead because I spent most of my
career in year four. I would.
I'm gonna say 10% of kids can read a clock.
Yeah, 10, that's like properly. Yeah.
Even in year six. Yeah.
It hasn't he. It's not even answer for those
that aren't teaching and the national curriculum the last
time that they're supposed to have lessons on time because
supposedly mastered by this point easier for is not even in
the curriculum after that. But generally teachers will
teach it in year five and in year six as well, because you'll
have timetables and stuff where they assume you can tell time
because they do some hard problems and they just can't.
The amount of you know over the years, the Essex I've taught
that have no idea how to read a. Clock.
So I I would, I would definitely make that.
I would also, I would say to parents who want to know what
they can do at school as a teacher, where I think it would
be fantastic to do maths at school and I would again
encourage this is anything where it's in context.
News and say that, yeah, it's. True measurement stuff, Yeah.
Anything. So, so if you're, you know,
you're using a measuring jug, right?
And it's 400 grammes to 500 grammes and you need to measure
450, fantastic opportunity to talk about how 50 is half of
100, where would that be and then say well where would 400
and. 75 BE Yeah. When does it become a
kilogramme? Yeah.
That they don't know. Do that, Yeah.
So. But those things, I've found
there is a direct correlation between how hard something is to
teach and how embedded in context it is.
Yeah. So in terms of time, in terms of
measurement, those things are really hard to teach in a
discrete lesson unless you give it a lot of time and constantly
revisit it. Whereas if you just if you just
do a lesson on converting metres to centimetres and you just say
what times 100 / 100, they'll be able to do it in that lesson, a
week later they will complete. Even if you go down the amount
of times I've really tried hard to teach like Millie Senti Desi
and like and I tried to yeah, let's at least so you can at
least remember something to do with 10 or 100.
Even if they remember 100, they'll just get.
The wrong way round. I mean, just get OK, divide 3
centimetres IS300 metres like nought .3 or something like
that, right? No, it's in terms of like they
do the wrong way round. So it's two millimetres rather
than times by 10 by. 10 They'll say 3 centimetres IS300 metres,
Yeah. And they're not really, but that
because there's no context involved, they don't know
because they're not measuring, you know, we have to try and
provide them with that. But yeah, but really in terms of
maths at home, the most powerful thing is do your rote learning
and do anything in context. Yeah.
When it comes to problem solve, I wanna talk about new mass and
old mass quickly because we have delivered as mathletes in our
school. Whenever we do like an open
evening, we'll open up to parents and we'll do a maths
presentation, right. And we've done it a few times to
a few different rooms of parents.
And basically what we do is what's our aim with the
curriculum what would we expect from home which is in a good
what we're talking about right now and and what we set for
homework in our school. It's very simple.
It's just write stuff homework. That's all we expect from the
from from people but we want to start introducing projects and
stuff like that. Again linked to what we've just
said in context not something really there's a question of how
to do it. Follow a recipe.
OK there's gonna be old and new maths there but to a lot of
parents they look at the way we teach maths maybe with
manipulatives out in front of us with base 10 here's a 10 block,
100 block. The idea of exchanging to
parents, they just cross out and put a one.
And and even when I was in school, they never really
understood that that one was worth 10.
Yeah, because I was exchanging A10 for 10 ones and all that
kind of stuff. I just managed with someone who
grasped that and got it. There are a lot of children in
class who didn't grasp it and get it.
There was no context again and they kind of got confused.
So there's a reason why we do stuff, but there is definitely a
line still where parents look at it and we had a talk to a parent
after one of these meetings and they were I wouldn't do it like
that bit of waste of time in it after I'd just given 1/2 an hour
talk about why we do it. And you know it is a bit
undermining. But my underlying thought there
was there is a bit of a barrier here and I don't think they
necessarily trying to be rude. They're just saying that's why
basing your time doing that, like I can teach them that in
two. Minutes.
Yeah. And and like you said I won't go
into it right now because we talk about this for an hour but
not it's a podcast is it is with manipulatives and using hands on
things. It just means that more children
get the underlying concept behind why something works in
maths and it and it does. It's just the problem is it's a
long term thing isn't it? Right.
Because I know that by the time I got to secondary school maybe
in year 10, year 11, year 12, whatever.
There were some things where me relying on more my wrote not my
memorization of facts and things have no real understanding of
them started to fall apart. And if I just properly
understood the concepts and their most simple level and
built up from that way. I probably would have found a
lot of the harder have easier later on.
And I think parents struggle to understand that sometimes
teachers do the amount of times I see on Facebook or whatever.
Well why we do this bloody master.
Yeah. Teachers say get rid of this I I
just cross out the button thing here tell them this rule it's
called the butterfly method. And I'm like yeah but that
doesn't mean anything. They'll get the answer right.
But then in two years time when they have to kind of up level
this skill to something way harder conceptually that just
builds on that concept they have no idea how to do it.
Whereas the kids that have been built up conceptually will be
like, oh, it's like that thing I get.
That I'm going to give the perfect example quick before we
move on. I think we've established what
we want from maths. The perfect example is within
the year 4 we do that exact process where before Christmas
I'll teach children how to multiply and divide by 10 and
100. Yeah only working with whole
numbers, so it will be a whole number multiplied by 10 or 100.
Very simple because you just add a zero, you add 2 zeros and and
straight away we ban that language.
We don't say that language and we make a big thing about it.
Even though the children could very easily get through those
lessons. Just putting 00 done.
And then when you divide by 100, there's always at least two
placeholders at the end. Yeah, so we never go into
decimals. It might be 1300 / 100.
They know. OK, take off the two zeros.
We ban that. Those children could get through
that lesson before Christmas, that whole week of lessons,
doing the quick way that maybe they'd get tougher.
And doing like 20 minutes. Exactly.
Easy. Done green.
Wow. Perfect.
My kids are really cool. However, instead, what we teach
in that point is look place value chart.
We've learned about the place value chart.
Let's get them out. Let's build this number straight
away. Parents will be thinking.
What a waste of just take off this image you sent home for
homework exactly. They just go across zeros off.
You got it? Yeah.
OK. No, don't worry.
Because here we're gonna build the number we know place value.
We're gonna make links to when we've made numbers before.
Yeah. OK, now we're gonna divide by
10. What do you notice about 12:50?
One is 10 times less than 10, and 10 is 10 times less than
100. And we talk about pay, so we
divide by 10. We're going to shift what was in
the 10s column to the ones. They're cool.
And I say to the kids, if you notice the trick, yeah, we can
just get rid of the zeros. You're right, we can.
And that works for these questions.
But you wait till after Christmas, we're gonna do it and
you'll see why. And they're like, ohh, OK, yeah.
Comes to Christmas, they build the number, divide it by 10.
And all I need to teach them at that point is there's such thing
as a decimal place between whole numbers and part numbers.
Yeah. And they get it.
Yeah. And otherwise they'll get 39 /
10 and they'll say 3 because they think the 9 just take the
#39 and they'll just stay the same number because they just
don't possibly know what could happen.
Or they'll think that the question is wrong.
With time, they tend to put zero on it.
Yeah, you're. Right.
That's a perfect. Example.
So what would you expect at home?
What they need to do? Number facts number say that
includes number ones to 10. Numbers are 20 just general
number facts in general, including times tables.
So like really like wrote. Like we've mentioned wrote a
lot. By the way, if you're not into
schools and don't use the word wrote, it literally just means
just memorization, just facts that you memorised as.
It you just practise over and over again.
Not a process, just the thing, yeah, nothing to do.
Concepts, just learn that fact. Cool.
So before we go on to the rest of the curriculum, very quickly,
again, talking to people at home, very interested if you're
a teacher and if you're a parent.
In this situation, we're actually just entered both, so
we're kind of then as we go. We won't have a parents evening
for a while, though. I want to tell my parents
evening. We can do a mock 1.
Yeah, yeah. So I think reading, writing,
maths, that kind of that does dominate parents evening
discussions, whether you're a teacher or parent, you know
that's going to dominate the discussion.
So let's just take a pause to talk about parents.
You can very quickly, OK, What what do you think again as a
teacher, what would you be saying to parents during parents
evening? What would you prioritise?
What do you think is useful? Because it's that kind of only
chance we get really to speak about how their child's getting
on and what they can do at home. So.
So how would you approach this? Because you told me what you'd
expect from a child. Hmm.
So you sit down at parents evening with with a child and
you've got all this feedback. What would you do then?
Would you go straight in and say do this?
Do you know what goes through my head?
And it's really simple and sometimes I'm I'm awkwardly sat
there and parents evening thinking, I don't know what to
say to you because all that's going from my head really is,
are they doing all the things we just mentioned?
Do they know their times tables well?
Can they read Well if they can I'm and they're doing quite well
at school I'm usually sort of like yeah they're doing really
well see you next time I don't know what to say sometimes and I
know it's like there's very commonplace to then start
waffling on about random objectives that they can do in
school and I find that really boring.
I don't want to sit there and tell them ohh, I've noticed that
writing recently been using loads of really good
conjunctions. They've been using our new
conjunctions. Can you just and we talked to
them as if they're going to go home now and like work on can
you start trying to show them how to use due to the fact that
and in their in their writing I want to use that junction a bit
more and while you're there just prepositional phrases.
We've been working on those didn't really get it very well.
So it's like I have what? Come on.
It's not many parents really. But yeah, write that down.
Do prepositional phrases tonight.
I think a good parents evening links very closely to what we've
been saying. That's what makes it a good
parents evening. Yeah, and you miss one thing
off. And I know you do this, but
honestly I start every parents evening with and this is again
advice. We got there at school.
Yeah, literally. And but the first thing I say to
her parent is, do you have any questions for me?
Because we only get 10 minutes. And if they've got a need or a
desire or a question, that's more important than me assuming
they need to wanna hear about a prepositional phrase.
Yeah, and you know what? It normally isn't something to
do with NASA, to be honest with. You might be, you know, social
problem. It might be Ohh.
You know, he mentioned he he found this tricky.
Then you can talk about that exact thing and what you're
doing. About it I generally my my sort
of my procedure is really if it's like a flow chart, flow
chart, are they are they average or above average in maths and
English? If they are I'll talk about over
10 seconds. Yeah, doing really well
anything. Want me to do anything nice at
home, no cook, carry on doing reading.
It's great, they're doing really well and then I'll just go
straight to social stuff and and if they if they are behind in
something, that's when I'll then open up that discussion and say
look greater maths, you know, doing really well, but.
This is what we're. Doing now, reading.
This is what we're doing. This is what we're doing for
reading. But this is what you could do at
home to help. Because they're not where they
should be. Yeah.
And then we'll have that discussion about how I can
support. Them a very interesting and very
quickly before we move on, on parents evening, do you start
with academic or social? I usually start with social, OK.
I usually start with the same thing every time I say, first of
all, before I start to waffling on about so and so about the
pandemics. Are they happy?
How have they been since we last spoke?
And and that usually and that allows them to open up about
anything. I think that's much more useful,
personally, and I hope parents find as well.
Cool. Just a very quick pit stop
there. But parents evening, let's move
on then to other subjects and come we're gonna break up a
little bit. Yeah.
But again we're being very clear here what we think children
should do at home. So the big one.
Yeah. Physical education.
We know as a school and in terms of as a school teacher and all
people working in a school that it's.
It can be really tricky to get your quota of what we need to do
physical education. Yeah.
We we talked to a million times
about the timetable go look at the old, old episodes and
lessons conform lessons again And so you know what would you
be wanting a child to do in terms of physical education at
home and in terms of just being active would would you have a
minimum expectation or do you think that's not part of your.
Job right? Yeah.
I was about to say, even though I think it's really important,
personally, I find it a little bit condescending.
Sure. I don't know why, because
there's no really, it's not really.
This is the whole. Point isn't it?
Of the other things, it's like, what is our role because we
don't wanna be hypocrites. Maybe it's because I think this
is is because reading and writing maths, it's all drilled
in, they get they're getting tested on this and it will
affect their academic life. So I can.
And as an academic person who's in control of this stuff, I can
kind of have a bit of a say on because I'd argue this at home.
I'd argue that physical help is gonna have as much an impact as
their ability. To read but it's not in the Sats
and so I think that makes me feel like I I'm not allowed is
more of like that's a personal thing I shouldn't comment on as
much. I don't think I've ever so if
I've ever had a child. OK, touchy subject here who's
maybe a little bit larger than other children.
I'm never ever going to sit there as a parent and say ohh
notice they're a bit larger than the other children.
Maybe you should consider doing this exercise right now.
How cringy would that? Be.
However, if a child couldn't read as well as someone else,
you'd be the first. Person straight there.
So there is definitely something different about that, even
though I think physical education, physical education is
extremely. Important.
And again, people will say, oh, you know, people.
Sometimes with people who are maybe slightly larger, there
might be a reason behind it. Like you might have a metallic
thing. Same for reading, though, there
might be a kind of dyslexia, there might be something we
still, we still talk about it. Yeah, we still help them.
So it's very interesting how we see it, completely different.
I think attitudes are changing towards PE.
I think prevention for health in our country is going to be huge
when we can't fund the NHS properly.
Hmm. And I think that's where we're
gonna head next, personally. But at the minute I would never
say to a parent what I expect them to do at home.
Me neither. I you recommendations and stuff,
But it would be really harsh here about what you need to do
at home. Honestly, right now it would be
nothing. Yeah, it's funny because I do
expect it. Expect parents to be doing these
things. But I would never sit there and
say it. Yeah.
As a professional inner school. Yeah.
I wouldn't say, oh, this is the expectation.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's just, yeah, it's a weird one.
Crazy. But I guess I, you know, we can
talk other subjects in general. But I think, I think that
probably summarises how I feel about a lot of the other
creative subjects and things. I'd never expect them to be
doing Art at home. I would like it.
Umm. I guess that.
I mean, I think he's probably the highest priority of all of
the other subjects, because physical health is obviously
just important in a different way, isn't?
It maybe we could approach this slightly differently then and
kind of encompass everything in terms of the other subjects.
Now then, because let's start with what the goal is, because I
think the goal with with reading, maths, everything we
talked about previously. The goal is of course Sats, but
at home I think the goal posts have moved and the whole idea is
almost functioning in society. It's like this is how you're
going to make more progress in school as well.
If you manage to get these things and we can push you and
make you more able to restrict yourself, able to do maths, blah
blah blah. With the other stuff, I'd argue
that the only expectation I have at home, and I would say this is
an expectation. I wouldn't give an individual
thing about do half an hour of science every week and do an
hour of geography and make sure you do it, yeah.
What I would say is, though, if you've managed to find what
interests your child and if you've managed to foster an
enjoyment of research and finding things out and learning,
Because I tell you what, if you picked a kid in my class at
random, I could tell you what they're interest is.
I could be like that. That child is so interested in
the Roman Empire, it's hilarious.
This child is like a mini David Attenborough.
He knows all these facts about, you know, frogs and stuff like
that. That is what I would say as a
teacher to a parent. I was like, do that and that
would be an expectation. But listen, find what they're
interested in and facilitate it. Buy them books about it, you
know, let them go. And if they're interested in
wildlife, go for a walk through the woods.
You know, I would say just react to your child and a lot of
parents did this already, but I would never expect anything to
do with the curriculum when it comes to any of these things.
Mm-hmm. It's completely out of enjoyment
into all. I think my point is extremely
similar, but there's a slightly different Tang to it in terms
of. I have an expectation that I
think it should be an expectation that parents do not
make school a negative thing. It's kind of the same point,
really, but like also talking about like, actively avoid.
I don't care about what your opinions are of school.
Don't make your child think school is boring and negative.
Don't big up that like. My expectation for you as a
parent is to do your best job to make your child enjoy coming to
school. Because I'll do the same at
school and my expectations that you do that and you won't be
like, oh, what you doing geography for Geography sucks,
and I hated geography at school. Don't do geography.
Job is boring. Just get through the lessons.
If you're saying that to your child, it's not helping, it's
not helping. Yeah.
And at the same time, you know, teach them that it's OK to have
an interest, though they're allowed to like lessons more
than others. Yeah, of course that's really
normal. But, you know, and and try to
find meaning in everything. Yeah, absolutely.
So just another thing because I've sorted my notes and it
reminded me. So we obviously we've talked in
the past, we've got choosing company right.
So we deal with, but I speak to a lot of parents, you speak to a
lot of parents outside of school, not to do of our school
roles, but to do with our tutoring business.
And I find it really, really interesting.
When you're in the world of tutoring, there is a whole scope
of parenting styles. And I'm interested because I
think I've seen both ends of this spectrum right on on your
opinion on how much is too much. It is very dependent on the
child and I've learnt this through doing tutoring.
I'm. I'm absolutely with you here.
Yeah. What I would say straight away
is I would separate this discussion we're about to have
of what we've just had. Because I think what we just did
was as a teacher, what we'd expect all children to be doing.
Yeah, Yeah. Now again, that was like a
minimum of what we'd expect them to do.
There's, like you said, there's a whole scope past that and
tutoring's part of that. That's outside of school.
That's extra. Of course, as people who provide
tutoring, we know the benefits that can have children.
So again, I want to really separate this out and say like
we're now talking about parent LED almost like about.
Apparent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm just interested. You know, you're right.
I think. Go on, repeat your question
again. So yeah, just how basically just
how how much is too much and you sort of said was yeah And on an
individual. Basis.
So I used to think that too much was very definable.
And I'd be like, OK, yeah, OK. Look, if you're doing half an
hour of solid prep work every day, like lesson work every
night with your child, and it's not remotely to do with any, any
child that enjoyment. Yeah.
Yeah, I I would still err on the side of doing that.
Right now, however, I've met children since who?
For them that is as fun as doing a football club, that is as fun.
That's the fostering of enjoyment.
There are some children and I don't know why I'm acting like
it was when I was younger. Fun for you, fun for me was
doing sums. I'd get my granddad because I'd
buy a book. My mum would buy me a book full
of math sums. Yeah.
And I would do them all and I'd call them sums.
They'd be multiplication and stuff.
Like, we're gonna do my maths sums.
I'd write them all. I'd given to my granddad.
He'd marked them. I'd get too wrong and he'd be
like, what happened to them too. And I'm like, ohh, God, I need
to go to another page. That to me was as fun as sitting
and playing a video game. Yeah, right.
So what I would say now is I think it has to be led by the
child. What's too much is I think that
you're always going to get children who resent learning.
In general, those children still have to do some learning.
I think it's got to be of utmost importance to teach them that
sometimes they can't enjoy every single thing they do.
That's part of life. They're going to be some things
you do where it's to do with prep and helping you that your
parents want you to do and you have to just do it sometimes.
But I think there is an onus on the parent to at some point be
like, OK, well this is obviously having an adverse effect.
They have a negative attitude towards learning.
Yeah. OK.
I'm gonna find a different way to learn because I think it's
links to what we said about reading.
Let's change the attitude. Reading doesn't have to be
reading Moby Dick. You know, War and Peace really
tricky. But ohh, my gosh, I've got to
read this because mum said reading can be reading a
newspaper report on your favourite football team.
Yeah. Reading could be like when
you're doing the cooking. Reading exactly enjoying
learning can be following a recipe and making something.
Enjoying learning could also be writing a recipe book.
Like they're very different activities of both involved.
Yeah, the same sort of context, yeah.
Nothing to add to that really is the same sort of opinion.
So I was really interesting. Thank.
You. You're welcome.
Hayden. You what we do?
So to to summarise, I suppose, let's now very succinctly say
two things. OK.
One, the minimum we'd expect children to bring at home all of
the time. Any child.
Average Joe. Obviously there are some
exceptions #2 What would be also good to do?
So Hayden. Sure.
What would you say to parents listening right now?
I'm a teacher. I'm doing it for nearly a
decade. Do this at home.
OK, so I'm going back to where I started all the way through.
Read all the time. OK, read as much as possible.
Like Dylan said, Foster and enjoyment.
If they're not enjoying it, don't force it.
Which is the point we were just making there.
Find a way that they enjoy it. Practise times tables, make sure
they've got the fundamentals only in maths.
Don't worry about too much of the other stuff.
Don't worry that your child's not great along division yet
honestly. Just make sure they know the
number bonds to 10. They know they enjoy maths, they
work with, they know how to work with number, they do their times
tables. Just get those fundamentals
absolutely hammered. I promise you will make a
massive difference. And then the final thing with
maths for me is again summarising what we said, just
the stuff in context. So if you can do some real life
maths, show them that maths is real and it's not just a thing
you do in in your book at school that's also.
Really impactful, particularly measurement and time.
That's what I would say. Focus on those things.
Hammer it for as many years as you need to hammer it, and after
that then you can start thinking about we can move on to more
advanced stuff. But that's the basics for me,
yeah? Exactly the same.
Genuinely exactly the same as what you just said.
And I would say, I would genuinely say that I would
expect or really, OK, let's go one step down, really, really,
really encourage you guys to just do an arrangement of other
stuff. Do, do that is your is your
core. But I would think that would be
a very weak core of that's all you were doing.
So I think alongside that you have to supplement it with a
nature walk every now and then. Oh look, there's a bird up
there. I wonder what that bird is.
Find out. That that's the parallelogram in
the. Tree.
That's what stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's a wild Pentagon. But yeah, absolutely.
You know, find stuff. I know what you gonna say.
I know what you're gonna say. That was we posted a picture
once of there was a there was a test that we did in year three.
And it was your girlfriend, I think.
Yeah. The question was simply draw a
Pentagon. Yeah, right.
In a test, a child thought it was a child thought what?
A Peacock, Peacock. Peacock But it was the most
detailed beautiful Peacock you know See imagine being that
child like hating maths but you love you love wildlife.
Like good question. Oh my God, Oh my God.
I I can draw Peacock and they spent like 10 minutes drawing.
This is very beautiful. It was, really.
Funny, but yeah. Foster learning.
Do some research. Do some projects.
Dive head first into doing those if the school set them.
Yeah, you know, build an Anglo-Saxon Shield's amazing.
And trying to leave, try to leave preconceptions behind.
A lot of parents who didn't enjoy school and it's very
obvious when they have given that feeling of school to their
children as well. I've just passed it down.
I hated maths at school and now, funnily enough, so does my
child. Yeah, could you tell them you
hate maths everyday? Yeah.
So yeah, just try to be positive.
Right, let's head off for a Jingle.
Hope you enjoyed that chat because when we come back we've
got a nice quick game we're going to play, right?
Quick game, just to finish off something to keep the people
listening for the last bit of fun.
I want to do this game. I've seen it a lot on radio
stations and stuff like that, OK?
It's basically I'm going to whisper a saying to you, OK, I'm
gonna whisper some kind of say. It's gonna be linked to
education in some way. But you can only read my lips
because whilst I'm whispering this, obviously people can pick
up on the mic so you can hear it at home, what I'm saying.
But Hayden's going to have headphones in listening to some
Taylor Swift, so he can't hear anything.
He only has my lips to go off. So I'm going to say it so
everyone can hear it, but you can't hear.
You gotta look. You've got to lip read and say
what you hear. OK, and So what you.
And we've got a few weeks. We've prepped a few each for
Hayden. Here, your headphones.
OK, so put your headphones in. I'm gonna play some antihero by
Taylor Swift. OK, Current favourite in my
class is that. Playing nice and loud.
Bit louder. Yeah, that's really loud.
Yeah. OK.
Is that alright? Hang on.
Yep. Good.
I'm good, right? So we're gonna do a quick test.
I I can't hear anything. By the way, can you hear me
right now? Can you hear me right now?
No, I'm literally ready. So, Hayden, you got it.
The first one, right? Play along at home.
Even though you can hear. You need to give me a signal
when you're doing it. By the way, I can't hear
anything. But you've got really loud, so
anyone listening at home, it's Hayden shouting now.
OK. So the first one again all
linked to you can't hear me. OK, ready.
And I go to the toilet. Can I go to the?
Door Can I go to the toilet? Yeah.
OK, I'm gonna do a couple. You know what to be.
OK, next one. Get an ice pack.
Go and get an ice pack. Go and get a classmate.
No, Come and get a nice pack. Go and get your book bag.
Don't get your one more time. One more time, OK.
Go and get an ice pack. Go and get a class back.
I don't know. Think about what to.
Go and get an ice pack. Ohh.
Close right ice pack. No one, really.
Ohh. Hang on.
OK, OK. Wait a minute.
You good? Hang on.
This is sound stopped. OK, we're good.
We're good. OK, ready.
It's your time you're wasting. This is so funny because I wrote
this down. It's your time you're wasting.
I literally did that one on. Mine, right.
OK, you got 2 Avery. OK.
It was so funny how loud you were.
Really sorry guys. I'm so funny, right?
OK, I'm trying to hear my own voice.
Right, my turn. Cross that one off.
OK, also when I whispered. I really hope you guys picked it
up because at first I was whispering almost within.
Myself. Also, you kept giving me
instructions. I had no idea what you're
saying. I know how this works, so give
me a thumbs up when you're back to.
It I'm gonna give a thumbs up. I'm gonna cross out that one.
Guys. Here we go.
That is so long. It's really loud music.
OK, here you go. Ready.
Wait, wait, wait. OK.
Ohh, I forgot to say it into the mic.
Hang on. No, I just wished it to myself.
Wait, don't shout out. Are you doing it?
Yes, you're. Doing it, Don't shout out.
Go down to town. Not go down to town again, don't
shout out. Don't shout out, don't shout.
Out. Well done.
So the first time anyone not not watching, I mouthed it,
forgetting that you guys can't see my mouth, right.
Next one assembly time. Say again?
Assembly time one more time, assembly time can you tell the
time? No ohh assembly time it is play
time. It's like really, really
Assembly time. Almost.
One more. OK, one more staff meeting
snacks again. Staff meeting snacks.
Staff bleating mess, but he staff meeting snacks.
Staff meeting bed. No bed.
Staff meeting snacks. Staff meeting sucks.
He thinks he's got a He thinks he got it and he got it wrong.
Things are coming and taking the road.
Stop meeting snacks. Ohh God that was quite well
done. So the first time by the way,
you couldn't hear me. No time.
I did it. I mouthed it.
I didn't even whisper it. That's why I realised like.
I can't wait to play it back and they can't hear me either.
Yeah guys. Hope you.
Enjoyed it. If it cuts to this part right
now and you just come back from the jungle, it's because we just
played the game and it didn't pick up at all on the mic, so we
and we can't bothered it again. So thanks for, you know, waiting
anyway. Oh my God.
Amazing right? We're going to finish off that
guys. I hope it wasn't too
controversial this week. After explaining everything
teachers shouldn't do, we sat here as teacher and told you
everything you should do at home.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Hayden, did you enjoy
that? I really enjoyed it and I can't
wait to find out the criticisms of what I've said again.
Yeah yeah did get a few messages saying CAN headers.
Made my mind up this time. I didn't.
I was pretty clear what I
expect. Right guys, hope you enjoyed
that and have a lovely Monday. Have a lovely week and we'll see
you again next time. Bye.