So I said that's where I keep my Pritt sticks.
Dylan from teach like repeat. You're so silly.
Ohh Hey there. Ohh.
Didn't see you guys. Welcome back to another episode.
I'll teach you. Repeat, my name is.
Dylan, we know that my name is. Hayden.
My name is Hayden, my name is Dylan.
Where's one of us? Somewhere here.
Have you noticed how obviously we've talked about before when
we're in school constantly, people got names mixed up
because we're usually the only two blokes and we just come as a
pair. So someone walk up to me and
say, have you seen Dylan? Yeah, you.
Have 5050? Well done.
Right here. But then I was thinking about,
you know, like Brad and Angelina when when together in the media,
that Brangelina. Yeah.
And I've thought before about what our name would be.
And and it turns out if we joined dinner then Hayden we get
Dylan. Or if we do the other way
around, we get Hayden. Wow, what a couple name.
Yeah, I know. Ohh.
So that's my thought for the day is if we were to ever be a
couple and the media were to pick us up.
So it's two things that probably will never happen.
Well. One of them.
When the Sun again, Yeah. And also with our partners
names, they're Lauren and Lauren.
So if you join them, that'd be Lauren and Lauren.
Ohh, nothing would change. Anyway, we start recording,
yeah. Crap.
We press record a minute ago. You've been here this whole
time. Anyway, lovely to see you guys.
For us it was half time this week.
Again, a big thing. I didn't know this.
I thought the half terms were quite rigid.
Loads of people are on half term.
Till next. Week.
Yeah, I know. I also thought half terms were
for having a break from work. Sorry.
You you naive petal. They're not really weird, isn't?
It so how's your week been there because it has been half time.
It's been busy. Isn't it obviously the whole
theme of this this episode is about burnout and stuff, so
don't give too much away. We've got our top tips on the
way burning out, baby. Are you burning out, baby?
What's your what's been busy, isn't it?
Yeah, you know this because to be honest with you, half of the
business of this week has been because we've had a massive like
overhaul of our website which is taking up lots of.
Quick recap for anyone who doesn't know Hayden and I, we do
work part time in a school, but we also run our own tutoring
business outside of that, which has grown nicely over the years
and something we enjoy doing and we put a lot of our time to that
as well. So what's happened then this
week as if I don't know well website.
Would you like? I'm playing the role of the
audience? But what do you mean Hayden?
He probably doesn't. Please be quick because I
couldn't care less. I've clicked on this for burnout
I don't care about. Having changed the layout of a
big chunk of our website, yeah, and it was just a massive job.
So that's been done. But in the back of my mind the
whole time I've been thinking. I do have loads of work to do
for school as well, though there's a planning to sort out
and I've just been pushing it back and back and back.
Still haven't done it, obviously.
Listen to this on Monday. We're back at school.
It's Friday when we're when we're recording this.
I've still not done it, but we'll see.
Because we can't really complain about having to do our business
stuff in our time. There's nothing as half time.
Anyone out there who's teaching a lot of teachers do like a side
thing, whether it is a bit of tutoring.
Yeah, I know some people do crafts and things and sell
those. You know there's no such thing
as time off when you're self-employed.
But you know, it's kind of frustrating isn't it?
When you think we get to the half time, OK, cool, I can rest
and recoup. I can concentrate on my
business. Ohh.
But also I've got 8 hours of planning to do and it doesn't.
It doesn't annoy me because I know what people, I know people
are doing it from a good place. But there is something about
when people say stop it, stop your plate, it's half term
break. You just turn off and have a
break. OK, well there be nothing to
teach when I get back home. Yeah, exactly.
I've got a massive chunk of planning to do and I'm teaching
in the first week and I'm like, even if it feels like the second
week, I'd honestly probably just leave it and be like half term.
I'll do it when I'm back at work, man.
But yeah, I've been putting it off.
It was quite funny the other day.
When I finally down to do it, I was like I've got no more
excuses. On website was pretty much done.
There was a few like bug fixes and.
Stuff our friend Harvey was just basically running through.
Stuff, yeah. And he he's been developing it
for us with his company Vision Tank and.
They're great honour. That brilliant.
That's amazing job. Check out our website.
Www.topdogonline.co.uk. It's really cool and give us
some feedback. Anyway, we do actually teach and
stuff as well. We're not just sit and chat and
bitch about stuff, we actually do teach.
We do stuff. But I finally sat down and I
thought, I've got to do this planet.
Now I do. I really don't want to do it.
And Harvey rang me. I was like, have you got, can
you jump on. We've got.
Do I just got a few things on
for like, yes, yes, I can. Absolutely I can.
I can do that for as long as you want.
All day, all day. Baby.
I don't do any planning. Let's do that.
Is weird, isn't it? My house gets really clean when
I got planning to do. It's hard.
Do you feel bad though then about you?
Because obviously Lauren, are our Laurens and our babies just
say Lauren singular. Lauren just encompass all that.
That's their couple name. Yeah, so Lauren.
And do we need a couple name for our babies?
Her. Error.
I just felt bad because I was like oh is that half term?
We're supposed to be doing nice stuff and I'm just sat here
working all day everyday. Yeah, probably rubbish, but
other than that, how's your? Nursery been terrible.
Yeah, nursery. She's good.
It's all decorated. It's got carpet now, not seen
it. There is a changing, you know,
it's like a changing thing on the top, but a chest of drawers
underneath. I don't know what that's called
a changing console. I don't know.
The crib is done, although it won't be in there for a while.
I'm really struggling with the idea that he's gonna have his
own room soon is I know it's meant to be 6 months and I've
seen a lot of stuff lately about like basically ripping western
culture for thinking that kids have to be so independent so
quickly. Hmm.
And you know the six month thing is just an arbitrary age and
Rory's 4 1/2 months now and I'm like, ohh, six weeks Doesn't
seem like enough time for us to then let go of him and him being
his own room. I don't see a problem with him
staying in our room because he's not on my side of the bed.
Doesn't wake me up. Yeah.
No, but he, I don't know. There's something both of us are
a bit like. Ohh wait, he's still in your
room at 4 1/2 months? Yeah.
Ohh God River was in her own
room by 8. Days Oh my We're.
Comparing. I'll tell you what I know.
I know we've had this conversation.
But if. You don't have it.
No, no, no. These guys need to know if your
parents, if you ever see any any content online, Instagram,
TikTok, whatever about babies and children, look at the
comments section. They're just people are just so
horrible. Yeah, so horrible all the time.
Just nothing's. Right.
What do you mean you play with your child?
Your child will become dependent on play then, and they'll be
happy. Yeah, I watch a video sometimes
and be like, oh, that's a nice idea.
Let's just check the comments for validity.
Yeah. No, always.
Ohh. I didn't.
I didn't do that. Oh, you shouldn't do that until
this time. Ohh wow.
Did you know that has this adverse effect?
Ohh my. God.
And also there's every single view under the sun.
There'll be someone saying it's the best thing you can do,
someone else saying it's the worst thing you do, someone else
saying you could do if you want. Don't really make a difference.
Oh my God, just let me crack. On I'm yet to find a single
video related to like something you can do with your child
that's actually just got positive comments like I was
like, Oh yeah, this is really. Good I've I've seen there's been
like a shift, I think, from people who are fed up with it,
who I've seen lately there might be like a dad on there playing
with their daughter where they're maybe just doing some
rough play because the whole thing that we've seen before is
dad's and are more likely to rough play of their son than
their daughter. But rough play is really
beneficial for everyone. When I say rough play, it means
like, you know, throwing them onto a beanbag and stuff like
that, a bit silly. And so there might be like a dad
doing it with their daughter. And obviously the classic
comments to your to your daughter.
Do you know what kind of a thing that's gonna have a really bad
effect when they grow up and they know men can throw them
around. It's like, ohh my ohh, my
goodness me playing. No.
But what I see now is a switch where there's comments and
they're just completely satirical and they'll start off
with that, but they're just joking.
Like you shouldn't do that with your daughter because they grew
up loving you and having a really.
Nice song band, yeah. Completely like, like sarcastic.
You get baited and I'm angry. I'm reading the first sentence,
ready to reply to that. No, this is.
This is wrong. You're being stupid, and
actually they're just. Like, yeah, you know what?
Crack on. You know your kid rather than
anyone. Before I had kids.
I def. I'll be really honest.
I turned my nose up sometimes to people who said stuff like that.
Right. And like if someone said, you
know your baby better than anyone, Mama, if a doctor says
this, then you should be doing that Mama.
Everything's Mama at the end. Yeah, you you know, you Mama and
I would definitely be like, ohh, shut up the doctor.
It's a doctor. Of course I know.
Well, having gone through a pregnancy, well not personally,
but having gone through pregnancy with partner, having
the whole birth process. And since then ohh my they are
right. Though there is a whole bunch of
stuff where I'm like, hmm, the Mama does know best.
The Mama does. Know and there's certain things
where doctors have said stuff to us and it sounds great.
And at the time we've taken as gospel.
Now doctors said this, so we and actually, no, they were wrong.
They were just wrong. Like what's best for each person
is different. So what are you saying?
Because the start of that sentence was yeah, the doctors
was always. Right.
No, no, no. I'm saying.
I'm saying it's changed. I'm saying I used to be like
that. I used to, I used to turn my
nose up. Of course I used to turn my nose
up to people who said Mama knows best doctor isn't always right.
But it's changed. Yeah, Since having a baby, I'm
like, no, there is certain stuff, actually where you are.
You just do you, and the baby's gonna be.
Fine. Well, look, let's talk about
doctors for a second. Ohh.
This is funny because, again, we've had a similar experience,
haven't we? We're at the same doctor's
surgery. Hey, and I'm gonna lay
foundations of this because, you know, the state of doctor's
surgeries in general. We'll get on to that.
I had a really good. Experience with my doctors.
First time ever. Yeah, and you had a terrible one
at the same doctors. Time in the same week.
So why are you so annoyed? Potluck, by the way, that's my
my right now. Anyone in the UK, like hopefully
you're gonna vent with me because I imagine it's the same
everywhere. The system is so broken.
We talk about the teaching system being broken.
It's not as broken as the GP system.
It's unreal how you can't get an appointment anymore.
So our surgery and please, please tell me if this is normal
because I don't think it is. And it might just be our surgery
opens at 8:00 physically, physically opens at 8:00.
And the only way you can get an appointment is booking it same
day. So you can't book an appointment
under any circumstance ever. In our doctors for a for a
different day. That's a normal day.
That's normal mental straight away.
That annoys me so much, right. Opens at 8:00.
They don't open their phone lines until 8:30.
Yeah, So what they're what they're saying is basically the
majority of the appointments will be gone by 8:30 because
people are doctors. And I did this two days, two
days ago for two days in a row because I can't get an
appointment queue up from 7:30 just to get there.
To be front is like the Apple Store and has a new iPhone
releasing. A new iPhone.
It's healthcare. It's healthcare that I'm paying
into constantly. Every month.
Yeah, we just line up and if you're lucky you get an
appointment. So I lined up the first day, got
all the way to the front of the queue after about 2025.
Yes, it's probably about the 15th in the queue thinking I'm
probably gonna get an appointment.
You know, you'd hope so. And got there.
She was like, ohh yeah, doctor's not in.
I was like, ohh is she not? That's that's classic timing,
isn't it? Ohh.
So annoyed thinking I can't God's sake.
But these people probably get a constant abuse.
I was. I'm not going to be that guy
that gets annoyed. It's a receptionist.
Like what? It's not their fault.
Is it? They didn't create the.
System was like, ohh, OK, So what does she work?
And they was like ohh every other day apart from today.
Oh oh classic. That isn't it.
I finally get down there and not here.
He's like, OK, she sorry. And she was like, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. OK.
She got any appointments? She was like, yes, I was like,
can I have one? He's like, no, of course not.
I know this system's broken. That's fine.
What can I do? She was like, well, come back in
the morning. She's got a few appointments.
And I was thinking, well, none of them can be booked today.
No one could book those appointments because it's not
tomorrow. Yeah.
So it should be fine as long as I get here the same time.
Went back the next day, queued up again Saturday, half an hour.
I got to the end of Q. Same lady.
I was like, oh, it's me again. Came here yesterday trying to
see this doctor. You said she's got some points.
Can I see her today? Ohh, I've not got.
Not got any appointments? Actually not.
Ah, OK and right. It's just OK OK what?
How do I get an appointment? Cause yesterday I came and you
said she's got some appointments today and I've come again and
she's not got any. Like a normal person.
I work in the hours at this doctor.
Surgery is open. So what do?
I do. You got half time.
You got every single day of half.
Hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, literally.
And in the end, she was like, well, she's got some phone
appointments later, I think. You know what would be better
when she's on the phone to me? Could I just be there instead in
front of her? That might.
Work, Joe? Well, I'll bring my phone.
Ohh, sit in this lobby and then when she's done I'll walk round.
I'll just pop on. I'll answer, I'll Hello.
Yeah, funny enough, I'm. Are you free?
You are because you're on the phone to me.
You are free. Brilliant.
I'll come in. And and in the end.
So she phoned me. I waited all day because they
say yeah, well, phone at some point 8:00 AM, right?
They rang up at 4:15. So I'd weighed all day just like
not really doing anything. And the only plans I had were at
4:30 that day. I did nothing all day other than
wait for the appointment. I had A and I was meeting my
cousin to play some snooker. Something I haven't done in
years. And I'll be really nice.
Corpus four. She rings.
I was like, ohh, typical. She was like, yeah, you want to
quickly come in now thinking, ohh, I do, I really do.
I've also got an appointment, something else to do.
But I'm going to come in because I'm not missing this came in she
didn't know what the problem. Was sorry she she invited you in
anyway. Yeah, after about 20 seconds of
talking, I was like, yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of one of
those things you need to see. Really.
Yeah. Because.
Oh my But you need to see to check this.
Yeah, both of us. It was like a skin thing, right?
Yeah. We're not afraid of that.
It's just a skin thing. Nothing terrible.
But just somewhere, like, can you just look at that?
Yeah. Because I just wanna know that
I'm OK. Yeah.
Well, in any way, she didn't.
Really. Know you wanna take my
experience? Yeah, because this is the exact
same doctors and this is gonna highlight how mad it is.
I phoned them in the morning at 8:00 and they said it's closed,
but I'm fairly sure it opens at 8.
Found out the whole thing. Actually the lines open at half
eight. I was like, fine, that's a good
half an hour of a pub is being booked up.
But fine. So I called at half eight.
Gotta make sure you time it right.
I called at 29 minutes past 8 knowing there's some jargon.
I was like, I'm playing the game here cause by the time you get
through, there's been a lot of abuse to our people.
That won't be tolerated. If there's any other way of
checking out your ailment instead of coming to a GP
surgery, which you pay for by the way, but you can't ever get,
why don't you try that out instead?
Call 111 and stay on hold for seven hours and they can check
your mole. No, they can't.
It's a phone call. I want you to look at my mole.
So anyway, go for all that jargon gets past half eight in
the lines open. I go, you are #9 in the nine
who's got ahead of me. I called it 29.
Anyway, I'm nine in the queue, so I'm waiting and I'm like, I'm
giving myself up for a mini argument.
Like I'm not gonna be horrible to them, but I just wanna make
sure that my message gets across because it's classic with all
big companies and it's now with GP's as well.
The people who set the system make sure someone else takes the
flak. Some person on minimum wage,
probably. Is out the front, Yeah.
So it winds me up. But I also want them to know
it's broken. So I know that there's the
system since COVID, by the way, which has just stayed.
Which is another annoying thing, that the first port of call for
whatever you do at our doctors is a phone call.
Umm. And I'm straight away.
I'm like, OK, cool. I need someone to check out
three moles, so a phone call does nothing for me.
So hey. Yeah.
What you after? I wanted to check my mails,
please. Oh, do you wanna come in?
Yes. Of course I do.
Let me just look over the phone for.
You can you describe the mole? Well, it's quite Molly.
It looks like every other mole I've ever seen.
And and yeah, it looks it maybe it looks so different, which is
why I went to look at it. So I can't describe it.
Anyway, so I'm ready for this. I'm like, I'm always geed up a
bit. And I was like, so it gets
through. It's like, hey, how can I help
you? Hello.
I was just hoping to get some moles checked, please.
And that's all I said, yeah. And I was because I was waiting
for them to be like, well, OK with this.
No did. And she went, yeah, OK, I've got
half 10 today and oh. Yeah.
Thank you, good Madam. Ohh yeah I'm really angry.
For some reason I will. I will take that half ten.
And she was like, cool. That's all booked in.
See you then was OK, cool. So I went in.
Yep, got there at 25 past checked in.
Got called immediately. So I was in there at 28 past.
Wasn't even my doctor. My doctor was busy.
I was with. It wasn't even a doctor when you
got the appointment. It was in the car park at Tesco
actually. It was really weird.
Went in, showed my moles immediately, at ease in terms of
he was just so calm and explained everything.
Saw the Marie went, he said some random Latin word.
Ohh, that's a that's a Mollica Spartacus.
And I was like, OK. I was like, oh, that's fine,
yeah. And then I had another one
because I've got on my hairline. So, no.
Sorry, Sir. That's that's your nipple.
Sorry. OK, sorry.
I've been really there. What about this other mole?
Well, so I have to tell you that's.
And this one, That's your penis. Thank you Doctor.
I was so worried this week, coming out of my mouth.
It is leaking. That's milk.
The other ones, well, that's that is a problem.
That's not what you think. But you do need to get that
checked out. Oh my God.
Anyway, I was. I was at home by 10:37.
Yeah, and Lauren thought I'd forgotten something.
So completely mad. Two completely different things.
It's nice you had a good experience.
I'm glad that, to be fair, I was.
When I did go the first time, I was offered an appointment of a
different doctor. But with this thing, I was very
surprised. Like my doctor very specifically
requested me to get an appointment to come and see her,
to check up on this thing. Yeah and I was like alright
thanks. But I do need to see this
doctor. She was like oh oh can't so I
don't know but back to the overall point, what are your
doctors like? Please no have a vent because I
I cant event about doctors. It annoys me so much and I'm.
Going to stick up for GP receptionist right now because
actually they're they're they've been lovely.
They've been lovely hard job and they're they're lovely.
They must get a lot of abuse. Yeah, I I really don't want
anything directed towards them in terms of it's not their
fault, it's a horrible. It's not their fault.
It's not the doctor's fault either.
No, it's really clear. Yeah, I am not annoyed at
doctors anyway. I'm really, really annoyed at
the system. The.
Government Ohh is it the government?
Is it? I wonder if it's sort of
underfunding. Because is it that thing where
every single graph and piece of data that you've ever seen from
2010 has just got considerably worse?
Yeah, Wasn't that thing where we turned 18 in 2010?
Eleven. And ever since we've been an
adult, life for adults have got considerably worse.
Consistently, in every single way, every single way possible.
The country's got. Poorer.
Sorry. Got general election this year?
Yeah. Ohh yeah, but do you remember
what Labour did back in the early 2000s?
They made the museums free. OK honestly yeah God what was it
recently? I thought I can't remember what
it was but the the overarching point is more important.
Someone was moaning about something.
It was like a Question Time sure programme.
Someone was moaning about something and they're saying
yeah this policy is rubbish. This policy is rubbish.
And then someone else came back and I thought they were like do
you know who bought that policy in That was Labour in like 2000
and whatever and and I was like ohh kind of done it because it
was a labour policy and then the person immediately reply was
like yeah cool toys had 14 years to sort out.
Why haven't they sorted? It out.
There's nothing now. That's why they're completely
screwed. Yeah, because there is nothing
now. Because after like 14 years and
75 prime ministers like and and they try and reinvent themselves
every time. There's nothing left now where
if it's wrong, it's not. They've not even had the chance
to fix it. Yeah.
Or they've completely. It's been too long now.
You can't. They can't keep blaming Labour.
Stop it. Stop.
It. And you know, you don't have to
like Labour. You don't even have to vote for
Labour. No, you don't.
You don't need to like whatever you want to do it.
Actually, it's fine. Do you know what?
I've got my reservations about Labour.
Yeah, I don't. Really.
Yeah, absolutely. So this isn't a pro labour
thing. This is quite simply that when a
government's been in charge for 14 years and stuff is awful, you
can't point and blame at anyone else.
Yeah, so vote for whoever you want to vote for, but do not
blame someone other than this government for what this
government of managed to do in the last 15 years.
Yeah, or Dylan will get you. I'll get you anyway.
Right. Thanks for that vent.
I needed that vent. That's good.
I needed that vent. The listeners sure didn't.
They've all turned off. What are you here for?
Ohh yeah, burnout. Not from listening to this
should give us hope. Give our top tips then, Aiden.
Yeah, I like, I like how we're slowly starting to like do like
software works a little more now, more confident.
You last week was that the week of bloody.
Yeah. You were like, oh, these bloody.
Things. When you say soft swear words,
are you referencing the fact I've said the F word three times
you? Have to just say that you might
have noticed a cut if you're watching, probably listening.
We probably cut it so you didn't hear it.
But yeah, Dylan keeps Dylan keep saying there.
For you, really quick story about the F word, not really.
OK, I'm joking. I'm joking.
No, I'll take the end to listen for.
I'll take a quick story about. Tell me at the end when we play
a game, because I've got a game. For real?
So we can have a nice serious chat game and then an F word
story. Ready.
Let's do it. Let's cut.
OK, You ready? Hating.
You ready? Yes.
Yeah. OK, good.
Because Hayden said let's go. And then took a drink that a
stretch and sorted this top out. So we're ready now.
Hello. Hang on.
Yeah. Brilliant.
OK. Yeah.
You look good now. That top was looking not inflate
until you did that. And now it looks great.
So that was really useful. You did that roughly anyway.
They're never on fleek. Your hairlines on fleek anyway.
My hairline is fleeting away. That was me.
Anyway, you've kept on this because guess what, we're
halfway through the school year. This half term marks the halfway
point. Yay, yay.
And it means that we've got just what we've done so far left
again until the end of the year and we get that lovely summer
holiday. The definition of half there.
Didn't know half of it, you know, So I thought it'd be a
really good point now to talk about burnout because for me
personally, I think getting through the 1st 2 terms is
tough. You get to Christmas.
After that, settling back in can be tricky, but you kind of you
get through that and it can kind of hit you now like Ohh, I do
have three more times left and these tend to be, especially at
the end for some at last summer time, a really long one.
So if you're starting to feel already quite burnt out doing
the job there, there are things we have to do to stop that,
because it's you can only get worse from this point if you're
having problem. We've been for those years of
total, total, utter burnout and we've come out the other end, I
think because we said before this but didn't we were like, do
you feel as burned out as you used to feel?
Part of that is obviously due to part time, but we do still work
on those other days as well in our own stuff.
But I don't. I don't, and I haven't done for
a few years and I don't feel as burnt out as I used to feel in
the day. And I think it's really
important for teachers to understand is, and I guess this
episode is. Changed more at less experienced
teachers who kind of feel that burn out and don't know what to
do, but also more experienced staff who who is still
struggling with burnout, but also just to see, you know, am I
doing these things, These things I can help because a lot of this
stuff comes with experience. That we're about to talk about,
and you will definitely have your own ideas as well, and I'd
love to hear. Them because what helps you
avoid burnout? But we still see so many staff
say, I am just completely burned out, I am doing way too much.
And although a lot of that can be down to the school you work
for, it can be down to policies, can be down to what management
expect from you. There is always a chunk of that
burnout which is under your control, and I think taking back
control of that and empowering teachers is really important.
So we're gonna go through right now, we've got three top tips
each on how to battle and tackle that burnout.
How can you actually help yourself?
What can you do which is almost irrelevant to the external?
Factors we've not, we've not shared our points with each
other. So I just want to ask you now to
make sure on the same page, are your three things things that
you have done, things that you've done over the years and
experience? Yes.
Because I I know that we've had a few before where we've given
advice out and we've said even we could do with taking this
advice ourselves. Yeah.
So that that's, you know, that's useful advice, of course.
But this is real advice. This is, this is something.
Now you're listening to teachers who have been teaching for nine
years and eight years and have gone through the mill and these
are things that genuinely worked for us.
So yeah, do you know what? I also moved to school.
So I was feeling burned out. If there's if there's just too
much going on, that's out of your control, the ultimate thing
is to try somewhere else, because there are different
schools are different amounts. Of the rules should be if they
hear these six points, Yeah. And think I wouldn't be able to
do, let's say, three or more of them because my school would
block it. Yeah.
Then maybe, yeah, maybe you're in one of those sort of toxic
schools, because I think we could do all six of these and it
would be a. Problem.
Yeah, completely. I don't know what yours are, but
I can say. I think, I think it's just gotta
be it's about realistic and some of this does require you to just
take that step and kind of say no sometimes, but we'll get
into. That anyway you gonna start.
I'll start. So my first tip, well, we'll do
this. We'll just give the tips out.
We'll have a discussion. See if we both do them and how
helpful they might be. OK, sounds good.
So my first tip #1. This is something I see a lot of
staff do. Top tip #1, to avoid buying out.
Check that you're actually following school policy and do
not go above and beyond where you don't have to.
Now that's controversial because above and beyond, we hear this
thing all the time about teachings of vocation.
We go above and beyond for those kids.
All of the kind of airy fairy stuff where you make those
fantastic connections with the children, which can't really be
written in the policy. That's not what I'm talking
about. Yeah, I'm specifically talking
about policies. Where you've got marking
policies, you've got planning policies, you've got policies
around what you're expected to do as a teacher.
Yeah, Yeah, you've got to follow them.
So the example I've got here, for example, 1:00, I've got an
example as well. And I want to hear your.
Yes. So my one is marking.
Mine is different. OK, so I've got a few examples.
Obviously you can come in as well, so I want to get across
what I mean here. When I say marking, we know we
have to mark. We can have a whole discussion
about how useful written feedback is.
I don't think it's very useful at all.
However, I see a lot of staff doing this and I've seen it in
schools worked out myself. Where you know, are you
following the policy are policy for writing is very stripped
back. When we give feedback, you can
just give it in single words. You can just say use your next
steps down or whatever you want to do, or just write down
conjunctions, what you don't need to do for every single
person. And you might find yourself
doing this because I did when I was an input and I was an
experienced teacher, I'd write in someone's book.
You have used conjunctions beautifully in this piece of
writing. Next time, why don't you think
about adding some extra detail using parentheses?
And actually your school policy at the time marking policy was
you don't need to do that. You can just put this little
symbol that we've made-up that means that exactly and this one
word exactly. So let's do that.
Just follow the policy. Yeah.
Look at your marking policy. Do you have to write down a
paragraph for every piece of work?
It might be that you do, and that's a separate conversation.
But for a lot of people, actually, ohh, it's just nice to
write in for the kids. They can't read it.
They don't know. It's not affecting their
learning at all. Have a priority list there.
Am I actually following the policy?
Yeah. Nice.
What's your? One.
I've got one. Very different, actually.
Totally different thing avenue, I guess of thinking.
But when I started teaching, yeah, I very much thought it
wasn't above and beyond thing. Yeah, at break times to go out
and sort of like mingle with the kids and like, yeah, be with
them like more than just my one. I had one break duty a week and
a lot of schools. I like that you might have more,
and yeah, but I'd often find myself going out, sometimes even
at lunchtime. For a little love me, love me.
Yeah, in a way. But I also, I also had in the
back of my mind. This looks good.
Yeah. You know the school are going to
think, oh look at that teacher. He's going above and beyond to
make bonds of his kids. I didn't need to do that,
actually. Really.
I just. I then just gave myself more
markings to the end of the day and just extended my day.
I could have just not. So I stopped that after a while.
I almost never go out now unless it's my break duty because I'm
like, no, this is my time. I need to get other stuff done.
I have to. Yeah, because otherwise it goes
somewhere else. And that's what I mean by above
and beyond. I don't mean in the classic time
of like making those amazing bonding policy was the policy
one break juicy. Exactly.
So just just just do 11 break. Another big one that I see of a
lot of people who say ohh, I'm just really struggling with
burnout. And I'll say to ohh yeah, don't
you do a club after school? Yeah, yeah, do do.
Is that policy? Do we have to do a club?
No, but it's just for the kids I'm afraid Guys, at some point
you have to look after yourself if you are feeling really burnt
out. That's one of the first things
that has to go if you do an after school club or a lunchtime
club and you're not being compensated for it and it pushes
your marking down the line and it means you stay in school.
You don't have to. Do it and you don't have to do
it. It's one of those decisions
where I know deep down in our hearts, cause we're all
teachers, we love helping the children and we love these kind
of enrichment activities. We can't take that load when
they're not funded properly. We can't be the people to take
on that extra thing. If there's other stuff you have
to do and you're feeling burnt out, look at your policies.
Do you have to be doing everything you're doing?
Can you skim on some time by simply following the policy and
doing a good job? I think a big thing we're going
to have in this chat, Hayden, is redefining what it means to do
your job well. Yeah, it does not mean that you
have to live up to this Instagram or until an amazing
team. No, you can do a really good.
Job, but just following your school policies, teaching the
kids well, and I think that's what this point is.
Do you think back in the 90s that some of the teachers were
good at their job, Fantastic. They worked considerably less
hours than we did and they were still good if we all agree on
that, but there were some good teachers back then.
We didn't have PPA back in our day.
Yeah, you didn't have to find everything.
Right. If we do think the definition of
been a good teacher is doing all this above and beyond stuff, and
it does make you a better teacher.
Yeah. What we're saying is that every
teacher that didn't used to do that basically more than two
decades ago was terrible. And it's like, no, they were.
They were terrible. They were, really.
Good, not at all. And I think the last one here
it's going to lead in because a bit of a for our listeners here
we've I know the theme of Hayden, so I can order them.
Hayden has no idea what I've written down, but this kind of
leads into your one. So the last point I'll make and
then you go into your second one.
Another policy is to do with planning.
Do you have a scheme? Can you use it?
Is there planning that already exists?
Is there stuff on the area that you can use?
Yeah, Don't reinvent the wheel. Follow your policies.
So that's my #1 tip. Look at your policies.
Refresh your brain. Are you following them?
Are you doing too much when you simply don't have to?
It's an easy way. Nice.
Well, tip #2 on avoiding burnout nicely links on from tip #1 Drop
the pride, Drop the pride, and use resources from other people.
Just do it OK. Sometimes they haven't used the
font that I like or I like to put boxes around these things on
my notebooks. This worksheet, when I trim it,
doesn't have. I like to put the boxes around
this bit on the worksheet so it fits nicely.
Do you know what? You don't have to change it.
You don't have to. I promise you a week later
you'll forget about it. The kids won't have ever known
any different anyway, and as long as I get the same out of,
it doesn't really matter. Does it really matter?
I used to spend so much time, and I know you did as well
because we used to plan together back in our NQT days.
Almost became a competition we could.
Spend so much time on our white notebooks and a lot of that time
really was just just the positioning of stuff.
Format green and the formatting. And I want to put a box.
I want to get this nice little tip box.
In the box. But do you remember?
Because we we used to spend ages planning, right?
And we'd get to the end of making our smart and our our
both of our like our our our thought process then.
But I've gotta make the worksheet now.
Sorry, what the task. The most important thing.
If you're actually going to spend time planning properly, it
has to be at the task. Yeah, I've made some artsy
fartsy smites, but this 16 slides in a row that through
these funny things he doesn't. I'll tell you what, it took me a
long time, some years, but I have finally dropped that pride.
And now I when I look at resource, I think what the kids
actually get out of it. Yeah, they don't care about the
presentation. Honestly, they don't.
People might tell you they were all we gotta make it look good.
They don't care. They just don't.
And there's some people out there, right, who take pride in
their in their resources, and they love that, that aesthetic
and things. And if they're not feeling burnt
out and that's part of what they enjoy doing, don't change
anything. It's lovely.
And if you're not? Saying it's bad.
If you're feeling burnt out ask for their resources use theirs.
And that's that's that's kind of overarching point here is if
there is stuff available. Yeah from other people even just
the Internet. Whatever you go on Tees or you
go on twinkle or whatever your subscriptions you've got if
there's stuff available and you've looked for it and quality
control it and you think it's good to use it because you're a
professional use it. You're a professional.
You can make that judgement call have you ever before because
I've done this loads of times and every time I do it I'm
thinking what the hell am I doing?
Snipped a PowerPoint so like screen shotted a PowerPoint onto
my smart notebook. Basically slide for slide just
so that it's not a Twinkle PowerPoint.
Anyone who doesn't know SMART Notebook is like PowerPoint, but
a lot of schools is it law schools down, it's more
interactive. I've changed everything.
I've changed now. Like in terms of we use White
Rose maths if a power. So let's say we're doing
fractions right. I could sit and make all these
equal spaced out lines and these beautiful graphs and these
pictures that, yeah, all this pictorial stuff that moves.
Or I could just use the PowerPoint that exists.
So you know, I'm just gonna put a slide and say see PowerPoint
for my own reference. I jump over to the PowerPoint
and guess what? The kids get the same learning
experience. Actually, yeah, they get a
better learning experience. Yeah, because it exists, is made
by professionals, other maths specialists.
It's already there. It doesn't need to look like my
lesson. It doesn't.
Matter. So to summarise then, my first
point. So point #2 on avoiding burnout,
Don't be too proud. Use other resources.
Don't worry too much about what it looks like.
Definitely. So tip #3, I guess we're going
123. We've got six in total.
This one is. Again, I'm only giving stuff
I've used because I found it really useful.
So tip #3, avoid burnout by spreading your classroom mental
load. Spread that out amongst people,
either support staff or actual children.
So what I mean here is burn them out.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. What I mean here is as a
classroom teacher, you are a manager.
You are a manager. You're in charge of that
particular classroom. You have children to manage.
You might have support staff to manage sometimes, probably not
all the time, knowing funding as it is right now.
But that is a big cognitive load that you've got to carry.
Yeah. And especially when you're
getting incentives, sorry, initiatives from SLT or you've
got lots of policies to follow. Like we've said, you look at the
policies. Well, OK.
But I've still got to do a visual timetable every day.
I've still got to make sure that these letters get handed out at
the end of every day. I am scatty.
I am terrible if there's a pile of letters on my desk and that
comes at lunchtime because it's not come within two minutes of
having to be done, it will be forgotten about and left on my.
Desk How? What's the percentage rate?
Do you reckon you actually hand out a letter on the day you?
Get it's 5050. It's 50.
Pretty good. Yeah.
It's like 10%, no. It's it's pretty good because
it's got it's improved because I followed this advice.
So my tip when I say spread the mental load is give your kids in
your class jobs if there are low stakes jobs that you've got to
remember every single day, but anyone could do them, IE fixing
the visual timetable. My class, now, since we talked
about it a few episodes ago, we used a visual timetable every
single day. Yeah.
Do you know why? Because there's one boy in my
class who I've given that job to.
Every single morning, he comes up to me and says what we're
doing today and he points at the visual timetable.
And every single morning I go, ohh, yeah, it's this.
I don't have to do it anymore. I'll just say to him science and
he'll sort it all out while he's going on.
Meanwhile, there are two people who go over to my book corner
and make sure that's all tidy because he's in the book corner.
Yeah. Meanwhile, there's a rotation of
people who are taking my lunch register around.
There's a rotation of people who are taking the lunch trolley to
the hall. And there's a rotation of people
who are sorting out books to be returned to their library.
Yeah, so there's a box now of books.
There's someone who walked around and say any books to be
collected up, all automated. All of these jobs were jobs that
just simply wouldn't have happened or I'd forget.
Because you know what I've got in the morning.
I've got to make sure the kids are OK.
There's someone is coming, crying because something
happens. Ready.
You know, printing, trimming. I can do that before the kids
come in. But when?
When I've got 32 children in front of me, do you know my
priority is making sure they're OK?
It's talking to them. It's catching up with them.
It might be doing a bit of input of one of them who missed
something yesterday. It's doing the register.
It's making sure they get the hot school dinners if they need
hot school dinners. All of these things are tied up
in my priority list. Then everything else that needs
to. Happen.
So say your point here is delegate.
Don't be afraid to delegate. Yeah, don't be afraid.
Sometimes we think, oh, I better, I better do that because
I'm a teacher. No.
Yeah, no. If someone else can do it, get
them to do it. So like if you're in a staff
meeting, right, and someone. And then for example, let's say
you don't do visual timetable, but you're in the staff meeting.
And then your SRT said, OK guys, we're all gonna do visual
timetable from now. Instead of going, oh God, I'm so
burnt out already, how am I going to do that?
Try and change your mindset because that's going to help you
in the long run. Your mindset can now be OK, how
can I make that work for me? OK, I'm going to make that work
for me because the resources team are making it for everyone.
Thank you. But I've still got to do it
everyday. Do you know what?
I'm gonna put that out to a kid because a child can easily do
that job that you know a child can't do.
And I still wouldn't trust him to do.
I'm sure they could if we trained them.
But I still, at the minute I'm gonna write down who needs hot
school lunches because if someone messes up their dinner,
I'm gonna. I'm gonna feel awful that
actually I put a nine year old in charge of that.
That's my job in the morning. But you know what?
These five other jobs, no. And if there are some jobs that
an adult needs to do, maybe it's changing a display, getting some
staples down, something maybe where it's a bit more involved
with safety or just know how of an adult.
Umm, do you know what? I'll wait for my support staff
to come in. Yeah, I actually, I know I've
got support staff in English today, so that job can wait.
Till then, I'll write it down. Here you go, because I've got a
nice relationship with my Tias. Or before we do anything while
I'm doing the input, would you mind just going and sorting out
this for me? Did you, did you, early on in
your career like me, find it really hard to delegate to
staff? Yeah, I still, honestly, and
hopefully this helps people who are less experienced than I was
eight or nine years. I still really struggle with
managing people. Yeah.
In terms of I I still feel awkward.
I feel like I'm I'm there equal. Yeah.
I don't like the idea of me being the manager of the club
and I'm managing them. It is what it.
Is like you're above them in. Terms of fire and school you
know for a for a teacher who's Essex experience who's like 2-3
years in they might have a has been at the school for 30 years
yeah and and you know that TA knows exactly what's going on
and sometimes can be a bit overpowering We've seen remember
yeah. Completely.
I remember my first, and I'm gonna name them because I just
love these people. Yeah, my first year of teaching,
I had two TA that was working with the work with me.
One was Mike Brown, who I'm still lovely, lovely man.
They way more experience than I was at the time.
And another one, Another one was Jeffrey, who was like one of the
most incredible teaching. I've gotta say right now, Angela
Angie Laffey is that archetypal. You know TA, Who is a better
teacher? Than any Yeah, so good, so good.
And they were my first gas, right?
Helping me out on a daily basis. And I have so much imposter
syndrome thinking I'm technically supposed to be like
in charge, like telling you guys what to do, but you know
everything better than I do. And I think that since then it
took me, it took me many, many years, I think to get to the
point where that no longer infiltrated my brain.
Whenever I thought I do kind of need an adult to help me with
this, I'll just do it myself because I don't want to ask them
now. I think I'm better at being like
actually, you know what? We're A-Team.
Yes, One of us has got to manage this team in terms of like me
and my TA or me and a couple of teams that work in our in our
year group. Obviously our year leader has
that overarching role. But I can also just say, oh,
what are you doing? Have you got an hour spare this
afternoon? Can you, could you mind getting
this job done? Coolant.
Yeah, There you go. Now there's an hour I don't have
to do after school. Now they're doing it in their
paid time. Exactly, as long as it's.
Free. Exactly.
So yeah, that's my, that's my point.
Now Delegate, I think we all know it's tricky to delegate to
adults, but something that transformed it for me was just
delegated to your kids. Your kids are more reliable than
you ever could imagine it. And when it's their job, they're
not going to forget it. They've got one job to remember
and they do it every day. And I trust you, they love it.
Yeah. If you ask your kids to do a
favour, you'll get everyone's hand go up straight away.
So yeah, just just delegate out if you're feeling burnt out.
How much of these jobs can you give to someone else?
And then you know what? It's not in my head anymore.
I'd have to get frustrated because they're running.
Just remember to be fair as well.
Obviously we say that say that given these drugs to other
people, as long as they've got the capacity to take it, you
don't just pass the burnout. Some I'm talking about children
in classrooms, those little media jobs like that, that's.
Just wanna make that clear. I don't want to listen to that
and be like, oh, they're just saying get someone else to.
Have. And when I say I mean, I mean
that like you know we've said real time if they've got time
and that's something that can help you and you want more
often. Ohh, bloody lovely.
Yeah, they'll be like, yeah, of course I can.
They ask me. How bad I am at this, that
they'll ask me, is there anything I can do?
And I'm like, oh, I don't. Know ohh I've not thought about
it. I don't.
Know actually have the 17 things get a bit more organised.
It's helped me a lot. So that's my second tip.
Tip free. Right, tip #4, avoiding burnout.
This is probably my favourite tip.
I've been doing this for years and I'm still improving at it.
I'm not a great and it is. Called Go part time.
That's a great tip, planning for marking and what I mean plan.
What I mean by planning for marking is consider the marking
load at the point in which you plan your day, or you plan your
lessons or you plan your week. However, whatever your planning
process is, genuinely build into your thought process of how long
will it take to mark this. And if you're organised enough,
you can get to a point where you make sure that there are no days
where you end up with that horrible triple triple marking
bird. You know, you know, you've done
your morning lesson, it's that that's a big mark.
Then you've got your English lesson.
Whatever it is, it's a big mark. And then you do your afternoon
lesson. It just happens to be quite a
big mark load as well. And you think, Oh no.
Afternoon where you've spit two lessons into.
The afternoon something quadruple there, yeah.
And you've got like all this marking to do.
I'd say probably like now less than two times a term.
Do I accidentally let that happen to me because our plan
for marketing? How would you do that?
Let's say you've got, you've got a day ahead of you, so for
anyone again it doesn't know, primary school staff will have
one afternoon called PA. We're out of the classroom.
We don't do any marking, so that's kind of done for itself.
Yeah. We might have another day
perhaps where we're doing like PE or something or something,
something where it's built in that there is no actual physical
marking. But how do you avoid it on those
days where let's say you know, you've got to teach history in
the afternoon, you've got maths and English in the morning.
How can you actually do that and and try and avoid your burnout
staying, staying late without making a detriment to the kids
because the the thing people might say to you there is OK,
well what do they not do any work then how how are we gonna
make sure? What do you mean?
Like I've I've got a plan for marking, but how do you do that
a? Couple of things.
So first of all, I think you need to be really confident with
knowing your weekly timetable. It has to come from a weekly
perspective, right? You know which days you have
more time on. For example, on PPA day, I
always make sure if I am going to do some big marking in maths
and English is that day because I've got all of PPA and I've got
no afternoon lesson to market. So that day I don't mind.
I'll always make sure that that's fine.
I can just mark those as the biggest set of marking need.
Whatever. But on the days, and there's
another day where we'll do things in the afternoon where
it's not, we're not marking anyway.
Things like PE, music, music, like those kind of subjects.
If we do them, there's not really any marking involved
anyway. There might be a little bit of
assessment. So those days I also think
right, if I did have bigger marking in the morning, that's
not as much of a problem. So we're down to like two or
three days of the week where you might have maybe maths, English
and then like a geography lesson or something like that in the
afternoon. And for those lessons at the
beginning of the week I'm already planning ahead on, I
think it's acceptable to have one or two practical lessons in
the week. Maybe one in maths, one in one
in English, where we don't do anything in the books.
And I'll plan that. I don't be afraid to do that.
But like, no. On Thursday I know that we're
doing a big bit of writing in English.
There's going to take me a while to mark and we've got some dog
in the afternoon. So you know what?
In maths I'm going to make sure that whatever I had planned for
that day, we're going to do it in a practical way.
And I'm not going to be left with marking.
And I'm not afraid to do that because you know what?
It's OK. And guess what, guys?
Markings the least important, least effective part of teaching
anyway. So really, it's not going to
have that much impact as long as you still teach a lesson well
and they're still doing a task of some sort.
You don't have to have maths in the book to have LIKE.
Maths, no. And the final point is with
marking. I kind of see there's two types
of marking. There's quick marking and
there's long marking. And I consider maths generally,
for, at least in our system, maths is a quick.
Mark Definitely, pretty much always do you find with maths in
our system again we've we've kind of not mould I guess we've
moulded over the years haven't we Where our aim now is teachers
work for a break. You know, flash news flash that
teachers would be able to mark mass always within their break
time. If they wanted to.
So basically 15 minutes maximum. Yeah because we self marking
maths. And then the idea is if because
they've self marked you can just kind of have a quick flick
through and pick up misconceptions or whatever.
But it's quick. Now if I happen that I do this
on the spot sometimes and don't be afraid again to do this, just
adapt and change your week on the spot.
Even on the day I have before I finished the math lesson and
it's not quite gone to plan. We've not ended up self marking
and I've thought that's a big mark now because they didn't
really get that they've done some work in their books, we've
not self marked. It's going to take me ages now
to mark that so I get to the next session which is English
and in before I get before I start that lesson.
I've got break time. My my thought is cool, how can I
how can I now make this lesson practical?
Because I'm not prepared to take books home and that is a rule I
have. If I get to 5:30 and there's
marking that hasn't been done, I have failed myself that day.
I've not organised my day properly and I will not take it
home. I'm not going to Mark.
I think that's that's really good because I think with a lot
of these lists, sometimes I hear people say things like tip 4
don't take marking home. You could have said that Then
your tip could have been done marking home, Yeah.
And it's like I find tips like that really unhelpful.
How? How do we not take much?
So the tip you're saying is be organised in the 1st place and
know what's gonna happen. Avoid taking planning home by
knowing that it's OK to plan in these practical lessons.
I think it's a great tip and. Change them as part of you need
to. Seriously.
So be adaptable again. Yeah, you could have turned up
and said tip 4. Be adaptable.
OK? In practise, what does that
mean? It means change your lesson.
Don't have to skimp on quality, Don't have to skimp on learning.
But what you can do is skimp on how much you're writing in there
and it links back to .2. Really.
Drop. Drop the pride.
Seriously, don't worry about it. If if if the odd lesson is now
not marked properly because you changed it so that you actually
got to go home and spend time with your family or do whatever
you do, it's fine. I promise you it won't make an
impact. Drop the pride.
It's fine. But if your school's got a
terrible policy and it's like, no, every lesson must be marked
horrendously, then there's there's there's a wider issue.
There, and I think that's what you said beforehand.
If you're listening to these tips and going couldn't do that
in my school, yeah, there there's your answer.
Yeah, maybe the school is the problem.
Right, my final tip. Tip 5 something again that I
have done a lot more in the last year or two and I found it has
had a big impact is to use PPA properly.
OK, use your PPA time properly. We started off this podcast and
we did jokes about how PPA is not enough time.
I still think that PA is not enough time to get all of the
extra stuff done. However, we do have a semblance
of control. So this whole theme of the all
these tips that I've kind of realised over the years is you
can do a lot of moaning about external factors, you can do a
lot of complaining about. Oh, I've got so much to do
because of XYZ. What can I take control of?
And my PPA was one of them. And what I mean by using PA
properly. And this, this expands to
everything. Yeah, this expands to all of
your own time because you look at PPA.
I look at PPA as just an expansion of my time before
school, my time after school, anything I've got to do out of
the classroom. But Ppa's golden because it's
the time I get. That's the time I'm given by the
system. So I use that time as best I can
to take away anything else from my calendar, from my schedule if
I don't use it properly. Guess what?
I'm just going to the weekend. I'm just gonna have to do it.
P is like double time because also you're not.
If you're not teaching a lesson in that time, you're also not
having to market. Exactly so I think in general my
my tip here is to have a hierarchy of what needs doing.
I'll be interested to hear because I think I don't use my
PPA very. Effective.
OK, so this. Yeah, I think you could improve
this. I really do.
But have a hierarchy of what he's doing and has the biggest
impact on the children. Have that yourself.
OK, so as a teacher, as a professional, mould what that is
for you? So just to be clear, you're
going to share your time? I'm gonna share my high, but
you're not. I mean, this is what?
You have no just find your hire down to you because you know
what it used to be. Umm, I'll tell you now.
My my number one top thing. Hmm.
Is I? I will in my PA if something can
only be done in school. Mm-hmm.
So, like it can only be done in school.
Hmm. That is a relevant to my
hierarchy and I'll show you what I mean.
Yeah, what do you? Mean my hierarchy at the top is
planning. OK.
My number one thing that I think of has the biggest impact on the
children. Yeah.
And is the biggest use of my time is planning really good
lessons for the children. That's, that's number one.
OK. So you might think, OK, I can
plan anywhere. I can plan at home.
Yeah. And I have planned at home a lot
of the time. OK.
But and that you have people say OK well in school I, you know I
can only do displays in school. I can't do displays at the
weekend. I can't.
That's impossible. So some people will say, well
that goes above and PA then because I'm in school.
So I could do my do my displays right now my planning I'll just
get done whenever. My point here is no don't do
that. My number one that I've got my
hierarchy which is like impeccable.
You can't you can't touch that. Because I've I've decided for me
the best impact I have on the kids of my time is quality
planning. I did that first on my PA.
Every time. Every single time.
So if I'm getting my planning done in PA, OK.
If it takes all of PA and now ohh, I can't do my displays that
I was going to do displays. Wait, it's as simple as that.
Yeah, they don't get done. They don't.
They're not as important because if I did it the other way around
and I spent my whole PPA doing displays, guess what?
That planning needs to happen because I won't have a lesson to
next week. It has to happen.
So it's my hierarchy. How am I going to avoid burning
out? Guess what guys and people
aren't like this and I don't care because how I avoid burning
out. There's some stuff that just
doesn't get done. And if if I'm I'm told I need to
do 6 displays, or if I'm told I need to do something else, I'm
like, cool that OK, I will do it.
I promise you I will do that. But it's here in my hierarchy.
Because if you think that it's going to prioritise my planning,
then you're completely wrong. So again, in my PPI, OK, you've
set me a meeting for my PPA. OK, cool, all right, I'll do it
then. But then I'm going to do my
planning and then if there's any time left over, if I don't
finish my planning, that's really annoyed me and I'll have
to do my planning after. But guess what?
Anything I do outside of that, I'm not going to do my display.
No, no, it gets to half four. I finished my planning.
I've done my marking OK cause markings on my hierarchy cause I
need to do my marking. If that doesn't get done, it
doesn't get done. Cool.
It's half four. So if I leave the building then
someone might say ohh have you done those displays?
I'm. I'm more than happy now to say
no. And then I'll wait and and ohh,
can you do them? Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll do them when I've got time. Yeah.
Well you can do them now. I know I can.
But I'm not going to. Yeah, because that's how burnout
happens. Yeah.
You have to take control of yourself.
If it's 4:45 and you have jobs to do, but they are low enough
on your hierarchy that you can crack on with your life and do
your job that's where you're going to have to take control
and say it's not happening. I'm.
Afraid can you wash your whole hierarchy?
Then just my hierarchy. I didn't go to planning the top,
planning at the top. So my hierarchy is basically
planning as that's what needs to be done the most.
Then it's going to be written feedback.
But I think the reason that's on my hierarchy is because it needs
to be done. Hmm, that's where you need to as
a teacher come up with your own one.
Because for a lot of people written feedback will be at the
bottom of their list. And I would completely
understand that. But there might be working in a
school where it's not as important they have a verbal
feedback policy. So my look, I can read my
personal one, but it is down to what I've cultivated myself.
So if I'm sitting PA, the first thing I think of is there
planning I have to do yes or no? Yes, I do.
My planning is the planning I have to do.
No. OK, cool.
Is there marking I've got to do? Yeah.
No. OK, cool.
Now I can get into the nitty gritty stuff.
Displays are still low here. My next thing would be
assessment is they're assessment outstanding.
OK, Yes, there's some assessment outstanding.
Cool. I'll do that, get my assessment
done. So I've done my planning, my
marking on my macro assessment. They're the three things that I
see as PPA time. If that's done other thing comes
in, then maybe then I'll go and print.
Print. Exactly.
Get my resources ready. I'll trim stuff.
Because you know, when I trim stuff, it's in the morning
before I get to school. Yeah, So all of these jobs, the
hierarchy is what needs to happen for me to be able to
complete my job. Yeah, do I need to do displays
for my job to get done? No.
Do they have any impact on
children ever? Nope.
Yeah, and again, that's down to, I agree with you, that's down to
individual whim. But the the cold hard facts are
and my hierarchy stuff that if it weren't, if it wasn't done,
would the children still have lessons?
Yes. Would they really be impacted?
Maybe a tiny bit if the displays aren't up to date?
Right. But but yeah, OK, but let's just
say it's a tiny bit. Sure.
How much would their learning be affected if there was no
planning a huge? Amount.
Or if you had to do your planning at the weekend when you
were burned out because you used all your time this.
Week. So it's as simple as why has the
biggest impact on the children, but is within the realms of what
the policy is for your school. Because if there's a policy at
the school which is causing you to be burned out, there's
nothing you can do. However, if there if you can
afford to have this attitude, then have this attitude.
I know that I need to update my displays, OK, but the only time
that will happen is if I get into school early.
And when I say early, I mean before half seven.
Umm. Or if I stay at school late.
Yeah, And do you know what? Lose your time, your.
Son, exactly. When I've done all my stuff,
like my planning, don't call next week.
Next week we'll run. That's fine.
All my resources are printed. Cool.
That's done. I could spend 45 minutes doing a
display now. Or I could go home and see Rory
and, you know, cook dinner properly.
Yeah, because you've already. Well, let's be let's be clear
here. Yeah, You're not doing this at
3:00. No, you're doing this at.
I'm no longer paid for my job because I've done 10 hours
today. Yeah, exactly.
So I don't need to say there's nothing compelling me to stay
other than going above and beyond.
So the macro thing there was, you know, have a hierarchy, but
I wanted to be really specific cause I want these tips to be.
That's really cool. High and hierarchy is the main
thing, and that can be with anything.
But very specifically if you want to off somewhere, start of
your PPI, have a list of things and stick to it.
What's important? And if something doesn't get
done, it doesn't get done. So I'm an SLT member.
I'll just listen to this. I listen to the podcast and I
think that's a really good actually.
I wanna, I wanna encourage this culture in my school.
So what I'm going to do is something I read about on the
forum the other day and I was like, oh, I'll bring this up
sometime. Someone was mentioning how their
SLT are coming around to monitor how PA time is being spent to
help them make it more effective.
And I thought it was really interesting because I could
imagine 2 scenarios, right? Yeah, I can imagine one scenario
where it's a genuinely it's a nice SLT team thinking they're
doing something nice to help their staff just be more
efficient so they can avoid burnout and which I don't think
is very likely. And there's the other side of me
that was like ohh no, it's just a classic draconian like Academy
trust CEO coming down and being like Nope, we're going to we're
going to tell people what to do in in PA.
So just to be clear PA is undirected time.
The school are not allowed, not allowed in any circumstance to
direct you as to the tasks that you do or complete in your PPA.
It's sacred time. So what would you say to me?
I'm SLT. I'm think I'm coming in.
I'm saying right. I'm gonna help you guys be more
efficient. Do you think that's OK?
I I think it really depends on the context because I think if
RSLT came in and said that I'm like, cool, this is what we do.
And I think it's really important in this situation for
SLT to offer it to not to not demand.
I'm coming to see your people. Yeah.
No, no, no. It no matter how well intended
it is, if it's demanded to me, that's wrong.
Yeah. If it's if it's offered.
And then you have that relationship PST.
Right. But yeah, God, because do you
know what I'm going to show you now?
I get this two hour block of PPA and I've got 2 1/2 hours of
planning, half an hour of marking and all those displays
you asked me to do. So how would you manage this?
And then and then. But then it becomes a
conversation of OK, yeah, mate, we are asking too much of you.
Do you know what? If the displays are that
important to me as SLT, why, why don't we cut back on the
planning? OK, so for this time, you know,
we can use that history unit from last year.
OK, that's fine, because we want to get this done.
For that reason, I'd be like, OK, because you've taken away
from my burden. OK, I'm still gonna manage how I
do it, but you've taken away from my burden now.
And you know what? I'll get it done.
I think there's going to be a problem where some teachers
perhaps aren't doing their job properly.
OK. And.
And and what I mean by that is, let's not be naive.
We're very much on the side of teachers every single time.
And we we come across like we're against SLT.
And I I really don't like that because there are some fantastic
slot out there. But also on the flip side, we
will say there are some teachers who don't get things done that
need to get done. And there are some teachers who
will completely waste their PA time.
We made a meme about it. You know, you have your chats
and stuff, but it's true. Yeah.
And if you are, you know however you wanna do it, that's fine.
But if you are wasting your PPA and then complaining about being
burnt out, fix it first. If you're still then complaining
about being burned out, then there's an issue with the
system. But I think when when there's
stuff you're in control of that you haven't first tried to
change or help yourself with, yeah, it does lessen your
credibility when you complain about stuff.
So if you're using your PPA to the best of your intent, you
can't then complain that you got an hour of work after school.
It's like, OK, well you did have an hour and you just chatted
about something for an hour. You know, I'm not saying that
you aren't burnt out. I'm just saying as a teacher, if
you want help with being burnt out, fix everything you can
yourself first make your own bed.
In that kind of terms of yeah, that's the kind of thing.
You're right, you're right. But that's what's going to help
people make the most of your time.
Then you can go XYZ. Look, I've spent two hours
planning my PA. I've still got a mark after
school and those things you want me to get done, they've just
gone down the list. I'm sorry, I've had that.
Conversation. Or more likely, I spent my whole
PA planning and I've only done about 20% of.
My planning. Yeah, exactly.
What do you want me to do guys? Because that's my whole
dedicated time for this week for it.
I've had that conversation before. 5 hours of planning
left. You know, I need to do these two
reports, these 3 reports, and it's and and and I said I will
do it. I promise.
It's part of my job. It's my profession.
Of course I'll do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When I can. Well, here's reality.
Right now, right now, this week, I've got about 8 hours of
planning to do for next week. I've got to get it done.
It has to be done and I've just got to do it.
And it's like that's four weeks of PPA.
Yeah, I never would have that done in school anyway.
Yeah. So yeah, it's, you know, there
are things I just broken. Well, at least on nicely to my
last point. And this is not a big point
really to talk about, but we can mention it.
So good ones like a bonus. 6th Yeah, it kind of goes on from
what you're saying, and that is speak up, talk to people, but
talk to the right people. That's the problem that I see a
lot of the time and the problem I've made and I still make all
the time Now. Everyone loves a good moan.
You're really good at this. Well as in as in doing this
point I do both. No you're really good at it and
and and you know you can have a read for your own back sometimes
because you can get known as the person who you complaining.
Again, you're moaning, but do you know what You What do you
do? Then what?
What do you mean? I tell you why I've got better
at it, at least so you might speak.
So if you're burning out and like Dylan said, you you kind of
put in place the things you're doing everything you can do to
not burn out. You're not, You're not just sat
there waiting, PA, or sitting after school talking to your
partner teacher for two hours and then saying, oh, I've got so
much markings to do and you could have done it two hours.
You know, if you're already doing your job effectively and
you're burning out, speak to the right people.
Actually go to your head teacher, not don't just go to
your TA who you know or just lap up everything you say and like,
fuel you a bit more. Or that other teacher in the
school that's pissed off about something that you can go to and
you know they're going to be with you and then you can both
be like, yeah, we hate this school.
That is good to do sometimes because you do need to vent, but
also do actually raise the point in a formal professional way to
the people who could change it. And then one of two things will
happen. They'll change it or they won't
and then you're just then you're justified in you're moaning and
and and actually then there's a real problem there.
And then that can become a wider school issue that you tackle as
a staff team. I don't know how it will go from
there. That's up to you and your
school. But if you don't at least try to
tell the right people, then can you expect anything to change?
And it's happened to me lots of times in my career.
Earlier on in my career, I get very riled up about stuff and
I'd let it get too. I'd let it get to me too much.
And then what I'd end up doing is I'd send an e-mail to myself
or the head teacher and it was a pissy e-mail and it would come
across as a pissy, rude e-mail. Then you're on the back foot.
Straight and then yeah, you know and that wasn't that wasn't good
and and over the years I've learned to one stop emailing and
just go and talk to people as much as possible and then.
Starts up as an e-mail just to say just thank you for talking
to me. Here are the points I raised.
Yeah and and two just if I do write an e-mail, actually just
be professional about it. You might be pissed off, but do
you know what? They could.
The SLT might also just not know because most of the time people
moan behind their backs and don't actually tell them.
And the amount of times I've said something to SLT and
they've been like, oh thank you for telling me, I didn't realise
that that everyone was thinking this across the school.
I didn't even know this was a problem.
Thanks. And then and then it gets fixed
usually. Sometimes.
Yeah, but what I mean is like, at least then it's a
conversation. Exactly.
At least then it's out in the. Open.
So I don't know. That's my last point.
Speak up, tell the correct people and actually expect help
as well. You know, don't expect nothing.
If they don't not doing anything then you can take it further.
Now these tips aren't automatically going to solve by
now because like we said, there are external factors are
contributing massively. Teacher burnout, I think these
are really sensible first steps that we've taken have helped us
that hopefully you guys can take as well.
You might do the more you might do none of them.
Try them out. Can I just say one thing I did
that's not related to these steps, but it might be.
It might be good to hear. One time I really really did
burn. Now I was working in A1 form
entry school year 6 lead or year 6 lead the the year 6 teacher
and I was trying to do some curriculum stuff.
As well, but. It's a brand new, like a brand
new was nothing there. It was the first ever year six.
There was no planning to go off. It was all from scratch.
I absolutely burnt out, said you know what I did?
I quit and I went to another school and you know what?
That's OK. Sometimes you can, you can just
cut your losses. Someone else might have come in
and done that and maybe maybe they're burnout thresholds
higher and they they relished in it.
They did like going above and beyond like Dylan was talking
about earlier. But for me at that time, in that
context of my life at that moment, I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it. I burned out and rather than
just sticking it through and. You became a feeling.
Even more stressed, I would go what?
You became a failure. A failure I was in a fair way.
I was like, we talk about we golf involved.
No, no. Yeah, but it's, you know, and
you might be sat there thinking about my school will block all
of these things, OK, maybe the schools, the problem.
Maybe we should leave. Yeah, nice one.
Well, they're our top tips guys. Hopefully they help you.
We're gonna have a quick Jingle and we've got that game and the
F Word story. Right, Dylan, what are you
talking about with? The welcome back we did.
We did the Jingle and he turned to me.
So seriously that puppy dog eyes like what's the F word, you
know. This is his memory.
Guys. By the way, I don't know.
Do you remember we talked about this whole.
OK, honestly have no idea right at the start.
Guys, if you do have a memory longer than a goldfish, I'm like
Hayden. You might remember at the start
we talked about doing cuts because I kept saying F1 about
that. OK And I said, do you wanna hear
the F word story to you? And you?
Yes. And you said no.
And I laughed and then I'll tell you later it's a very brief
effort story when you train as a teacher, if you decided to go
into that Ave of going to university for a year to do PGCE
like I did, you have to do some days in school first just to
know that it's what you want to do.
It's just a weed out people who are basically just saying ohh
yeah I'll do that. You've got to go and do 10 days
in a school. So I did 5 days at my old school
and five days at a different local school that I'd never been
into before in the different local school hadn't been in
before. You got to remember I'm just
some 20 year old fanic kid and I I must admit, I maybe it's cause
I've got Northerners. Northerners family swearing is
just a part of our lingo. OK?
It's just the way we talk, Hayden and I, when we're not in
school, when we're not doing well.
Even within the podcast, sometimes we try not.
Me, I swear, like nothing else. And I'm trying not to now around
Rory, obviously. However, we went into school.
I went into school and, you know, I was just this extra
body, you know, the type, just straight out of school.
No experience with kids whatsoever.
A burden of anything in the classroom, a complete burden.
So there was this afternoon, and I got sent out to play some
games with some kids. Looking back now, they're just
probably trying to get rid of me.
And they're like these kids, Get him out of the classroom.
One Dylan can go with them. We're playing snakes and
ladders. OK, Right.
So I'm going to ask you to beat this.
All right. OK.
Yeah. We're playing snakes and
ladders. You didn't swear at them?
And we were playing Snakes and Ladders, right?
And I was. I was losing.
Then I got ahead of the kid, you know, Snakes and Ladders.
It's up and down. And then a snake, damn it.
And then there was a ladder. Bloody hell.
And I was on the last row about to beat him.
And I rolled. I rolled.
I rolled A4, right. I rolled A4 or whatever it was.
Yeah. I went across 9697.
Landed on the snake and the kid went, what did you just say?
And I was like, ohh dear, no you didn't.
I was like, yeah, yeah, I said ohh dear, no, you dear, you
swore. No, shut up, kid.
Yeah, keeping my career was over already 'cause I was annoyed.
So a 7 year old was about to beat me.
Space. So funny.
I love that. It happens.
And I'd like to think the
winner, the only two people that have accidentally sworn about
children in nine years. But it has happened, you know,
been a couple of times in my career where I've just
accidentally, yeah, of course, maybe just been too comfortable
in what? Saying ohh MG.
It's usually when with kids that are just really nice and really
like just chilled out kids that you can be normal around.
Yeah. And I've just accidentally said
something Ohh you tell the head teacher.
Ohh no. I've done this and they usually
like it's fine. Yeah, of course.
That's the only thing. Obviously I told the teacher at
the end and she was like, don't worry about it and it was all
sorted, just be open. We'll just, we'll just say,
yeah, it was an accident. It happens.
Yeah, of course. As if they've never heard these
words before. Yeah, that's funny.
But yeah, that's my remember thinking I'm done with this
career is finished. So what's the F word story
anyway? We're.
Gonna finish right guys, Here are top tips for.
You haven't done your tips yet. No, no, no, no.
Forgotten them. You forgotten the in between
bits. Anyway, you got game Aiden.
Let's finish off another game in ages.
It's a really quick it's a game. It's more like a theoretical
Hayden. So it's obviously not.
It's not. But anyway, it's just I saw this
online and I thought this would be funny to say, not seeing this
completely. OK, so you can all play along.
Thank you. You can now tell them, do you
think about it as well? They can't just listen.
They can play. You have developed a new power.
I have the only person in the world who's got this power.
It's called Mole man, man. Got 3 moulds baby.
It's got moles for nipples. So you can now see a number.
Of moles. Ohh you can.
This could be your. Answer.
You can now see a number. Ohh, I know you're gonna say.
Go on. You can now see a number above
everybody's head. OK, only you can see this number
and only you have this power. What would you?
Like how many moles do they have?
This is what would you like the number to display?
Well, that's really. Cool.
OK, so you get to choose what is one thing.
You can't change this, Yeah? So OK, and it's always true.
It's always true. So you guys can all, you can all
see a number above someone's head.
Ohh, that's interesting. What do you what would you pick
that number to display? Or anything ever.
It could be about them, it could be the number, could be
anything. Oh my There'll be an individual
number per person above their head.
Umm. What do you want it?
To be the number of money I ohh, that's really good.
Can I see my own one? Yeah.
Yeah, ohh, because I was. Gonna Yeah, yeah, you can see
your own. Have a look in the mirror.
I've got my number. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know. There's that classic one of just
how many minutes they have left. Yeah, when you're gonna die.
Yeah, kind of. Because that's such a weird
thing. I think that's a big part of our
culture where it's like, well, weird that we just accept we
have no idea. It could be any time.
And I just don't think about it, but I think I'd be just that
can't be because. I become obsessed.
There's so many things you could you could go down the emotional
route. Could you have like how many
bugs they're gonna? Give ohh Wow.
Was that being abused? No, no.
But you you could do anything like that.
Yeah, but you could also be like the the classic thing of like, I
don't know how much money they're gonna make in their
life. Yeah, yeah.
How many, how many times they farted today?
Here's one. He's like anything.
How many times more will they say their own name before they
die? Right.
Because if minds anything other than 0.
I'm never going to die. I won't say my name, but one
left. OK, my name is.
Yeah, but knowing that, then it will just say 0.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Cause eventually when I want to
die, I'm like, OK didn't. What were his last words?
We must write them down with his own name.
Selfish idiot. How many times they said I've
had a great life. Thanks all for the memories
everyone's got one of. Yours is just Dylan.
Yeah, you know what you want to know about people.
I. Guess how many hours they think
would be waiting to see in a day?
How many times they streamed to teach?
Stick with podcast. Yeah, the number.
The rating they gave for the Tech State Repeat podcast?
We can see you get the one. Finally.
It was you, Hayden's mum. Yeah.
So I don't know what I'd pick. Yeah, so many.
Things tell you what, that was a great game, all right.
The number is your satisfaction, level 1 to 10 of my gains.
Do you know what a game? Is that's.
That's just a question. Shut up.
I don't know. That's the answer, I reckon.
Can we make it a poll or a question with the Spotify Yeah,
we can make a poll. Yeah, Hayden, we can get a poll.
Where? We where we predetermined the 2
answers everyone. Will say, yeah.
Yeah we do, Francis. We'll get about two replies and
then we'll we'll just ignore it. Ohh my gosh.
I actually put something ohh what is Instagram earlier?
And I said we're about to go live with the podcast we'll
finish off with. This, excuse me, this is gonna
go. This is the Backfire.
So horribly, Of course. Of course it is.
Because I thought to myself, you know what I'll just see?
Because we've got about 2 1/2 thousand followers now on our
Instagram and we do get good Instagram.
It's repeat podcast. So we get good, like, we get
good interaction on our podcast, We get good votes, like 100.
Yeah, podcasts on our Instagram. So I just put a story out there
right before we started saying first person to reply here gets
a shout out. Didn't you do this literally
like 20 seconds before we started recording?
Yeah yeah. So first person to reply here
gets a shout. You've got 3 minutes, we have 3
reply. Who's the first one?
So I will give all three because it's only three reply.
OK, so I'll give all three. First one, one of our previous
guests, the teachers PT. Yeah, go on then.
There you go Martin. If you wanna hear about Martin,
he smashed it on Instagram at the minute.
Lots of really funny memes going follow him.
He is at the teachers PT. Especially if you're a teacher.
Go and find out how to stay healthy and fit and have a laugh
as well. Next one is El Clark, 82, who
Simply put an emoji with our hand up.
So L Clark 82. There you go.
Hey, I don't know your full name.
Is it just Li? Don't know.
Miss Clarke 82. Whoever you are, there's your
shout out. Thanks for listening.
And the last one is my mum and she's put OK, right.
If you can guess the one word, my mum's purse, right.
This is a game. How would if you can guess the
one word my mum's put, you can lead the next week's.
Podcast how how could I possibly?
Shut up and guess. What I don't know.
One word underfed. No, she's put gangster,
gangster, gangster. What did they what did Jonah at
3:00? 17 What did my mum put?
Your mum? She put.
Why is my name spelt weird? That's the name of my mom is a
good story actually started. I've actually there you go, he
said his memory, cause I've told the story on this podcast.
Before told it, see, go back and check it out.
Right guys, we're finished there.
Hayden started this again by saying it might be a short one
today. New.
It's me and you, Hayden. We're gonna chat, chat, chat
waffled about crap. OK, hope you enjoyed our tips
though and we do. We do live and breathe them and
it has helped with our teacher. Follow us on Instagram, give our
podcast to follow and give it a rating please.
And why not share with a friend? We're one years old.
Bye.