Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the episode of
Teach Sleep. Repeat.
My name is Dylan and my name's Tayden.
And if you're back at school this week, welcome back with a
bang. And if you're not, then shut up
about it and don't tell everyone.
We don't want to hear you get an extra week, all right?
Just enjoy it. Sorry, this is not how you
introduce yourself to our listeners.
You're actually insulting them. Maybe half of them, yeah.
Yeah. Both both types of people are
lovely. There we go.
So we'll cut that bit in. Yep, we don't use it.
No problem, absolutely fine. We're going to talk about
Saturday. Alienate the other half straight
away. I'll go.
So switch that off. No, it's going to be a chat
about the whole school aspect of SATS as well as narrowing down
into actually preparing and what you should do.
But before we get into it, I did just want to say to you guys
right now that you can sign up your school for a free trial of
math suit. It is completely free.
There are no strings attached whatsoever and it's our platform
we built to help with arithmetic, maths fluency.
And at this point in the year, let me be really straight,
whether we like Sats or not, schools up and down the country
are getting ready for children to be sitting these tests and
what better way to help them? And we'll talk about this later
for the children become to become more familiar with the
types of questions they might see, and also to be able to
actually understand what children can and can't do and
help them. So Matthew can do just that.
Exactly, that arithmetic does exist.
There is an arithmetic paper, OK.
And also arithmetic is the kind of the foundation for building
on reasoning and problem solving, all that good stuff we
talked about. Yeah, but at the end of the day,
they're going to be sat there doing arithmetic paper, and
you're obviously going to be practising arithmetic in any
year group, especially year 6 right now.
So why not take advantage of us? Links down in the description
below. Click it.
I'm just going to cut across him because he's waffling right now.
Get down there, it's completely free.
Like I said, get in touch and we'll get your school using it
as soon as possible. But Hayden, yeah, let's talk
about SATS then. You spent a lot of time in Year
6 as a teacher, and I want to start off with a video I saw
this week. OK, which do you know when you
see a video, right? And the number of comments is
really, really close to the number of likes it gets?
And you always think, OK, something's gone on here
engaging because usually, you know, there's just a few
comments compared to maybe hundreds of likes.
And I thought, OK, the people are talking.
So I watched the video and the video said it was somebody who
worked in a school, someone who wasn't in year 6, who said year
six teachers should be paid more than other teachers in a primary
school. Couldn't agree more.
I'm. Joking, firstly that's very
interesting because normally rage bait videos do that kind of
thing, but that doesn't sound too rage baity I'm presuming
some people got very annoyed about.
It no, but this person from what I saw the video, genuinely
thought and believed. This and then not a year 6
teacher. No, that's interesting.
Well, do you know it is interesting because I also
wasn't in year 6IN my career and I looked at year 6 and thought,
wow, they're doing way more than everyone else.
I looked at you and I thought, what are you doing?
Do you know what I mean? Like in terms of you seem to,
you seem to get sucked into the whole, oh, it's the most
important thing in the world to do this that and we got to do
all this extra stuff and we got to do, I looked at you and I
thought, you don't even think that this is the thing to do and
you're still being drawn into it to a degree.
And I just think you were just a complete sellout fraud.
So it was really interesting to me.
And I never once thought you should get paid more either.
I thought you were just an idiot.
And that again, because it was just because it was me.
If it wasn't me, you might have thought that.
OK, so just like coming. I want to hear the end of your
thought train here. Other than, you know, I.
Don't remember, I got a tangent. So did you when you when you saw
that, did at any point you think, oh, this isn't fair for
year six teachers, There should be some remuneration.
No, I don't think that. I think it's, it's, I think that
the base understanding of what year 6 is like was completely
true. That was my point.
I don't think the conclusion I would come to personally is that
they therefore needs to be paid more.
Yeah, I think that the conclusion I come to is they
therefore need to be treated equally, the same as the rest of
the school. And you know, at the end end of
the day, the Sats are in Year 6 and that becomes a focal point
for year six teachers. But the only reason it tends to
be that they're overworked and have to do way more is because
of the pressures from the top down, from the score for Sats
results to look good. There are loads of reasons why I
think that's a bad thing and that's what I'd fix and I think
should be a culture of Year 6 not being treated that way,
rather than it simply being, well, no, that's acceptable and
we'll just pay you a bit more as well.
Have you always been a Tory? What are you talking about?
Have you always been someone who just says, yeah, we should do
the thing that's never gonna happen and not pay the people
for doing the extra work when it continues to happen?
Have you always thought that? Do you attribute that with Tory?
That I was trying to say anything where I was like, just
not you. It didn't really make sense, but
do you not think there is an element of so, yeah, that's
cool. That's nice to say.
But you know, it has just happened consistently over 20
years. No one's changing the system and
they do just do more work. Yeah, OK, sure.
So when the MTC came in in year 4, do we just kind of pro R to
the extra that you get for SAT in year 6 because there's a
little extra test in year 4 now? So year 4 teachers get a bit
extra as well. And actually are we we happen to
do residential in year 3. So the year 3 let's pro R to
that was a bit more or less than the MTC.
Oh, I just can't tell. No cut all that Goff and just
and just pay teachers the same. I I go further.
You know what I'm like in terms of, I don't think necessarily
just because you've been a teacher longer, used to be paid
more than someone else. Yeah, I think, you know, you're,
you're the way you are as a teacher and the quality that you
bring that isn't necessarily tied to how long you've been
doing the job. So I think the whole pay
system's a bit strange. But I understand that we live in
a culture and a society where the more you've been doing
something, you build up experience, obviously the more
you likely you are to be better at the job.
So therefore you get more money. Very closely linked.
I understand that, but I, I thought two years into my career
I was a better teacher than some people who are 10 years into
their career. And I also thought 10 years into
my career I was a worse teacher than some people who were two
years into their career. It was it fluctuated as a
general rule. Fair enough.
And that's why I'm not. Yeah, that's OK.
So I also think as a general rule, you should just get paid
what you get paid as a teacher. And if there are external forces
coming in, I don't think that necessarily means you should get
paid more. Like for example, do you think
teachers who are teaching GCSE classes should get paid more and
teachers who are teaching A level classes should get paid
more, even more, because it's even more of a of a impact on a
child's life? That's interesting.
You're I, I don't think so, by the way, but I'm funny.
Interesting that you're equating the pay with like how much
impact it has on the on the kids.
Whereas I reckon the majority of people that are commenting on
that and that whole point in that video was there is just
more workload because they end up doing.
Why is there more workload? Because, because it is, because
the that's what I'm talking about 100%.
So that's what I mean. I, I, I I'm not I'm.
Not saying it's because of the kids.
I'm saying because they're doing a level, because they're doing
GCC, because they're doing Sats. Yeah, that brings pressure,
which brings added workload. Yeah, yeah.
I'm not saying just simply because of the the test they're
doing OK. I mean, because of that test,
they're being asked to do more. They're being asked to come in
in the holidays. The amount of secondary school
teachers I know who work through their Easter and basically do
sessions constantly and they'll get paid overtime for that.
But in general, like day-to-day time to time test to test,
marking constant past papers, there is obviously an increased
workload at this point of the year compared to maybe a teacher
who has mainly year 78 and 9 That, that, that's that.
That's obviously just true. In the same way there's more
workload right now for year six in a lot of schools compared to
year 2345. Yeah, that's all true.
But all all I'm saying with that is it's just because of the year
group they're in. It's not because of the test
they're doing. That makes sense.
Sure. The way you said it at first was
you were like, should we get paid more if you do GCSE and
then paid even more if you do A levels?
If like the harder the exam, the more you get paid, yeah, maybe
the more they're all equal in terms of like, OK, there are
some years where there's test pressure, which might just add
to workload. Yeah, I don't think so.
In general, I find the whole conversation interesting because
it to me it boils all the way back down to how inconsistent
the job of a teacher is in terms of like if you just look at the
meta level across the country, yeah, all teachers are being
paid other than like some areas of London and there is like
different bands, but generally you're being paid to be a
teacher, being prayed no matter being.
Prayed please pay me. Please pay me in some schools.
To get your pay packet, you have to pledge allegiance to the
Pope. Yeah, yeah.
Who's on the wall? Who's on the wall?
In every single. Room in my cafe, but we don't
indoctrinate kids here. We're sorry there's no
indoctrination here. Don't bring your lefty walk
liberal nonsense to this classroom Now.
Eat the bread of Christ. Not in the eyes of the Pope.
It's Friday, so we better go to church.
Anyway, when you when you start bashing.
Gosh indoctrination Dylan. Oh yeah, such a bad thing to do.
It's just awful of saying that indoctrination bad in that way.
But yeah, put it in full circle. I just think I always find it
very interesting that a teacher can work in one school and have
an unbelievably different workload to a teacher who works
down the road and in a different school.
They both have the same job role and let's say they're on the
same pay point and they're and there's like astronomical
difference in the hours they do. I just find that weird in
general. Yeah, sure, absolutely.
And, and I think that's maybe boils down to why I think that
paying someone different is just stupid.
Yeah, yeah, I I agree. You're in year 6.
I don't even think it automatically means you're doing
more. I think it think it probably
means you're doing more, but doesn't automatically
necessarily mean you're doing more.
And I just think you're going down a, a, a, a, a path that
it's going to be really hard to be consistent on.
It's already hard with the whole experience thing that I spoke
about. Like that's already, to me,
slightly flawed. So we're just adding even more
to it. Yeah, it, it gets too chaotic in
terms of trying to work out too complex.
I agree. If you had a graph, yeah, that
where, where you plotted and you messaged it, every single person
is teaching in the country, right, where you plotted against
their year group and what their workload's like.
You probably would see like a really loose correlation where
where some years are just sort of like they spike a bit higher
than others. But it's like, but there will be
tonnes of outliers in every single direction in every single
year, in every single year in every single school.
And it's like you can't really standardise.
In year 6, the year 6, the year 6 will look different.
Exactly. That's what I mean, you know,
with workload as well, we talk a lot about workload, but
sometimes it's in the control of the teacher, it's in the control
of the professional. Like we say, a lot take control
of your workload. And there's a lot of people who,
you know, learned helplessness is a really harsh way of saying
it, but it's, it's along those lines of like people just
comment saying, well, how easy for you?
We, we have to work 2 hours a day after school every single
day. You actually don't like, you
actually just don't have to do that.
You might have convinced yourself you have to, to meet
this threshold that you've put in your head, which is really
high. And that might be for the best
interest of the children in your heart.
And you think, actually, this is, well, how am I going to help
the kids the most? But you've still chosen to do
that. And if that threshold you've set
yourself means you end up burning out, then you need to
move that threshold yourself and accept that has to be lower.
And that's not nice for some people, but you have to do it.
Same I'd say for year 6 if year 6 is completely burning you out.
I had a joke and a laugh earlier about you being in year 6 and,
and I think we have said this plainly to before.
I think there are some things that I've said to you like why
are you doing that or why are you not mentioning this thing
which you think is stupid that we're all doing that you are
doing. I've done it because I've
already met my quota of mentioning stupid things.
So, so, so, so my, my point is like, I'm, I'm joking because
you, you are nowhere near like the you still push back on a lot
of things, but even you and everyone who listens to this
podcast will understand where we both stand on stuff.
There was still some stuff like, you know, doing booth, doing
booster math and English in the afternoon.
You still ran some boosters, I remember.
So my point to you is just flipping this on its head here.
Even with the best of intentions and we were in a lovely school
and you had the best outlook in the world in terms of I know you
personally thought that we should just be treating sounds
like it's a normal week. It's still in that environment
and with your attitude you still did more.
So do they have a point that it's just inherently actually do
you know what, maybe you should get a bit of overtime, or maybe
you should get a bit of extra time out of class, at least
something to show that you are doing more than other teachers.
Ultimately no, like even though I was trying to play there was
advocate, I do actually agree with what you said. 2 two big
reasons. One, it is just different in
every school anyway. 3 reasons #2 we should actually be aiming
to tackle that as a systemic issue rather than just being
like accepting it and then saying cool yeah everyone has
boosters, we just pay ES6 teachers more.
Actually, that's just tackle. But do you think there's room
for, like, for example, I know some ES6 teachers who over that
Easter break were doing some boosters, right, and got
literally paid overtime for going in and doing that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whilst I don't think year six
teachers should just blankly get paid more because they're year
6, I do actually think that if you're doing boosters in your
half term that you should be getting paid over time for it.
So, so there's what all, all I'm trying to get to here is that
there is, there is some weird grey area here where actually,
you know, if you just castrate someone for saying year six
teachers should get paid more, like castrate is such a don't
know why you castrate them. It's such a strange choice.
Of verb. Sorry, I'm just going to
continue. What's that?
Imagining my balls being cut off.
Carry on. You see, you see, teachers get
paid more, get the scissors. It's such a shame.
Listen, I'm sorry. It's the rules.
You think now Castrate. Oh, she was going higher.
So it's really weird. But come back, I'm just going
to, I'm going to cut you off here because I because I agree.
But I think that's almost like a separate thing.
I mean, it's not even necessarily a year six thing.
I know schools where it's like they just open it to any skip
teacher to come and do the booster things.
I don't think, I don't think, I don't think schools should be
doing that at all. This is my, this is my saying,
but I think when, when schools are doing stuff like come in
early, like literally before your contract or directed time
starts and do this teaching, which you don't normally have to
do in your contract or in the Easter holidays or the weekend
or whatever that has to that has to come with pay.
What? What don't you?
What don't you think schools should be there?
I don't think schools should be doing extra like booster
sessions over the Easter holidays.
I don't think it's good for the staff, genuinely all the kids.
Just side thing, can I book onto your SATS course for tutoring
that you offer? Yeah, yeah, you can.
So what's the like, what do you think That's OK?
Yeah. So do you think extra in general
is like, I'm a director of this tutoring company here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm just trying to play
devil's advocate again here a little bit in terms of it's a
good question. You know, you're just saying I
don't think schools should be doing boosters.
It's like, well, you know, we offer tutoring.
I think there's, I think I can understand there's a crossover.
I think there's a very different intent in terms of.
Porn Houdini got this. No, no, I think so.
I think I think this is an interesting discussion because
otherwise we wouldn't do it, of course, I don't think, I don't
think boosters should happen when it takes up other learning
first time. We'll get on to that in a bit
because I know you're really passionate about the whole idea
of boosters taking up by PE and all that sort of stuff, right?
I don't think that really should happen.
I think from the school's perspective, when you've got
these kids, when your school is being held accountable for the
data and if it's a situation where a school is putting on a
lot of pressure during 1/2 term or a school holiday to get all
the kids in that are on the cusp of expected to come in and
they're putting on that pressure because and for them to come in
and do those groups. I generally I generally don't
like that idea. I don't I don't inherently think
boosters are bad by the way. I don't inherently think giving
children more opportunities to learn stuff yeah is bad.
Like I don't like that really clear because it's.
So just to clarify then, because you're talking about half term,
right? You said about in half term what
you mean is 1/2 term break not like an actual when they're in
school? Yeah.
So, so it's in the classic. What you're saying is I just
want to make this really clear because you said you don't think
boosters should be happening. I think, you know, we in in the
half term breaks we don't offer. We have breaks as well.
Basically we don't offer the tuition lessons.
I think that's because we've always said the same thing of
want to give, be able to give the children a break.
Ultimately parents can do what they want with the children in
half term. Yeah, parents want to do some
extra work with them. They can, they have our
catalogue of lessons, our catalogue of homeworks and
stuff. A parent can log on and say to a
kid you're doing this. Ultimately that's not down to
us. We've made the decision to not
do groups in that time and we recommend to actually have a
break exactly that. Same for schools.
We're saying here like if schools, you know, if you're
offering some actual half term boosters, why?
Like, OK, and in your point is, it's because normally it's
because there's a lot of pressure and that pressure can
lead to those boosters not being as helpful, maybe being a bit
stressful, being a bit boring potentially.
And there are some amazing teachers out there who'd push
back because I know I've seen them myself who do boosters and
have done boosters in this half term and I've seen videos and it
looks really fun. It looks really nice.
So you you're not trying to paint.
No, I, I think it's actually a really complex issue genuinely.
And I think there are obviously situations where it's fine and
there are even situations where I might look at them and go,
well, that's stressful. Kids are not very nice.
And some of those kids still enjoy it and it's actually good
for them. I think there was lots of loads
of crossover. I just think in general, in
general, we should be prioritising maybe having an
actual break in those holidays. Like you said, you can't control
every variable. There are going to be parents
who just who would literally say to the teachers, can we have
something though for over the half term?
I want, you know, we just want to do literally like an hour
over half term. Is there like a little pack or
something we can work on? And I don't think it's the worst
thing in the world for a school to say, yeah, sure, here's an
optional little pack of stuff. It's like a revision booklet if
you really want to. And they really want to do it
because it's because it's kind of you can't control everything.
If the parent wants to do that with that child, whether the
child likes it or not, that it's under the parents control at
that point. And I think going back to our
tutoring service, ultimately, although we, yeah, we do offer
basically booster sessions. We offer extra learning
opportunities after school in term time.
We do also have a bunch of resources you can download and
pay for on a website. And will some people pay for the
pay for those and use them over the half term?
Yes. Does that make us automatically
awful? I don't think so.
I still think it's good for us. When we recommend our parents,
we literally say to them, please make sure you have a break.
Breaks are really important for your children.
Let's drill down to term time then because we are obviously
our our Year 6 lessons are English and Maths and they are
during term time. They'll be after school at some
point. If the equivalent was happening
and a school was putting them on, is that acceptable?
So for example, if a school is saying, OK, OK, kids on
Wednesday, after school, SAT booster revision club.
I've I get the impression that your base reaction to that would
be don't do that because what's going on, you know, if a school
is paying the teacher over time to do it and the children are
choosing to go, is there a problem with that?
In principle, no, genuinely no, like otherwise we'd be a massive
hypocrite. Everything we offer, like we
literally offer a service where people could get one or two
hours a week of extra learning outside of school times, after
school hours. And it's and it's obviously
optional because it's a business.
We make, we make money from it, right?
You're not going to pretend it's also always we're such good
people. We're just doing it for the
love. No, we are making profit from
that and tutors are getting paid and a service is being delivered
to paying customers, parents of of children, right?
That exists. I obviously don't think that's
terrible, otherwise I wouldn't do it.
So in the same light, I don't think it's terrible if schools
have some. If anything it's great because
it it's probably free for the children at school, right?
If they're often that thing after school.
The only time I get sceptical is when that comes with because a
school is inherently held accountable by those stats.
We're not we're held, we're held accountable by the profit we
make, right. So I get it right.
But we even with that, I mean maybe just table businessman, we
don't, we don't market these groups at all.
If anything, just clarification. We spent about three years
basically not offering this service because we didn't want
to fall in. We didn't want to do what we
think is bad. Like regarding like, you know,
actually like really making kids feel like overly pressured and
overwhelmed, which is what some schools I think can do.
When they put on these extra groups, they put the pressure
with it and it's a net loss. We spent years bang parents off
basically because they were literally asking us to.
Like we had people coming for us from year 4, Year 5, and they're
saying, oh, my kid loves this club, which is what it was for
them. Can you do it in year 6 as well?
And we're like, no, we don't want to because we don't want to
be pushing. That's pressure.
And actually in the end we were like, well, they literally just
want to learn more English and maths.
So we started that service. So I still think there's lots of
nuances and little clarifications.
I think there are plenty of schools who do it great.
And I don't think inherently it's a bad thing.
It's, it's, it can be a nice option for, you know, kids to
come after school if anything, if that means they're not doing
it in their afternoon time and ruining their curriculum.
Yeah, exactly. Like history and stuff.
I'm like, OK, actually, you know what?
Do that instead because at least then this is optional and the
kids that want it can. Come and fundamentally, the
teachers should be getting paid. If they're not getting paid,
they're not being exploited. There's lots of other things
along with it. So in terms of actual SAT
boosters, you're not then necessarily just against all SAT
boosters ever? No, it's, it's the context in
which they give it as well. And if the context exactly lines
up with our private tutoring company, then it's obviously
good. That's the good one.
That's the good version. Do you know how I can summarise
it genuinely? Right.
The context is this number one, are the people providing the
service being paid fairly for it?
Cool. That has to tick a box #2 Are
the children that are going happy to go and they want to go
like genuinely, that's it. And #3 is, is the school making
some effort, some effort to think about the, it might be
putting on staff, the pressure it might be putting on children
and just factoring that into the decision.
If they're not factoring in at all, I think it's a dangerous
game. They are factoring it in.
I think they can come to very sensible conclusions and offer
really lovely booster services for children to learn more
English, maths. I think it's there's a nice
middle ground there. Yeah, we don't not think
intervention should exactly go. So obviously it can be good.
It's just because it's got that SAT booster against it.
That's the reason because ultimately I think most teachers
think the Sats are a complete waste of time.
Yeah. So when it's got that attached
to it, it's like, but no, when you actually dive into what
you're doing in those lessons, and I can only talk from our
experience of our lessons of English and maths.
They're learning English and maths.
Yeah, they're doing about English and maths.
So it, it can be good. But you know, ultimately it's
still, it is still frustrating. And you're absolutely right.
I've got notes here with this whole thing's about SAT.
The biggest thing that comes to my mind is please stop taking my
children from my lesson out of my afternoons to do more English
and maths. Just to be clear, yeah, it
literally wrote the words. Including the F word in this
document multiple times because that is what is so annoying to
me. And that's how people can be
like, well, you do tutoring. Yeah.
After school. It doesn't eat into their PE
time. Yeah.
What are we doing? In a school?
Children will do six hours of maths a week and probably more
than that of English a week. Yeah.
OK. Do we need to really ever be
taking children out of afternoon lessons to teach them where a
comma should go in a relative clause?
No, of course we shouldn't be doing that.
What? No one can convince me.
I've heard no convincing argument yet as to why that's an
acceptable thing to do, and I'm talking specifically when it
takes away from the other lesson.
Imagine being a child who is less confident in English, which
is the reason they're in the group, by the way, in the first
place, and therefore means you miss other lessons because of
it. English becomes it's almost like
you've committed a crime, here's your punishment, even more of
the thing you hate and you're not very good at.
Let's try it for another half an hour.
You still probably won't get it because you didn't get in six
hours you did this week. In place of the lesson that you
do actually like and feel. Constantly.
You love PA, you're fantastic at tennis.
And. And the worst thing I absolutely
hated was when you'd get them ready, get their change for PA.
You're going outside, you got all the equipment ready, right,
guys? First drill and then someone
comes out. Can I have this place, this,
this, this person, please. Yeah.
The kids look like they want to cry because they just want to
join in with the PA lesson. I hate that and we are taking
them away from that because they need to go and sit in a dingy
room with someone and look at a past spag paper.
It is absolutely disgusting and I hate it and there is no one
who can convince me otherwise and I don't care how much
pressure there is on a school. I don't care.
There comes a point where the pressure stops being an excuse
because I see it too often with people online with comments
saying you can't moan it, teachers or leaders because it's
the pressure from the top. OK, but there is a line where it
is, it becomes unacceptable. There's certain stuff the
pressure can affect you doing, but when it comes to a child
starts crying because they're only PE lesson this week that
they're really looking forward to.
They can't do it anymore because you're going to take them to do
an extra bit of English. And instead of having 6 1/2
hours of English that week and one hour of PE, which is
disgusting already, let me make that clear.
One hour of PE is not enough. Instead of that, they've now got
7 hours of English, an extra half an hour of maths and
they're not going to miss their PE completely.
What world are we living in where we think that's
acceptable? There's no amount of pressure
that makes you think it's OK to inflict that on a child, make
them upset because it's the only lesson they look forward to that
week and they just sat in a room.
You're not fostering a love for master English, you're in
creating pressure for a test that they're struggling with
anyway and you're taking away the one thing they love.
Every week in the classroom is disgusting.
Yeah. And let's not forget the nice
little bit of extra context. The icing on the cake is the
fact that that child that's been taken is only only being taken
because their number is close to 100.
Yeah, yeah. Because they're close, they'll
be children who, if you looked on paper, would technically
maybe need more support. Yeah, and they're not getting.
Left behind, then I'll gain it because I didn't know I would
give. I can't get those.
PE is important. How many can't?
Take them out. PE is important.
For them, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's that?
They can't, they can't read properly yet.
Well, they need PE, don't they? What's that?
They don't know how to tick twice in a box.
Let's do that test technique because that's really important
all of a sudden. Yeah.
It is an absolute game. It's an absolute sham.
There's it doesn't wash with me. Oh, pressure from the top.
Look out for the kids. Part of your job should be to
absorb that pressure because it's children that's involved.
There has to be a barrier between pressure from top.
You child, it's your job to absorb that pressure.
So when it when it, when you just say, oh, people from the
top are making my life hell. So you're going to make the kids
life hell? Do you think that's OK?
Who are you aiming this at right now?
Because what's interesting? Teachers and leaders.
You, you never taught in your six, No.
So you've got a unique perspective here where you can
say this kind of from a high horse perspective of you never
actually taught your six yourself.
I taught this for a long time and I never in multiple schools
and I never ever taught a year of your 6 where there weren't at
least some of these boosters that you're describing that I
had to do. But my point is these boosters
and things still happen in the lower year groups as well.
Yeah, boosters and English interventions and maths boosters
still happen in afternoons in those lessons.
So I see it happening even when there's no pressure at all.
That's why I get even more you've done more angry I hate.
It yeah, I hate it, but you've done them because.
It's my job and I got told to do it and I didn't.
What I'm saying is I didn't make it into a thing where it's huge
pressure and I'm going to put in the kids now.
And, and I'll be perfectly honest with you, I practise what
I preached because when the kids are doing PE, I didn't take them
out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I didn't do it. I didn't take them out.
And I and I carouseled over lessons.
Yeah, Yeah. And I said, OK what, what did
you miss last week? You won't miss it this week.
And when it came to PE and I, I can't say this now because I'm
not in the job anymore. Every single time I took kids
out of PE, I said to them, do you want to do PE or do you want
to do the group? And if they said they wanted to
do the group, they came into the group.
If they said they wanted to do PEI said go and do PE.
Yeah. Every time.
Yeah, yeah. And that was when it got to the
end. Like obviously I'm not going to
pretend I was an ECT. I was doing that because I
didn't have the confidence to do that.
But when I got to the point where I'm actually, actually
like, well, you know, I'm in a professional here and I am
taking this child out of their only PE lesson this week.
I I refuse to do that. So when you say I did it, I did
to it. Yeah, of course I offered them.
But I, I equally I, and if someone pulled me up on that,
I'd say, yeah, they'd get 10 minutes to PE otherwise this
week. So I'd stand to PE.
But ultimately, you still took kids out of afternoon lessons.
Yeah. Regardless, even even it wasn't
PE. Yeah, so you never.
Spanish and Spanish is. Right.
But just a minute ago you very passionately, I'm just
challenging a little bit. You very passionately said it
doesn't wash and you don't think it.
You don't think teachers can have the excuse of oh, well,
there's all the pressure from top down.
But you literally said, oh, I have to do it, it's my job.
Yeah, Yeah. So.
When I when I talk about I'm saying adults in a school, do
you want to say teachers and leaders?
Yeah, I think adults in the school as a whole, Yeah.
Think I want to band together ultimately hide a boss.
Yeah. And that's what I mean when
people say, oh, the pressure from the top down means I have
to do this. Dah, dah, dah, dah.
Yeah, Yeah. OK.
I turned around and told him I didn't want to do it.
Yeah. And you still have to and.
But then I got moved off it and it became my my Ugrid leader did
it in the second part as well. I still enjoyed doing them.
I still enjoyed doing boosters. But ultimately my point ended up
being that I did give the kids a choice.
Yeah, I did Like, I literally said to them, like, look, and
and I carouseled it around today, we're missing less of
every subject. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So I don't, I completely
disagree with them. Absolutely.
And I think you should push back.
And I did push back. And I think there are some,
there are some lessons. And I'm going to be perfectly
honest again, I'm sorry, Spanish or MFL people right?
But to to me PE was a court in my head.
Of course, subject Yeah, a kid should not be missing they.
Just cannot for. Anything for anything it would
be like that you you would not get someone coming into your
English lesson to take them out for for PE booster.
Yeah yeah, yeah, that wouldn't happen yeah right.
So I in my head, it appears sacrosanct to me.
Yeah. And there are certain lessons
that are sacrosanct and I completely.
Disagree, it's true isn't it? You in in in maths and English.
You don't get people coming in to take those kids out to do
boosters in other subjects. Yeah, well, sometimes you get
people to come in to take them out for a music lesson.
Yeah, that's true. Music has always had this
universal like, yeah, Trump telling, doesn't it?
Especially when it's like a private.
By the way, I I liked. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because we did nothing. Not the end of the world, is it?
We did nothing but. But yeah, in general though, in
general, it's a lot more like straightforward.
It's a lot more expected that if you're teaching a history
lesson, that four of your kids at any point could be taken out
to some random group you didn't even realise.
Exactly. Whereas that is very unlike less
likely to happen during a maths lesson.
Someone takes them out to, we got to do a French intervention.
Yeah. So he's like, no, sorry, they
don't do maths. And interventions do have to
happen at some point in the day. Yeah, of course.
I'm not an idiot. I understand all of this.
But I just think it needs to be done in a way where it's not
every single week as well. And it's because you you're
arbitrary next to this line. Yeah, the interventions I did
were really are targeted and short.
They weren't ongoing interventions for weeks and
weeks and weeks and weeks. It was, here's a group of
children who need this gap addressed.
I'm gonna address it with them. It's gonna be a small part of
the afternoon, and I always did it at a point in the afternoon
where it wasn't disruptive to the lesson.
And if it wasn't a lesson that I deemed as just too important and
I'm, I've got no qualms in saying this PE was on that
pedestal. I always gave the kids choice.
And sometimes I said to them, just going to PE.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Because actually, if they wanted to, they needed to.
PE because we had a carousel at our school where they'd do like
PE for a certain part of the afternoon.
If I ever had to take kids out, I'd be like, you literally are
going to go and join the other class now and do PE.
Yeah, I I made sure no one ever missed out on APE.
Yeah, exactly. But OK, let's let's take to the
next level because ultimately it's quite.
It's more common in year 6 during that SAT window, however
long that is. Might be a month, might be two
terms. Some schools it's more, it's
more more systematic in terms of it's quite often that a whole
afternoon every single week or multiple afternoons a week will
divert from whatever the normal curriculum was and become
additional English and maths lessons.
That's, that's like quite a standard practise across a lot
of schools to some extent, right?
It's some give and take. That's a little bit different I
think from to a like a 20 minute intervention every now and then
or once a week, right? It's, it's, it's all the kids
missing out on everything constantly for weeks on end
preparing for that. So do you think I, I, I did that
for my whole career? Yeah.
Not because I wanted to, yeah, but very much because like, like
literally that's what I've been told to do.
Like, I have to do as I'm told. So do you think I'm a shill for
like and I'm AII should be accountable for that?
Only a teacher. Only if you rolled over and
didn't say anything about it. If if you just rolled over and
went I hate this but hey ho. My point is in the day you're a
teacher who knows the kids better than anyone who's a
professional. And you and I clearly thought
this is bad. So when I did the groups myself,
I tried to manage those things that I think were bad and I took
it upon myself that if someone moaned at me it's my fault.
It's not the kids fault. I'm not going to make the kids
miss PE constantly because of it.
If someone came out and said oh, why didn't you do that group
with them? I'd say because otherwise I
wouldn't do PE this week. And I've made that decision.
And it doesn't have to be anything to do with the kids.
There has to be some shielding from you as the adult sure to
give the kids the best thing. What if you work in a school
where where? Because we work in a very nice
school. So what if you work in a school
where that results in a disciplinary action?
You get three of those and you go to a hearing and you get
fired and it's like horrendously toxic.
I don't work in a school. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to work
on. That we need a job and they
haven't got another job coming up.
Right now you're just, you are just in that school right that
moment. Like, do you make that decision?
Life. Life's too short.
I'm not going to make kids life's hell because I've got a
crap boss. End of story.
I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.
So if it was that bad, yeah, that you had to be doing these
things that were just completely detrimental to the kids
constantly. And I just refused to do it.
And then they somehow got around somehow that's disciplinary and
they managed to fire me somehow. See you later.
I don't want to work in that school.
And there's other schools who won't hire me because of that.
They don't work in that school either.
So I'm not, I'm not. I just don't want to become
this, this shill of like going completely against all of my
morals and values because I have a bad boss that lets the bad
boss get away with it. And I can, by the way, I
completely understand there were people listening.
I know I just got on with it. I understand.
I don't understand most people. I don't know.
I genuinely understand that. I I honestly do honestly,
because I've just got a certain personality type where I'll be
spiteful for the sake of it. And I don't even think this is
for the take of it at this point.
I think it's justified my point as well.
When I said teachers and leaders, I'm just saying as a
whole, there is clearly something in that system in that
hierarchy before it gets to the kids really broken there.
And if you're just a part of that broken cog that doesn't
even attempt to try and fix something, then I think it's not
necessarily your fault because it could be coming from above
you, but you are part of the problem.
And and there has to be a point where you look at it and you go,
this is literally we're talking about toxic schools, but not
just a generic school right now. I'm talking about a horrible
system where kids are not given what they need and made them
feel like crap because they've constantly got so much pressure
on them. They don't do any afternoon
lessons at all. It's just constant English and
maths and they're burning out and they and they're upset
because they're not getting any like PE are kids upset because
we're bit you're dragging out PE to do more English and maths.
OK, ultimately for the school stats to look about.
Yeah. Not because if we stripped
everything back and just looked at it, what's better for that
kid to do right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 99% of people
would say PE. Yeah.
OK. If we're if we're not doing that
simply because of the pressure from the school, the school need
to look at themselves in the system and do something about
it. Yeah, yeah.
Instead of just washing their hands and saying, oh, the system
pressure. No, I agree.
So we have to do something and you can even carry on doing
those groups and no, I've got to do something.
Arrange a meeting with your with your line manager.
It can carry on for a bit. I'm obviously that has to happen
sometimes. But you try and do something
about it, try and improve it. And if you don't, you just roll
over and you accept it. And you get annoyed at people
like me online for raising it and saying, well, don't blame me
when you've not tried to do anything yourself.
You can fuck off. Like it's not my fault.
It's not my fault. What I'm saying is what I'm
saying here isn't unreasonable. And if you don't even bother to
try and fix it or do anything about it, then why you moaning
at me? You've decided to not bother
trying to do anything about it. Why are you moaning at me?
I'm just raising it. I'm not even blaming you.
If you listen to what I said, there were people who get
annoyed at what I've just said. They've not listened to what
I've said clearly. Yeah.
Because if you think children are getting a bad deal, do
something about it because you're an adult.
As a professional who's in charge of them.
Yeah. Try and do something about at.
Least try and be a voice. Try in that school.
You might fail. Try, because what's going to
happen otherwise? Well, sorry Jimmy, no.
PE for you for two months it's my job to do what's worse for
children, I. Know I hope what I'm saying
comes across. I get frustrated because
ultimately it's the kids who have a crap time in these
situations. And it is ultimately, I thought
always my role as a teacher to be protecting the children as
much as possible. And I didn't find it acceptable
to just simply say, well, I've been told, yeah, I didn't.
I didn't watch for. Me, one thing I've always liked,
if you know, if you're listening, thinking, Oh my God,
like this is overwhelming. What do I do?
Like if you're in that situation, One thing I always
helped found helped my brain and also was a good thing, a good
conversation starter with leadership.
If you want to open the doors to let's try and maybe change
something about the system. Because if we are in a school
where actually, yeah, the kids get this crap deal because we
serve SAT's data rather than serving actual children's needs,
which is generally what happens. The conversation I always find
very, very interesting is for this key Stage 2 paper, remember
there's, there's four years of that.
Remember that when it's a month before and, and it's the worst,
biggest pressure in the world and you feel all the personal
burden as the year 6 teacher of of course I have to, I have to
cave and roll over and do all these SAS boosters because
ultimately they need to make this progress because it's so
important. Just remember that there were
four years before that where they were also learning.
And all of those years were literally equally important in
terms of getting them ready for this test.
Half of the key Stage 2 paper is year 3-4 and five content.
You could not even do two year 6 and have mastered year 3-4 and
five everything, which is obviously a silly reality but as
as an analogy and technically still get expected on that exam.
So when that pressure is on a month before Sats in year 6, use
that as a conversation starter of OK, cool, I get the pressure
on this year. What can we do next year to help
alleviate this in this four year process?
Why are we leaving it to the last month or the last term or
the last two terms to feel all the pressure and make and
literally ruin the children's days when we could have maybe
tried to tackle this problem over 4 years rather than two
terms. Like I find that's a good a good
conversation. And that's why I like maths too,
because you can get it in early, you can get them really good at
arithmetic from from down below. It's all the way through school.
Arithmetic's just sorted. It's all about foundations.
It's all about the foundations. I'm really solid at it.
You don't need to be cramming arithmetic when it comes to the
end of year six. You can spend your time then in
lessons really thinking about how to solve problems and reason
and become better mathematicians.
So I'd say yeah, well, just try maths.
So down in the description below, click the link.
Get a completely free trial for Term 5.
Why not? It's free.
There's no strings attached. Help your kids.
Maybe you could do it at maths. So as an intervention in the
afternoon? Yeah, Instead of instead of PA.
Split the script, baby, We got to make money.
I feel like I got really annoyed at someone imaginary in that in
that rant. It was very passionate and.
I care about kids and their outcomes so much.
So much. I know that that that's where
all this comes from because it just winds me up when we wash
our hands of stuff because it's uncomfortable for us and we're
happy seeing that uncomfortableness pass on to
children. Don't like it?
Let's finish this part of the conversation by maybe then just
talking about on a slightly more positive note than I guess at
the end of the day, positive. At the end of the day, as you
said with Matsu, the SAS do exist.
Though yes, of course. You will actually be held
accountable for it and so will the school.
And it is ultimately in the system in the best interest for
the children to be as prepared as they can be and feel good
going into that exam and just doing the best they can, right?
It's not good for them to be feeling stressed, overwhelmed,
and feeling all the pressure, the school's pressure on them.
Like really, it doesn't actually affect them that much, right?
So let's talk about in that, in that lead up then what can we
actually do with the kids to help them relax?
OK, even in SAT's week itself or in the I.
Mean you're literally a year 6 teacher.
Sophie you. Should.
Yeah, sure. But I will just start with my
view of a general thing where you can go into more detail.
My, my, my generic advice for everyone in this, in this
period, because ultimately you, you all, all your groups do an
end of year tests. That is ultimately what you're
judged on to your progress meeting, etcetera.
So we feel it to a degree. Yeah, My my main advice here is
teach normally, plug gaps that you normally would do what you
normally do in lessons because you wouldn't normally do it if
it was bad. Yeah.
Don't just think, oh, oh, sorry, it's a month before SAT, so I
better completely, fundamentally change how I teach to the good
version. No, you've been doing the good
version of. She wouldn't have been doing
that for eight months. Yeah.
So just back yourself. What you've been doing for eight
months is good. You can't magically make kids
learn more because if you could magically make kids learn more
in a short period of time, you just have done that from
September. Yeah.
So you know, it's not the best thing to do.
In in November, do you just randomly put a lesson in your
week where the whole lessons were about cramming a bunch of
knowledge for the next day for some reason?
Exactly. We're going to cram loads of
knowledge today for today so that tomorrow we've got all this
knowledge fresh in our head for that reason.
Yeah, but you? Don't.
You don't do that. You only do that for a test.
Yeah, yeah. And and you know, OK, there is,
there's obviously some room for a bit of revision and they still
got to come up and stuff. But it we know it's not the best
way of teaching kids. So if you've got a month left
until the test, just keep teaching them like the way you
know is good because that's what you've been doing.
So yeah, that's my generic 1 is. Just don't fall into the trap of
thinking you need to completely transform what you're doing,
because if that was the case, you would have transformed it
six months ago. Here's an interesting one.
Do you think it's bad to show kids because you wouldn't
normally do it in November or you wouldn't do it the year
before? You think it's bad to show them
like test questions? I would normally do it November.
There you go. So I think it's absolutely fine.
It's just another tool of it's maths at the end of the day.
It's a type of question. You see, when I do arithmetic
starters with my class, I constantly do them in the start
of what would come up in the test because why wouldn't I?
It's just arithmetic. When it comes to reasoning and
problem solving, the types of question that I ask, it's a
mixture of stuff. Stuff I write myself, stuff I
get from providers like maybe White Rose etcetera.
And lots of stuff is past test papers because they're all maths
papers. And I think familiarisation is
not the same as cramming. I think children being able to
see what questions will look like and knowing what the test
paper will look like and looking what the answer box will look
like and what it means to show your method etcetera.
All of these things are useful things You should drip feed over
time. Yeah, you should be, you should
be doing it in November. I, I, my first lesson of the
year, I'd have I, I would not be against you having a test
question up, because it's just a question at the end of the day
and you normalise it through doing that.
Yeah, yeah. So.
Possibly. That's fine familiarising
really, because ultimately like, yeah, why would you, why would
you not want them to be familiar with the layout?
Like I don't want them to be stressed on the day if that that
would help them not be stressed. Is that they know what this kind
of format looks like kind of. Makes sense if you would have
been answering that type of question anyway, yeah.
Why can't it just look like a test start question?
That's no problem. Great.
And any last wise words from you in, in terms of, you know, not
making the kids feel rubbish? This is based on my little rant
I had a minute ago. Yeah.
But remember, I think people do forget sometimes that we, it's
me and you in my loft and we're not teaching kids right now.
People do forget that it's like how these guys would be like
this in the classroom. I'm not remotely like this in
the classroom, obviously. So the biggest thing I always
say to people is control your emotions and your stress because
it will drip down to the kids. Yeah.
Do you think I would dream for a second of talking what the the
way I am in this podcast you've seen me teach.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it is completely different.
You are that classes vessel of education.
You're you're their beacon. You're their guide.
You're the head of the class. You're the person they look to
when they learned for the year. Yeah.
You're the person who is between them and the curriculum and the
government and the SLT everyone. You're you're you're the you're
the face of everything. You.
So the way you act and the way you are will.
Seep into your kids. So do you know what?
Absolutely. Year six teachers up and down
the country will be in environments where they feel
extremely stressed. They'll be in environments where
they feel like they're at the end of their tether, they're
overworked, they're tired, they're knackered, snappy,
snappy, horrible, etcetera. And it's it's not what they're
like, but they're in their environment as best as you can.
Firstly, obviously try and fix it obviously, because we don't
want you to be over overtired or banged out etcetera.
But secondly, and the teachers do this, I'm teaching me with
the suck eggs put on that show for the kids.
Definitely, yeah. As best as you can.
It's got to be in the forefront of your mind, no matter how you
feel, not dripping down the pressure like you.
Like you literally said, right? That passionate rant you had on
this podcast is obviously because we're in a room as a
podcast, right? You wouldn't talk like that,
never to 30 kids, but you would do it to thousands of listeners
and dripped, I'm dripped down that you know that that anxiety
and that anxiety, I'm joking. Anxiety is the opposite of.
Anything that you spent the whole time talking.
Then I was thinking, I really want to make this little joke.
I really want to make this little joke.
At first it started off with you don't mind doing it to me.
And then I was like, hang on, hang on.
Thousands of listeners. No, but you're absolutely right,
you know, at the end of the day. Yeah, and I'm talking to adults.
Yeah, speaking to 8 year olds is.
Different. Exactly.
I do think that's also a very big difference a lot of time.
Yeah, definitely. I think there are also a few
things I'll just go through. I just wrote a little list of
like actually in SATS weeks, OK because.
You've done this. Yeah, it's true.
My experience, you know, and again, I've, I've taught Sats,
I've taught year 6IN different schools as well.
So I've had some different experiences under different
leaders, all sorts of things, right?
And there are some things where I'm like, you know what, these
are just nice practises because the Sats does exist and the kids
are going to be there doing it. So there are some things you can
obviously do just to make it a bit more relaxing children,
right, on top of all the stuff you said that we should be doing
really just in the whole year leading.
Up to it #1 Cheat number. One cheat, yeah #1 cheat, yeah
#2 cheats and more no #1 communal breakfast.
There was something about it. We've done that a few years of
my career and there was something about just offering a
breakfast to the children when they come in and they're all
together and the whole point is you make it really light hearted
and fun and chilled. And as teachers, you're just
wandering around, milling around with them as well, showing them
how relaxed you are about the day.
I'm so relaxed, I'm really relaxed.
Shaken by sausage, Saani, shaken in your mouth.
It's kind of important. So it's no, it's fine kid.
Just remember, just remember, there are 1000 millimetres
millimetres. Yeah, so very important context.
The whole point in the communal breakfast is to get them in
talking to each other so they're not sat at home thinking about
stuff, they're worrying about it.
They're you're modelling to them being calm and how the day is
just chill. It's, you know, yeah, it's a
test day, but we're just gonna try.
Our best And I suppose you don't want to walk into school and
then into the test seat. Yeah, like the.
Test environment set up and they've got the pencils there.
Oh, no, we're not sitting in normal registration places today
because this is all set up. Yeah, just get them into the
hall or whatever. That would work.
Like, obviously you get the hall, you get the sandwiches and
stuff, and the kids would just sit there and it would just be
Chai. I've watched through the hall.
It's always buzzing. Yeah, exactly.
But the kid is actually really good for the kid.
It's fantastic. So then do they go to, like, do
they go straight to the test? No, we should go outside.
For a bit. So we get them in.
So we have like normal morning,
you know, when kids drip in the going anyway, we just come in,
we offer it, open it a bit earlier so they can come in as
early as they want, basically up to like another 20 minutes or
so. Yeah.
And for us, to be fair, we did it in like a year group shared
area, but you can do it. In a hall as well.
We've done it. Yeah.
I've seen it in the hall. Yeah.
So, yeah, the kids just come in, they have some breakfast.
We, you know, give them some cereal.
Some fruit, yoghurt, all that sort of stuff.
Is it also to try and make people?
Not late for the test. Is that part of it?
I think that probably is part of it.
I've never really thought that myself.
But it absolutely makes sense, Yeah, Like, just do that because
if they're going to be late, at least they're late and then they
do the test rather than they come in. 20 minutes, so true,
I've never even thought about that, but that's definitely a
passive benefit. And then, yeah, generally we
have to have a chat and go outside and play for a bit and
then we come in and, you know, and then we start the day.
But it just gives them that. I don't know.
I just, I found with a lot of George, when they come and they
look worried and by the end of the breakfast they're chilled
out. I'm glad we had that period of
time and then not coming in and looking that worried and then 3
minutes late they're doing a test.
Yeah, that's good. That's bad.
That's one thing I think reminding, reminding the kids of
the things that you might not think of, right?
They're not highest priority to you, but they're the things that
really the kids actually care about #1 is how, how long when
they can use a toilet. I know it sounds so silly, but
like you can forget how much like how much of them will just
be worrying like God, there's a 40 minute timer on the board.
I need to wait. What if I need to wait 20
minutes in? Just tell them all, just tell
them all. This is the toilet procedure.
Whatever is in your school, you know, this is how you use the
toilet and goes the toilet and say what?
Just so they know and they come for when break time is they want
to know how long the test is it is it break after?
Do we do another lesson? Are we doing math lesson after
this? Just tell them the schedule for
the day. That was pretty straightforward,
but, you know, you've got to say it sometimes.
Yeah. How many exams there are on that
day? How many are left for the end of
the week? A lot of kids don't know the
SAT's timetable like you do. They don't know.
Well, it's completely new to them.
It makes sense. Like to be really, really clear.
Like that's just good practise in general.
Like even when you get repetitive timetables, it's good
practise to have a visual timetable exactly because one
thing might change, but this is huge.
A lot of SAT teachers might think SAT teachers, a lot of the
SAT teachers might think, well, we've done a couple of mock Sats
across the yes, they should know.
They don't know. It isn't like it's not as
important to them. They might not remember.
Oh yeah, the last time we did SAT if we did this test on this
day, like just tell them. They're coming to school every
day for 120 days. They should know.
You still do a visual timetable on the board, don't you?
Exactly. Exactly right.
So that's that's another thing you can do.
Longer break times I think is always a nice level, like just a
nod to them, you know they're doing something that's quite
stressful. Can I add one thing into this,
which is it's not in here, but I've seen a lot of people talk
about it is splitting the cohort up into when they do the tests.
So a lot of a lot of people sort of had two different start
times, right. The kids can't mingle at all.
So they split year 6IN half. Yeah.
The first lot set off of the test at a certain point.
Yeah. And the second lot set off
later. It helps with adults.
You get more adults per kid. Oh.
OK. Because you just basically
stagger it a bit. Yeah, rather than all doing it
at once. Let's say you've got, let's say
you've just got 20 adults with everyone.
You can have 20 adults with half the cohort and then it staggers
the next half start their test straight away and you get more,
more adults with the kids. OK, so it's a logistical thing
to give kids not even necessarily just not even just
logistical, but like if there's six adults in a room compared to
three, you can read questions more to them if you need to.
That's. What I mean by the just like you
can just get more. Adults and it's just like fewer
children in the room. It's it's, it's just, it seems
to be better for the kids because they get more support.
That's interesting, my my gut reaction to that was what if
their what if their mates in the other one and they don't get to
mingle with them all day? Yeah, yeah.
But I mean, before maybe as teachers, obviously you choose
wisely. Yeah, of.
Course, yeah, that doesn't make sense a lot of people.
Speak really highly of that as a good way of, you know, giving
kids more support within the rules.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes sense because I know
one struggle we've always had always is getting literally
getting enough adults to give the children what they.
Literally are entitled to I've I've taught year 4 during SAT's
week with a skeleton crew where we barely even have teachers.
Yeah, Oh yeah, sorry. Actually nothing on this list of
how would how to help the kids relax in SAT's week is take
every single TA from every other year group and just let them
around. So now the other groups have
them Yeah, but then last couple from me really normal routines
outside of the test. You've already said that just
keep it light, don't do a bunch of cramming.
Just try to keep the rest of the day fairly normal so they can
relax a bit, Get back into normal routine till the next day
and then just. Oh, last one, but two?
Last one, praising everything you can other than knowledge I
Sometimes we just want we just, we're so intense.
Mr Stevens, I've got this really hard question mark.
Don't care. Don't care obviously you can
still praise knowledge but try and do other things like really
try and praise the kids on things like resilience in this
week because it will mean a lot more character yeah character,
yeah exactly that that that summarises the issue all of it
determination or all of it you know just like go out of your
way to do that because it can be easy to forget that because
you're as a teacher are so obsessed in that moment of the
only thing that matters to me right now is is the sats like
it's so easy to fall into that so I'm.
Be a nice person, just be supportive of being.
Your normal nice person. Got a few weeks until the Sats
anyway. Yeah, exactly.
So, you know, there's a lot of people going to be thinking
about that SATS prep now in this in these last few weeks.
And I hope this episode has been somewhat helpful at least.
Just insight into Dylan's ranty brain about what you shouldn't
do and how you're a terrible person if you do any of the
things he said. I might.
I'm worried I said that now I, you know, Yeah, hopefully it's
clear to you what I really think.
I just think we should be helping the kids.
If we're adults in a school and we see kids getting upset about
stuff we think is wrong as well, I don't think we can just wash
our hands of it and just say that's what it is.
I agree, I think it's a very good point to make.
I think people will struggle with that more than you do, but
I don't think it's a bad thing to hear genuinely.
I don't think it's a good reality check sometimes to be
actually, hey, what am I doing? Why am I just rolling over to
this system that I literally hate Got so bad that I didn't
want to do the job anymore. Get some, get some morals and
stop being a shell, no? No, just quit.
You don't have to deal with it. You have to think about it like
us. Cool, see you next time.