Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Teach Sleep.
Repeat. My name is.
Dylan, and my name is Hayden. It's not.
It's nasal, man. No.
It's nasal whistle. Man, can you hear this?
I've got a whistle this time. According to a bunch of our
listeners, we can hear it. Really.
Whistle at 51 minutes, Hayden. All right, Andrew, our Clayman
knows this time. Bloody listen to you do your
talking with your nasal passage. Shall we go on?
Yeah, anyway, Hello. You sort it.
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah.
I guess I'll find out. What they're writing in,
actually, I heard your diesel passage going 47 seconds.
Don't care. Centre Parks.
Ohh, God, the centre box maybe she just stepped straight in.
Yeah, that's been half time and I was actually gonna start with
this. So maybe I get your opinion.
I did a poll on Facebook and I didn't, I didn't, I don't know,
Facebook. Maybe I'll get your opinion.
I'm below the age of 40, so I don't go into the whole podcast
where you just refused to give me your opinion.
Do you think? What do you think anyway, on
Instagram? Because like I said, I'm not a
boomer. I did a little poll because we
get an extra week off in this half of them.
One of these phenomenas where you in in education where some
schools put all their insects. They back-to-back SO5 insects.
Don't know what I said. What did I say?
You said you put the S You pluralized insects rather than
days. Insects, they they just one day
really long. Day.
All of the insects in one day. We put all our inset days in a
row so we get an extra week off, but the payoff is obviously
normally on it. They have to do training.
So our payoff is you have to do a club, you know, school and and
you know, apparently it all works out.
Looks at the calculator directed time and.
Stuff and we do it Twilight every.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we do training but we get an
extra week off. And so I just put a thing out
there about clubs. I said who does clubs then?
Because it's kind of leads on with the fact we're gonna get
this extra week off. We get to go centre parks where
the price is lower. Like it works out really well
for everyone. And anyway, I did this thing
about clubs and it really interested me that what
percentage of people do you think don't do a club and don't
have to? 7080%.
Yeah, it was only 50. Ohh.
I was really shocked. I thought it would be much.
Higher. I thought school was I I've
never heard of it before. Yeah, we went to our school.
I was like, oh this is a weird thing that no one else.
Does so a whole bunch of people have said on this poll that they
have to do a club and and that was 20% of people and I thought
one in five schools, one in five teachers.
I just told yeah, you have to do a collab and that that really
shocked me. And then we had a whole another
bunch about 18% said they don't have to, but they do a club
anyway. Right.
Classic. Yeah.
And then and then, oh, it's bumped up to about 60% now.
No, and I don't have to. I just was interesting.
What would you rather then? Cause we've done both.
Would you rather have to do a club?
Hmm. And then get an extra week off?
Yeah. Or that one or where you don't
have to do a club, but you have to do is.
Take the week off every time. Yeah, honestly, it's it's.
Something about time off being clumped together, which feels so
much. Better in term time, like you
said, everything's cheaper. Yeah, that's basically it
really. Everything's cheaper.
I can actually go on holiday and not be really annoyed and bitter
the entire time. You're paying three times as
much as anybody else. It's kind of let me going to the
dentist and being an NHS patient.
Sorry, dentist dental listeners, can you?
Please listen, you just need to switch off dentists bit like
that. Isn't it really me going and
paying extra for the same procedure the guy got just
before me? Yeah, it's just like that,
Hayden. You remotely bitter about?
No, I'm not. I don't.
I don't even think about it anymore.
You know, it's great. I saw Labour doing some some
local like canvassing around this area and it's hilarious.
Like, whatever you think about politics, it's so funny when
people are trying to get your vote, yeah, because they just
say. Stuff.
Yeah, let's say anything. They just, they just say stuff
and it's and there's no explanation how they're gonna do
it. And on top of the list for this
local area was we'll get you a dental.
I literally saw that as well. And you know when I saw it, how
the honest to God, the day that I was going to dentist, I'm not
even joking. And I was like I.
Can't see why because people like you would see him go, yeah,
yeah, I'm gonna vote for you. And it's.
And honestly, you just see straight through now you're
like, yeah, what do you mean you're going to get me a dent?
What? What on earth?
Yeah, what are you talking about?
Speaking of politics, just for a minute.
I know we're gonna talk about it loads anyway, but I know I sent
you this last night, but I just have to shout out on TikTok.
Labour and Conservative have both made Tik Toks recently, OK?
And obviously they've just got a bunch of young people making
them because they're proper. Just silly.
Like proper meme culture. And I was cracking up last night
looking through the. Label they actually funny.
They're genuinely funny, genuinely.
They obviously have stuff interspersed with like real
little clips, like try to get people to actually vote for
them. But there's so many memes on
there, and one of them that I just couldn't stop laughing.
What does Labour may have made this meme of Rishi Sunak.
And he's writing in something. So they were like ohh Rishi
Sunak diary. This is actually risky writing
in something. Yeah, just like a stock footage
of him writing some other way what he's actually.
Right, probably one of his actual videos.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they were like cutting away
to like an over the shoulder shot.
And it was just him like in terrible handwriting, writing
about like really bad policies. Like he was like going to go to
going to go to Wales or Ireland, wherever he went to and and
asked him about the rugby or something like that in brackets.
Didn't know they they didn't qualify.
And it was, it was just absolutely rinsing him for this
stuff. And, and the, and the Tories
have now obviously been like got to do it as well and they've
started making memes back. The problem is it's boomers
making them. You can really tell as well.
It's so funny. And they're just like copying
the Labour ones, but doing it back.
And everyone's like, come on, you're getting roasted in this
TikTok. War And also, who do they think
they're pandering to? Like, you can't simultaneously
tell them they have to sign up for national service.
But also, here's a funny meme though.
Here is a funny meme. Surprise, surprise, We see that
18th birthday today. You've got to go to war.
Surprise, surprise. So yeah, really, really funny if
you want to talk. Check out the Labour page.
I just see one because obviously, you know, politicians
do ridiculous things simply just to get in the news during all
the build up. So they're like like I think
Keir Starmer was serving ice cream the other day and Ed Davey
was like falling off a paddle board and all this kind of
stuff. It was one where Labour made a
meme out of it and it was Rishi Sunak went to a football day and
was was dribbling around these codes.
I want to point the ball hit the cone and stopped him and he was
like he got knee tripped over. And the caption was when when
you're trying to convince people you can run the country but you
get tackled by a code. That's so good.
So basically apparently right, the Conservatives obviously well
annoyed that getting rinsed on TikTok.
They've they've spent loads of time complaining and like
reporting all of the labour videos to get as many of them as
removed as possible really. So Labour obviously now taking
the Mick out of that. They're like ohh, spending all
your time in the country are you or or or trying to get all silly
means removed on TikTok Like what's wrong with you?
Saw that, didn't you? No, I didn't.
I didn't. I didn't.
No, I never. Swear.
OK, no, the other one was Rishi Sunak went to Southampton to
like on the second day of this thing to launch like his
campaign and it was wet like where the Titanic was built or
something. Ohh Ireland, mate.
No, went to Ireland where the Titanic was built.
A reporter just said, is it is it a good metaphor for your
campaign that you're in the the birth place of the most famous
sinking ship in history? He was like OHH bearing him on
the day before he announced the general election in an absolute
downpour. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What? Analogy.
The only thing I'd seen beforehand of these Tik Toks
were from like my job. I listened to like my podcast
and you know. You listened to your podcast My.
God, I can't speak my politics podcasts.
Yeah. And it's the the rest is
politics. Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart.
And the only thing I heard was from them and they were like,
this seems quite juvenile. Really.
Seems quite, quite is is it a bit like childish, really
serious politics? Is I think yes, of course.
That's the point. It's not for you.
It works for Labour cause all their voters are like under 20
so. Exactly.
You know what? I saw a fact.
Well, finish this little chat about politics right now.
Yeah. We.
For this for this second, but I saw a stat in it.
It was astounding to me. And this, I think this was true
in the last election. If only people under what age do
you think? Hmm.
So if we only allow people under a certain age, you're gonna
guess what age is to vote. Yeah.
At what point would we have to cut it off?
And then Labour would win. Labour would get more.
Votes. I see what you.
Mean So let's say obviously if you cut it off at under 20,
yeah, Labour would have a huge. Huge.
But if it was, if it was under 80, right, then actually you
begin a huge population. Of So what point do you think?
At what age do you think the tide turns over where more more
there'd be more conservatives? Let's think about this.
Millennials, I imagine normally up to 40 of I think up to 40
safe, I'm going to go 45. 60. Ohh, really?
More than I thought. 60 So if, if, if only people under 60
vote, Labour would would come would have more votes than the
Conservatives. The Conservatives win because
old people go and vote. Well, how many?
What's the other? What the population splits like
how many? How much of our population is
over? 60 There's a lot of, there's a
lot of people who are over 60 cause of ageing population and
stuff, but the biggest contributing factor is the fact
that they've got nothing else to do.
They retired, They, they live for this stuff.
They read the Daily Mail every day and they go and vote on
Boxing Day. Young people don't go and vote.
And that, that's one of the biggest points that already the
biggest point now to be made from that is that if you're
listening to this and you'll think, Oh yeah, I don't really
like conservatives because my life is absolutely crap for the
last 15 years, registered to vote and then go and vote for
someone. Like honestly, if more people
did it, it would, it wouldn't even be close.
It just, it blew my mind. Go and vote for care.
And this is, I say one more thing and the thing that's
annoying me slightly because I suppose five years ago in the
last election, I was very pro Labour.
I liked a lot of the policies that Corbyn was coming out with
in terms of social mobility and yeah, and, and helping poor
people. I'm, I'm very much for that
currently. I, I don't think that there's
many policies for Labour that are exciting me at all.
Like the, the prospect of a Labour government doesn't fill
me with like actual excitement. What's going to happen?
What fills me with excitement is getting rid of the Tories.
And what kind of annoys me a little bit is when people,
you'll see me say something like if you don't like the Tories,
make sure you vote them out. And then they go, ohh, another
pro Labour left thing. Or do you think Labour are gonna
do anything? It's like, I never said that and
not and not. No, I don't, I don't know.
I don't know that. But what I do know is I don't
want these guys to carry on. These guys who completely rinsed
us and took like if you look at anything they've done, honest to
God. And you mentioned the contracts
and stuff. That alone is enough for me to
be like, Oh my goodness me, get all of these people the
contracts. Yeah, the PPE contracts, COVID
contracts where they just literally lined the pockets of
their mates. They made-up companies like and
within two months they were getting a contract for PPE that
was never delivered. And she made for the.
Hundreds of millions. Yeah, it's like, cool, that's
enough goodbye. And they're really trying their
hardest to separate out, aren't they?
Like wishes a new guy. And what fascinates me is
Rishi's coming out now, like we've got this amazing new GP's
policy, we're going to get all the what?
What have you been doing? Yeah, you've had 14 years.
Today you have done that. Six months ago, three months
ago, you decided to make this election come up.
You could have not made this election come up and done done
this stuff. You're saying it's anyone buy
this stuff is beyond me. Yeah, it's mental anyway, but I
feel the same with with Labour as well.
Like like, you know, we're joking about the dentist.
Yeah, yeah, sure. I, I read that pamphlet I got
from my daughter, had the five things that he was going to do.
And I was like, I, I don't believe any of this.
Like you might do. It would be nice if you did, but
every, everyone running is obviously going to say this.
Who would run and not say that? And not being funny.
Meaningless that our local candidate for Labour.
Who would be the one to replace? The Conservative candidate is
one person out of 650 MP's, but she might stand up and be like,
we need dentists in Granny sit down.
Sorry, sorry. Would take everything else we're
going to do. It's it's just not it's not
gonna happen. It's not gonna happen.
But I just my my final point. I just want this current
government to not be the government anymore.
Yeah. Then we can reset and moan at
the next stop. OK.
Yeah, I know not much is going to change.
No, but I realised that I'm not going to sit on the moment about
online. I'm just gonna OK, Obviously
it's gonna be quite similar, but I'd rather have people have a
go. Anything else happened this
week? Let me just check my notes.
Oh yeah, The funny thing about you.
So we went on, we, we went on a night out with our, with our
tutoring business. We took our tutors out.
Not all of them could come, but we took we took a good bunch of
them out. Yeah, the good ones.
Good. All the good ones came ohh.
No, that's not that's not true. The local ones.
The local ones, yeah. And.
Actually, don't. We do all over the country.
We're global, we're not.
And we went to somewhere called Boom Battle Bar.
So if you've heard of that. It would have sounded more
boomer. Let me just check my notes from
my spectacles. But that's what.
It turns out they did some fun things at this place activities.
Anyway, it's pretty cool. We're just Max hurrying.
We did some darts, we did some crazy golf, shuffleboard and a
bit of karaoke at the end. But we made a bit of a
competition was eight of us and we.
Think it was taking it seriously.
Well, I don't know, because on the way there, it's funny
actually, because you kept going on about how it was a
competition between me and you. We're going to have three others
with each of us and teams of four.
Dylan, honest, he's quite competitive and I will say he's
generally pretty good at stuff. Like you're good at ohh, you
gotta sports and you play a lot of sports and you're very
competitive. You like them.
We go squash and I play squash rages.
You play squash for two weeks and then start beating me and I
get really annoyed. Absolutely dreadful.
Like you lost. You lost literally everything.
Like you got you became 8th place in most stuff.
Yeah, I, I've through, I threw 10 axes in a row, right?
And I didn't land one after my second act, so I had to 8 times
in a row, walk up on your own when you're an actor and
obviously with everyone else watching you, eight times in a
row to throw out. It just bounced out right.
Just progressively was like my smile is getting less and less.
It was convincing, really awkward because I got eight in a
row. Bang.
Like literally, you were three points, three points, three
points, bang in the middle. Then you came second.
Did in the end, yeah. And then?
Andrew, Mr Knows wisely points her outer.
When we said, when we said the good ones could come.
Well, but yeah, the he, he brought a game with him that we
were playing and it's called don't get got where you get a
secret mission basically. Well, you get 6 secret missions
that you got to try and complete drawing the night.
And once you get three, you win or something like that.
But the person running our game who was like our host for the
evening, she was called Chloe. Andrew just decided randomly
during our axe throwing halfway through to give her a a secret
mission. Just one Just let you go.
We're doing this. And it was random.
He just. Completely random.
The bag, yeah, had a had a bag proper teacher had like a
plastic wallet full of them. Yeah, really organised and he
took one out. And so she took it and we just
obviously forgot about it. Finished our game.
Andrew won. Who came last?
You came last place. You out of everyone.
And so she said, right, Kate winner, who was it?
And it was Andrew put his hand up.
Cool. Comes to the front, loser.
Who was it? And I was like, yeah, I'll put
my hand up. And she went right come to the
front. And then she got they had like
these jugs of water that you could press down to add pressure
and it shot water out. Yeah, so lucky bottle right on
North. You gotta.
Remember. A spray bottle.
Of water which when applied pressure.
Before you press this button and it just like sprayed out.
It was crazy. You air pressure or something?
So she gave it to Andrew and said, right, winner gets to
spray the loser. And I was like bloody caught,
pretty difficult. So Andrews there, he sprays me,
water all over my face. And then Chloe just goes, yeah,
made that completely. That's my secret mission.
So her secret mission was to get someone else to spray someone
else in with water in the face. Yeah.
And and and she did it like, and it was just everyone fell for
it. And I was.
And so that wasn't even a thing. So I'm stood there with water
dripping off my face. And I was like, well, so this
isn't this isn't a normal thing to happen.
No, no, It's just soaking wet. Thank you.
She just happened to have a spray bottle filled with water
there. And I was like, why do you even
have that if it's not for like some sort of force?
They watered and she was like, yeah, we just, we just spread
down the board. And I was like, that's so funny
that you had you got that card. It was perfect for you.
And Dylan was wet. And then from that point, you
just carried on losing. And the best bit was the the
moment that I saw your soul leave your body like your eyes
sort of like they're, they're they were dead.
I was there was nothing there. There was nothing left right
when we're playing crazy golf, which was like three or four
games in at this point. And and Dylan spent a solid like
30 seconds completely ripping one of our shooters for all they
had to do What you had to hit the ball at this hill that was
maybe like 22 foot with this massive wide opening to go into
this metal tube. It was just a silly one at the
end. She missed like five in a row.
It was. Funny.
Missed 5 and at one point even like managed to chip the ball on
top of this metal thing and we will see laughing at her.
And Dylan was really taking the Mick went up last and honestly
did the exact same thing. He was like 5 or 6 times chipped
on top of the thing. She was lovely and she was
absolutely rinsing you back. And I just, I just looked at him
thinking this is the man that plays golf.
This is the man that bought a nice, nice set of golf clubs and
goes to the driving range and he can't hit up.
He can't put a ball too foot into a massive hole.
Good fun, Hayden. And the last thing I will say
about that evening is we ended in karaoke and we're a bunch of
teachers saying the karaoke room, having a drink and we
found cauliflowers fluffy on the karaoke machine and made it real
about it. Go to our Instagram at Teach St
repeat podcast. Five teachers sat there, I've
got the mic and we're literally seeing cauliflowers fluffy and
cabbages green, and then you just go.
In the video. Because obviously there's no
idea what's on our socials. Yeah, watch that.
Watch it. Yeah, I thought that was, I was
really funny. That was really.
Funny. Yeah.
So good night out. Yeah, and, and jokes aside, our
tutors are unbelievably good, all of them, aren't they?
Yeah, brilliant. Yeah.
Trying to be sentimental for a minute.
They are great and we're very. Lucky and we're really
passionate, I think about providing tutoring opportunities
to these people because we know how, I don't know about you, but
in terms of teaching, I just think it's unbelievable the
amount of work you do for the money you get paid for this kind
of stuff. So providing those
opportunities, I hope they I hope they think that it's a good
deal. I'm sure it isn't, but they're
great. They're amazing.
If they don't, as far as Dylan sentiment goes.
You're a teacher, suck it up. Yeah, So alright anyway, I hope
you all get the gist of this like hearted funny joking thing.
Dylan said to me before this episode hidden stop waffling.
You gotta stop waffling so much because I when I make the old
clips for Instagram, you know, you often go on it.
Look listen to. Him Let's move on to the main
bulk of our episode. Hayden play the Jingle, right?
So you've seen the title of the episode, Do we need a new
national curriculum? It's been about 10 years since
the last one was introduced. Obviously it was introduced by
the previous coalition government from 2010 who were
working on it for a few years. Michael Gove spearheaded it.
Lots of Flack at the time from people in education, but it's
just feeling now that perhaps with the new government coming
in it, would it be something sensible to do?
So before we dive into the actual realistic side of it,
which will be the bulk of this conversation just on the surface
level of our current national curriculum.
Hmm. And what are your thoughts on
it? Is it suitable?
Do you think that it does the job or do you think that it
should be replaced? I don't think it's a bad
national curriculum. I don't want to jump in and be
like, Oh yes, obviously because the Tories made it or you ever
made it, whatever. I think there are some areas
that could definitely be changed, some areas that could
be maybe improved and some areas that could be scrapped.
So I don't think it's a terrible curriculum.
If I think about our kids, right, the average kid, they,
they get a pretty decent education, especially through
primary school. I suppose we can't really talk
too much about secondary school. We know a little bit about the
curriculum, but primary school is our thing.
I don't know, That's my guy. It's a bit all over the place,
you know, It's not very good answer, sorry.
But how are you feeling about it then?
This thing wasn't really something I was thinking about
until someone else brought it up again.
I think it was people who aren't in education.
They were talking about general election because obviously loads
of content out there at the minute, people just talking
about what's going on at the minute because there's gonna be
a new government. And it was something someone
mentioned again who wasn't in school and they said they were
asked the question in a Q&A special.
They're just like a political analyst.
And the question was should we have a national curriculum?
It's been 10 years, is getting a bit old.
Could we update it could be modernise it and it's very much
in the prism of pure. I guess is where the question
comes from. It was like pure utopian kind of
view of the curriculum of, you know, of course we could have a
new curriculum. Do you think we could, we could
modernise how we teach history in our in our role in the world,
move away from the whole empire thing and not have a Britain
centric thing where Britain was always amazing and look at these
things we did. And and like, I couldn't really
disagree with anything this person was saying in terms of it
would obviously modernising the curriculum in that way would be
good because even though only 10 years ago, I would argue it's
quite an old fashioned curriculum.
Yeah. Think Gove was rooted in his own
experiences of education and the private schools, you know, that
he went to and and that kind of it was almost it was almost like
coined a Victorian almost kind of a Victorian era one.
I think someone mentioned before one part of this new push of the
the curriculum was like it was literally given as an example by
the government to how you could punish children as a sanction
would be laps around the field. Like like the whole thing was
like, I mean people basically saying this is so old like, of
course you shouldn't punish have have exercise as a punishment is
so backwards. Yeah.
And that kind of sticks with me a little bit.
And I was like, cool. And on, on the surface, I, I
don't think anyone suggesting we should change the curriculum.
I don't think you could say to someone that's automatically
bad. And I, and I would argue that
you could make it good, but then you end up in the realm of like
realism and, and it's like, OK, well, how would we make sure it
was actually good? What would be defined as good?
Like what, what should we get rid of?
What should we do? That's where it gets murky.
I think what do you think needs more attention, the core
curriculums or the wider curriculum stuff in your
opinion? Like if anyone listening is not
maybe in the teaching world correctly.
We're talking about maths and English mainly and also science,
even though that's kind of, to be honest with you, been sort of
pushed out of the core curriculum really.
So let's just think about English.
What do you think needs more work?
Maths and English or kind of everything?
Else, I think they both need, I think they both need work that's
very different and I think it should be separated completely.
So in general, you know, do we need a national curriculum?
I don't think we need one, but I think it could be done really
well. So now we're going to like you
saying, think about what actually needs to be done.
Then I would separate maths and English to the to the rest of
the curriculum, honestly would especially for primary.
And anyone who looks at the curriculum will kind of probably
know what I'm gonna say straight away.
Because if you look at the national curriculum there, the
national curriculum is about 200 pages long for primary school.
OK, I'm, I'm gonna rough spitball here.
Around 60 odd pages of maths, around 6070 odd pages in
English, and then there's quite a few pages for science as well.
Yeah. And then when it comes to the
wider curriculum, the geography curriculum is literally one or
two sides. The history curriculum is one or
two, the whole of primary. So we're talking like one 60th
of the maths. So when you ask me what we
should do for core curriculum, English and maths, my gut
instinct is it needs to just simply be stripped back.
Yeah, I, I think the content, there's nothing on there that I
think it's bad. I think it all makes
progressions sense. I think it's fine.
What I would say is though, it probably goes up to, I reckon
year eight or nine. Like what?
Honestly, I would add some extra stuff obviously in 7-8 and nine,
but not just that curriculum, but there are certain things in
this English and maths curriculum I would spread out
and I would drop from primary school.
Now, my problem with that is, although I think most teachers
will be in agreement with that statement, that will never
happen when a new government. Does.
Of course it won't. Well, why not tell me that?
There's an obvious reason why, but you you tell.
Me, it would be such an easy thing to do, right?
In terms of wouldn't really cost anything.
You would just say to teachers, look, don't do this, focus on
the other stuff, which teachers are pretty much probably doing
anyway. The problem is it's horrendous
optics. Yeah, if you're a government and
you come in and you know, whether Labour want to try and
do something for education or not, if they if they come in and
literally go to teachers and say, well, what do you want?
You want English and maths stripped back?
OK, yeah, just drop all that stuff.
Crack on. An easier curriculum.
Horrendous. Yeah, an easier curriculum.
Can you imagine what the Daily? Mail Yeah, I'll be the Tories
that de skilling our children. Yeah.
That's what they say. They wouldn't hear any at the
end of it, would you? And.
There's no way they do that. They they, they they literally.
Really political suicide, even though hilariously is kind of
what's needed. I think we're, I think about, I
mean, English is, is actually the more obvious one to me
having having taught year 6 English for a couple of years
now. I just, I just can't get over
the fact that they have to be perfect writers by the end of
year six. I'm not exaggerating if you're
not in education. I'm not just being the old
classic teachers moaning, exaggerating about the of course
not perfect writers. They've got years of secondary
school yet. I'm not joking.
They have to be to be expected at the end of year six.
You're. Writing age expected age
expected any child should. Be all supposed to achieve.
They're supposed to achieve that.
You have to be a perfect writer. You have to have mastered all
punctuation, your sentences. Sentences have to be
consistently perfectly coherent with a wide variety of sentence
structures. I just, it's just mad to me.
I always think, and maybe I could be humbled by a secondary
school teacher, but I genuinely don't understand what they do at
secondary school after that is like, what's the point?
Some of the writers in my class now, I look at them, I think,
cool, I, I couldn't write at that level by university level.
I just couldn't, I just couldn't do it yet.
And they're already writing on that level.
And I'm like, I don't. Know that's a bad thing though,
that you couldn't write that like.
That maybe, yeah, because they can.
And maybe maybe if I was pushing a different way I could have.
There's always that counter argument.
But what I don't understand is what on earth are we supposed to
do in second school after that? And you don't mean secondary
school aren't doing anything? No, you mean we've done it?
We've done. We've completed writing.
And, and the problem with that is not, I don't actually think
many children are getting to that level.
We've got this aid expected. And the whole idea is all
children or as close to as all children as possible are
supposed to be able to reach this standard.
But realistically, I don't think, I think less than 50% of
children can actually reach that standard.
We've just got this crazy high bar and we can talk about all
the reasons that, you know, maybe the stats still look all
right, like the national average is like 70 odd percent still.
And I'm like, yeah, because teachers are on their knees
bending rules to make to make this writing look good.
It's like then the kids aren't really that level.
We're just pretending. So it would look terrible if
Labour terrible if Labour came in or whoever comes in probably
be Labour, realistically. Yeah.
And we're like, oh, we recognise this problem.
They're very logical head on. We can see actually that the
standards for six children are just absurdly high.
It puts loads of pressure on teachers, encourages cheating
because no one can actually reach this standard to a
national average of 70% or whatever, really.
So we're going to strip it back. We've realised that they've got
another six years of school after this, so we can probably
slow down a little bit and the Year 6 standard is now more like
maybe the end of year 4 standard and you just need to get them
really, really good at these things.
And maybe more creative and more interesting and and and more
imaginative with their. Writing, I always compare that,
and I know I've said this before, but I always compare my
year seven books with what the kids do now because I just think
it's fascinating how when I was at school it was about
creativity. And that's one thing that was
good about my writing in year seven, was really creative, had
nice ideas in it, but the spelling, punctuation wasn't
that good. I still had lots of things to
learn and I learned them at secondary school slowly.
And I just think, I look at that and I compare it with some of
the kids writing now, which is really robotic, extremely
formulaic, but perfectly punctuated.
No creativity. They struggle with creativity so
much. Because it's not built in to to
teach them how to be creative. Yeah, we can't sit and moan as
teachers and be like, oh God, they can't have any ideas
themselves. So, yeah, because we spent the
last three weeks talking about where prepositions go in a
sentence and how to add to our word to make it past tense.
Like what? What do you, what do you think's
gonna happen? Honestly, that's all they're
thinking about is the, the actual, you know, building
blocks of how to build that sentence.
Yeah. They've got no outer level stuff
of thinking of the whole picture, because we do.
So much sentence level work and how to make the colon go in the
right place. Ohh.
Because Collins have to join two things together.
OK, cool. What's actually going to go in
your sentences though? Yeah, that's the interesting
bit. I mean, a lot of anxious kids
over the years, a lot of anxious kids who are so, so drilled into
them that they have to get the punctuation and like, structure
right, that they actually just feel afraid to just explore and
be adventurous with their language and stuff because they
know they'll get ripped apart. Because the curriculum
encourages ripping apart kids who aren't doing the punctuation
stuff right rather than ohh, well done.
This is really creative. Let's just not worry about the
Commons for now. Learn that in another.
Year, yeah, I've always found it really interesting how writing
in year six, OK or any year group I suppose, but we're
talking about year six end of key stage two.
There's almost this bell curve right of there's children at the
what would be regarded as the lower end of the assessment who
might be below or working towards not right at the level.
And they would be kind of one of the big things that might be put
to them is that your your writing's not coherent.
It doesn't follow the rules properly.
It doesn't it doesn't have full stops in the right places.
He's not full sentences. This doesn't quite work, doesn't
quite make sense. Then you enter the bulk of the
bell curve where you know, children have worked really hard
to make sure it makes sense. There's not much reward for
imagination or anything like that, but they're using the GPS
rules correctly. It's awesome.
It makes sense. Like nicely ticked all the boxes
you're expected. Then the bell curve comes back
down again and it's almost like we enter the realm of before
expected where now greater depth children, as long as they've
shown they can do all that stuff in the middle to obtain greater
depth, which is insanely hard to the end of year six and actually
be greater depth. You've kind of got to regress
and and challenge those norms and experiment with things and
add what people always say flare, which is this really
undefined term, which just what do greater depth writers need to
have flare? It could be, you know,
experimenting with word meaning. It could be experience with
vocabulary. It could be experimenting with
sentence length, could be experimenting with, you know, in
speech, not quite using the right spellings because you're
writing down an accent. Yeah, the formality change, the
formality shift, and it's like, cool.
So we recognise that that kind of going against the grain and
really pushing. The being creative.
And being creative is an incredibly vital skill to be in
a well-rounded writer. Yeah, but we completely ignore
it until children can do all the robotic things.
Yeah, well, and it just seems so backwards to.
Me the building blocks are wrong, aren't?
They Yeah, completely wrong because what we should be
encouraging is a love for reading right, separately and
reading lessons and a love for novels and a love for children's
writing, which a lot of the and doesn't follow these really
archaic rules that we have to follow in our own writing
because I've had children. But the hand and say there's
there's no comma after that fronted verbial in this book by
an award-winning, winning writer, you know, Michael
Morpurgo. It's like, yeah, well, maybe
it's not that important and it's yeah, you're right.
It's just so backwards. And I think we should be
building this up at the same time, you know, if children are
showing that they're developing their imagination and they're,
you know, comma understanding of like, OK, well, clearly when
this child wrote a news report, that was very different when
they wrote an adventure story, which was also very different to
when they wrote a non fiction text, like a fact file that
that's that's awesome. And, and also they're, they're
kind of developing their use of capital letters and they're
developing their use of commas in the right place.
That should be the progression. It feels like at the minute.
Simply just look at the GPS scale.
Are they doing all of the GPS things correctly?
Oh my God. Only thing that's improved.
They built this entire tower properly.
First. We should probably add some
imagination and some flare into. This Yeah.
And you know what? Good teachers around the country
do that genuinely. And but my problem with the
system is I don't think it should rely purely on really,
really, really good, like English teachers who just.
I know that sounds silly. But take it into their own.
Yeah, like. That's one of the points are
gonna make up the curriculum. So let's make that point right
now. You think you're making a really
good point. And and it's almost a reason why
we don't necessarily need a new national curriculum is because
teachers really know this curriculum like the back of
their hand. Now we we understand it well,
we've put a lot of work into this curriculum, especially in
the first few years, you know, moving mass to a mastery
approach and going for it that way.
Mastery, mastery, when my Northern roots came out then
and, you know, in English, like, you know, the, the spelling rule
completion and the new writing assessment stuff, teachers have
really taken it and I would argue moulded it so that we're
still meeting the national curriculum, but in a way which
is suitable for our children. And essentially what you're
saying there is, I don't think there are many teachers out
there who actually completely ignore the imagination aspect.
No, but the problem we have here, the beef we have is it's
not rewarded. Yeah.
The default, the default position if you're just in the
curriculum, doesn't encourage it.
So maybe you could, maybe you could expand on what you're
saying there. Because in general, I would say
one of the arguments against the whole new national curriculum is
we're, we're we're kind of finally now in a pretty good
place with the curriculum where lots of work's been done.
Teachers know what they need to do.
We're doing it. So what would you say to someone
who says let's not change it? Then we kind of know.
Yeah, I agree. Because the massive, massive
biggest con to this is workload, isn't it really?
We're, we're, we're at a tipping point in teaching already where
people are going on strike multiple times because workload
is so dire in this job. Realistically, if we take out of
the ideology of all of this and actually just think about the
real world, the last thing teachers need right now is a
complete overhaul of the entire curriculum like maths, English
and all of the wider stuff. That would be mental really,
wouldn't it? You know?
So I guess if you ask me in a realistic point of view whether
I think we need a new curriculum, my answer is no.
And that's not because I don't think it can be improved.
It's purely because at that point.
And, and, and I would add to that, I suppose that what you're
saying there, if it is a workload related thing, the only
way we could really fix that is to strip back the curriculum,
which the new government will never do.
So it's like, OK, well, here are the two options.
OK, neither of them are good. The increased curriculum
completely changed is not good for our workload and retention,
which is in crisis. But then the actual thing we
need, which is a strip back curriculum, that's bad for the
government who are government optics.
So it never needs to happen and unfortunately.
The government optics will always matter more than what
children need so completely into them, yes.
So it will never ever, ever not be the case.
Do you think very generic question here, I don't expect a
long answer, but do you think if Labour gets voted in and we have
a brand new government, do you think things will actually
change the teaching? No, we said this term we didn't
have before and after talking just I've just lost faith in
humanity, not humanity in this government, I think because
we've lived our entire adult lives under the Tories.
And just it, it felt like every year was eating away.
Yeah, getting progressive. Nothing was getting.
Better it's, it's just, I don't know, to me it's just it's gone
too far. It's gone.
I think we needed, we needed fix.
We needed it to be fixed like 10 years ago if we had a chance.
It's like global warming and how they say it's kind of gone past
the point of no return. Now we can only just like help
to make things better. I kind of feel like that now as
well. I don't I can't see a way that
that any government could come in now and actually fix anything
because we are in so much debt. We've got into such bad state
with the of the country where money is just being drained out
of every possible orifice of this country.
You know what I mean? This is a horrible, horrible
analogy. I don't know.
I just, I just don't know what labour can do.
Like people often say, where's that magic money tree and they,
you know, taking place? But there is also that part of
me that's like, yeah, I don't, I don't know.
I don't. Know magic money trees being
used to send 18 year olds on national service.
Yeah, unfunded, yeah. Like, you know, I'm sure they
could claw back a bit, but I'm like, I don't know what we need
to do because NHS is on its knees.
This is the thing, we don't live in a bubble of just education.
All public services are absolutely, completely,
completely and utterly destroyed in terms of budget and we've
already had to make it work on the terrible budget and it's
still failing. It's like there's like a double
whammy of they'd need so much money to to make to fix it.
So we need more staff and they all need more paying and we need
all the equipment and resources as well.
Like for all of these public services, like we've lost out on
all of it. We need it all at once to make
it good. It's not going to happen, so
it's not going. To happen, I don't know, it
fills me of a bit of anxiety actually.
Yeah, this is. This is why I think they might
edge towards introducing a curriculum because from their
point of view, a Pro is that it's it's kind of a cheap way of
going about making change. Like OK, of course you need to
pay people to create the curriculum and implement it and
stuff like that, but the overall budget spend on introducing a
new curriculum would be much more manageable than actually
fixing the retention. Of you also just don't need to
pay them because that's what the government, that's what we're
used to in terms. Of but they won't pay teachers
to do it actually, but they'll need to pay, you know, people to
write to them and, and, and things to go in there like that.
It would obviously have a cost associated.
I don't pretend it would be free.
But when we compare with what we actually need, which is if if
you were to restore teachers pay to where it would be just in
terms of in line with inflation, right, that that is an
incomparable figure. It couldn't happen, no.
And and that's why I feel quite pessimistic.
Actually, yeah, that's why that's what I mean about.
It's too far gone. We could never repair it now
because our, you know, teachers wage and educational staff wage
has been eating away out for so long it's now impossible to get
back to where. It was, but that's what winds me
up because they kind of, you thought you, you hear Labour
talk about this and rightly or wrongly, probably rightly to be
fair, they say, you know, with junior doctors going on strike,
especially as another example, they want a 35% rise in their
pay. And that's, that's not a figure
plucked at us in air. That is where their pay should
be if they hadn't been squeezed so badly over the last 10 to 15
years. Yeah.
So that's what they want, pay restoration.
That's the big thing. And if teachers want pay
restoration, I think we're in the 20s of percent or something
like that. Yeah.
Huge amount of money. And the problem I have is
currently Labour can kind of rightfully turn around and say
that's unreasonable. We don't we don't have that
amount of money right now. We're, you know, the economy is
not growing very well. And, you know, we, we can't fix
10 years of cuts in one fell swoop.
Yeah. And I'm like, cool.
But then that is kind of the end of what they say.
They're just like, so we won't nothing.
And it's like 10% then 5%, yeah. Bonus like a 10.
Year plan, you're stripping back our workload maybe, but no.
And in terms of the in terms of the health thing, Labour have
simply said no, sorry, that's unreasonable.
By the way, we're going to clear the backlog, We're going to
clear the NHS waiting list backlog.
How? We're gonna get staff, we're
gonna pay, we're gonna pay doctors to work overtime like do
evenings and weekend clinics to clear the backlog.
Unbelievable. On Question Time the other day,
a doctor was in the audience, right?
And she, she's put hand up because they're shadow health
secretary Wes Streeting, who will be our health secretary of
labour. When she basically said to him,
I'm working loads already because of what teachers do.
But I, I work an extra 10/15/20 hours a week anyway.
And you know, we're still under huge pressure.
And so who do you think exactly will take up these extra, these
extra hours when I'm already in the GP surgery doing extra
stuff? And the answer was just you.
Well, I've seen it work in my local hospital.
And it was just like, sorry, there's a doctor in the
audience, right. Yeah.
Telling you it wouldn't work.
Yeah, OK. You've lost all credibility.
Yeah, immediately. And that's where already I'm
just like those people who say it's just the same.
I'm like, I can see why you think that because they are
very. Similar.
Probably the closest to being the same it's ever been in terms
of Labour and Conservative. I would say so, but I still
don't think they're the same. I still think that, but see why
people. Have different people backing
them, you know, it doesn't do make an impact but but yeah,
they are close as ever, aren't they?
Yeah, well, that's the whole point of what's happened
recently with, you know, moving towards the centre.
So you know what I would say, thinking about this conversation
in general, umm, I would say we could both get behind the
curriculum change. We could both understand why it
might be needed, but what teachers say would be needed in
this curriculum change to what might be actually be implemented
by the government for various reasons.
I don't think there's much of an over.
No, not really. And I think that teachers have
done enough of this curriculum to make it worthwhile.
My, my general answer to that would be no, not at the minute.
Just just leave it. They've got a lot to fix before
we just dive in and do a curriculum.
Like you said, recruitment and retention, But what it comes
down to them is if we're saying, OK, let's let's not change this
curriculum, then let's not do it right now.
It would be crazy for us to say a new government come in and
let's not do anything. Yeah, so we, we speak enough
about what needs changing. So I guess this question has
evolved now into what would you want to happen then?
What should we change in? Education, I think for a start.
I don't know if this is just a previous previous point, but I
know it comes with funding everything.
I'm just ignore the fact that everything comes with money that
doesn't exist, but it would be nice to have some equipment, end
of sentence. It would be nice to have some
equipment in this school that isn't from the Blair government.
Do you know? I mean like just just a bit of
an. Upgrade would be nice and stuff,
you know, lots of schools of iPads and laptops and things
like this. That was one push that why we
did. There was an iPad push like
around the new curriculum time about 10 years ago.
I get that we're still using those iPads like the first
generation Apple things. I don't know, just I always
think, I always think of the school hall.
Every school hall in the UK looks the same.
They've all got the wall equipment, they've all got the
benches from 1994. Like they're it's all the same
stuff. And I would just like a a bit of
effort into being like, OK, it's not Victorian times anymore.
What do modern kids actually want?
What's going to make them want to come to school and enjoy
their time at school? A school that's not crumbling
because of the rat problem, or maybe, maybe a school where it
doesn't leak. Yeah, we, we just do accept,
don't we, of our school buildings that they are absolute
crap. Yeah.
And there's no money to repair. And this is what I mean about
earlier about again, point, point of no return.
They needed to be fixed 10 years ago.
Yeah, and we don't have the money to.
If we fixed them all now, because they're so beyond
repair, it would cost so too much money.
There's just unfathomable amount of money.
We just wouldn't be able to. Do it well.
The breaking point are we are 10 years of neglect.
Yeah, I said I was gonna happen like what?
What? What actually happens when,
Because the schools are just getting worse and worse in terms
of like the structure of them, they are just going to fall
down? Well, if you look at the problem
with the rack, the the concrete, that yeah, the whole point of
that is that is the ultimate version of this problem where
that's horrendous. And this should have been
flagged up and fixed ages ago, but it wasn't because the whole
school rebuilding scheme was cut and it just didn't happen.
Right. That's the ultimate version of
that. What you've got to imagine is
everything that comes below that level of small things in the
school getting broken. Yeah, if a boiler gets broken in
the school, right, which is really just random, isn't it?
That has to come out the budget and something else gets, you
know, dropped because of it. And my point is all of these
small things and and I saw BBC article the other day overhead
who is now the janitor as well. So they don't have a site
manager anymore. Wow.
Because they wanted to save that money.
The head does the site manager duties before and after his
headship and during lunch time. Tricky, because his point was if
I hired a site manager, I'd have to get rid of maybe a teaching
assistant. I'd have to lower the resource
budget. We wouldn't have the same thing
for kids. So as a head teacher, he had to
sit there and decide, yeah, I'm gonna take this work on for X
amount of value because it means the kids can get their phonics
scheme next year or something like that.
That's crazy. And it's like that's completely
broken the that that that there is, you know, let's not faff
around venue curriculum, OK? All of our, you know, thought
processes and stuff should go into fixing this issue where
that's seen as. That's higher.
That's my idea. A site manager that's that's all
the budget. We've got enough budget to fix
that one. Giving that site manager money.
But I just thought it was. And we've worked in schools
where every school has this. And if you work in a school, you
probably can think of that one or two people right now in your
school who do this, where they honestly have five jobs.
Yeah. And if, if that person were to
leave the school, mm-hmm. It you, your school would would
suffer huge amounts because you would either have to get rid of
those jobs, they don't exist anymore and hire one person
because they're on one salary, or pay five people to do those
jobs and your budget would be decimated.
Yeah, yeah. Just lucky that someone does it.
Yeah, we've got, you know, I'm thinking about it.
Just does everything. And it's like, you know.
What does every Sunday? Every Sunday.
When that person leaves, it's like those jobs are all
essential though someone. Do them.
Yeah, they just opened the score in the morning.
Yeah, that's basically do site manager's job alongside our
actual site manager. Yeah, Does basically do the SN
job. Yeah.
Is basically a deputy head teacher.
You know, it's like they're five jobs.
Yeah, yeah, It's unbelievable. Just relies on it.
Our our school system is so propped up, isn't it?
I just imagine this goodwill, imagine this picture of like all
these shaky foundations like that going to crumble at some
point and the whole thing is going to.
Come it's because on the top we can just place new curriculum.
Yeah, just checking in. So think about that then.
So let's go back to the ideological world where we can
afford to have a new curriculum. And that's I think we need.
I think one of the things I do just because it's always bugged
me and you might feel the same about maths, is actually do the
whole curriculum. I feel like, yeah, like in 2014
when all this mastery curriculum came in, it's like they got to
year 6. They're like, right, our money
ran out of money, ran out of time and then they kind of just
never carried on. No.
So now up to year six, the key stage one and two curriculum are
amazing. I think in terms of the mastery
approach, I really like what they've done with it.
I'm sure there's a few things we can fix, but then the kids go to
year seven and, and, and I've heard from so many parents over
the years to come back and be like, yeah, my kids kind of
bored maths now because they just haven't done anything new
for a year. I'm like, oh, that's annoying
because I spent ages trying to get them to like be like amazing
at maths and and be ready. And I hear that a lot.
And basically the secondary school curriculum.
I could be wrong, I'm not you know, but it doesn't seem to
follow on. I think you have to wait until
this year 10, yeah, to to get into the really nitty gritty.
Stuff, well, easy, easy, Nagy, we, me and you, literally
because we were looking at GCSE stuff, the foundation, but we
looked at the foundation, which is the easier of the GCSE.
Maths but it's still you've you know, you do a foundation paper
that's. Very fine.
Yeah. You're still doing it at GCSE
level, which is, I always forget what year it is.
You're 1110, isn't it was confused and we worked for it,
didn't we? And I'd say 80% of the questions
were just end of year six questions.
And I would argue the rest of this questions were of the level
that we could teach. Yeah, yeah.
We didn't teach it. Yeah.
Or at least yeah, seven, they could do it.
Like what is it? What are they doing then?
So I don't know, just as mental. I'd actually love to.
I'd never do it because a waste of time and it's not the
curriculum. But it would be very fun if I
just had a spare day, right, to give some of my mathematicians
in year six expected level mathematicians, but just given
the GCSE Foundation paper and see if they get enough marks to
pass it without knowing the stuff they don't know yet
haven't been taught because that would just be.
Mad and again, I don't know, actually use foundation, just
one paper or two or three, I don't know.
But this one, we found it was genuinely like, what are the
common factors of 12 and 18? And it was like, that's year
four. And you know what?
And that's fine because you're testing the whole of the
curriculum. It's the same one in the Sats
paper. If you see year three question,
no one goes. That's year three counting in
sevens. Yeah, OK.
But it's a key stage two paper GCSE.
We're still testing to see if they can still do that stuff.
I mean, that's fine, but you're right, the screening we very
quickly rapidly get to year six level hmm.
And then it it feels like the rate at which we're adding to
that knowledge does slow down. Yeah, massively.
The first thing I'd probably look at and just make sure the
curriculum is actually fluent all the way from the beginning
to the end of school. Anything you want to jump in
with? Us, I heard on that that they
did, they kind of ran out of money and time, but also that
they then just decided to shove it all into key stage two.
So apparently, from what I heard, again, feel free to
correct me, is that a bunch of the stuff that we find in the
key stage two curriculum for maths actually initially would
have stretched over to 7898. So that kind of backs up what
we're thinking of getting to that foundation level.
We would add stuff in 7-8 and 9:00, but they kind of went,
ohh, we ran out of money, just whack it.
Yes, six ends in year six, which is why a lot of people say now,
especially been teaching for a long time that you know what
we're teaching kids in year six. We used to teach them in
secondary school and what we're teaching kids in year 4 is what
we use to teach in year six. Everything got smashed.
Down. It's true to an extent.
There was stuff that got pushed out as well, isn't it?
I can't think of a good example now.
In proportion maybe. Yeah, that used to be in the.
Median. Yeah, median mode range,
different stages that used to be in year six and that got pushed
into secondary. So I do think there was a little
bit of thought there, which I think is a good thing that they
went out because year six kids don't need to know those things
to be honest. We still teach the mean average
year six. They don't need to know that.
They don't need to not they could do it in year 7.
Year 8-9, the question in the SAT is always honestly just like
find the mean. Yeah.
And it's very simple. They're not.
I don't think they're actually applying it for what it's.
Useful for no. Actual stats actually finding
out the average of something for a reason and then for
justifying. I agree.
So it's it's very much just like here's a procedure, learn it.
It's like very standard and pointless really, because I
think math should be embedded in what we're actually.
Using context and yeah, problem solving and real life context as
well. I do want to move on to another
point. They kind of didn't go past core
curriculum earlier. Yeah.
We kind of talked about me. I mean, strip it back a little
bit. Yeah.
So what would you change with the wider curriculum?
Because I'm talking history, geography, you know, and we've
already mentioned how the curriculum is so tiny for those
subjects. Yeah.
And, you know, that's quite broad.
Teachers can kind of interpret it, a lot of it, however they
like. In terms of they might get OK in
history. You have to go down British
history over this time and an ancient civilization from around
the world that's not extremely broad.
But then what you do with it, it's kind of up to you almost as
long as you go through these strands of civilization and
power and invasion and. Stuff like, yeah, I'm gonna say
something. I'm gonna lead on to a point
that I reckon is quite controversial and I reckon
you'll definitely disagree with wider curriculum.
My favourite kind of point, yeah.
I don't know if this has come from the curriculum, from the
government down or it's just like a culture that we've
created in teaching or something.
But I think the wider curriculum, although subjects
you just mentioned has become horrendously, horrendously
knowledge based to the point where it is just like the only
thing that matters is remembering some stuff.
And that's what we said, just a memory test.
And I'm, I hate that. And I don't actually, I'm not, I
don't think that comes from the curriculum.
And I think because the curriculum is so vague, it has
allowed for this weird culture to come in and be like, this is
how we this is how we do history now.
Retrieval Retrieval Everyday Five questions Retrieval Who was
it that found King Tutankhamun's tomb?
Who was it that Henry the Eighth married for the?
4th And I think that's because there probably some big
companies that have come in and filled that gap of where there's
literally just no curriculum and the claims like teach them
history and stuff and it's OK, that's the one I.
Think I would argue the curriculum is actually quite
specific in that it wants you to look at the skills.
More yeah. So this is what I find really
hard to understand because I think if anything, if you're
going to make any stance on the curriculum, it actually doesn't
say to do the whole knowledge, the whole knowledge cramming
thing it actually says teaches them about chronology, you know,
history, teaches them about democracy and how that's changed
over thousands of years like that call that, I think that's
quite cool. But I think what's happened is
because the curriculum is so vague, companies come in because
schools are desperate for schemes because we can't plan
all this stuff individually. It's mental, right?
And schemes come in and say, oh, we've created, we've done it
this way and it works. And then that just kind of goes
around other schools and suddenly everyone's doing this
crazy knowledge based stuff. So here's my controversial
point. I don't think there should be
anywhere near as much freedom as that as it currently is to teach
the curriculum the way it is. I think it should be
considerably more prescriptive so that there's actually some
standardisation across schools. And just one point, because I
let you come back to all of this.
One point that makes me feel like this in general is, is that
I hate the fact that you can work in two schools in this
country and one of them, you'll end up having a mental breakdown
at the end of it because the workload is terrible, right?
You'll be, you'll be off work sick.
And the other one is like, oh, it's great.
It's cushy here. I work 8 till 4:30 every day and
my life make my workloads great, my mental health is great.
I hate the fact that that can happen.
It's the same job, you're getting paid the same thing.
And do you think that's down to the fact the afternoon
curriculum is open to interpretation?
Not entirely, but I do think that's that.
I think the lack of systems, I think the the, the openness from
the government, like, yeah, just do what you want.
Schools, you've just got these crazy expectations to meet.
Off you go. OK, so my point on that would
be, firstly, you talked about, you know, external companies
coming in and providing schools with schemes because it's so
vague. Hmm, I understand that
completely. I think schemes, again, it
depends on the scheme. The scheme could be great, Some
you can just pick up and run with and it could save you a lot
of workload. I would argue though, there's
another strand that makes it problematic and that's Ofsted.
So it's insane the system that we currently have where our
history curriculum is honestly two sides long.
Like if you've not looked at the history quickly in a while, just
Google the national curriculum for primary and scroll past the
hundreds of pages until you get history and there's like 2
pages. Geography 2 pages DT like one
page something insane. Like that?
Yeah. The issue is then Ofsted have a
framework that's almost longer than the curriculum, right?
So the framework might be two sides.
So we're looking for this and then offset have this
unbelievably high standard and scores will hear stories of
Ofsted coming in. We've experienced this by the
way, offset coming in and saying, OK, what kind of
materials did they use in this in the Bronze Age?
What did they use That, obviously.
Bronze, Yeah, yeah. But they might ask a very
specific question. OK, well previously what did
they use? How did that change?
And OK, well, what do they use now?
What kind of what kind of weapons might they use that's
knowledge based? Yeah, like and that.
When the kids don't know the. Kids might not know and they'll
mark it down as a curriculum that's not enhancing them.
So I would argue that the problem comes from things like
offset where those incredibly high standards are set for
knowledge and schools panic and schools buy into schemes.
Good point actually, I didn't really think about that.
It's not a curriculum, It's the Ofsted framework that does
impact a lot of. I would argue what we've just
said there is the curriculum is pretty good and I like the idea
of as professionals, as teachers having that openness.
And I would be reticent. I wouldn't like what you're
saying. Whereas incredibly prescriptive.
I think we get enough of that from us in English.
And I understand why because they are vital skills to to, you
know, being a member of society. You need to be able to interpret
a timetable to get to work. You need to be able to buy stuff
when you go, when you go shopping, you need to be able to
read, to do literally anything. So all of that stuff, OK, fine.
I get why that's so prescriptive.
I like the idea that when it comes to history, if anything, I
want to give schools, you know, much more freedom to kind of go
down roads they want to go down. I want I wanna let them, you
know, do an extra term on the Roman Empire because actually
down the road from them, maybe Richard the Third was excavated,
not Roman Empire. But you know, something local
has sure, sure. Where it's like we can really
jump on that. And there it doesn't allow for
local study. But all I'm saying is I think
let's interpret the curriculum as it is, then let's actually
just do history for the sake of inspiring the children and
getting them to like these afternoon subjects.
I would argue that's the most important thing.
Yeah. With maths, most important thing
they can do the maths. I get whites, prescriptive.
With English, most important thing, they can read.
I understand that's really important.
And I'd say the writing, the most important thing is that
they enjoy writing their imaginative and eventually they
get there. That's why we want to do the
changes. Yeah.
I would say again, when it comes to the core curriculum, do they
find history interesting? That should be the core.
Yeah, Yeah, sorry. The curriculum that should be
the core of everything we're doing.
Yeah. It's the only thing that should
matter is at the end of that history curriculum, have they
been inspired to go and find out more?
Yeah. Or at least did they enjoy the
process of learning that story And, and also, can we then make
the links of what's happening today or make the links with
what they learned last year? In history.
So can I come back on that because I think I 100% agree.
I mean, you've heard on this podcast, I'm very, very
passionate about the enjoyment of the subject is number one.
So just controversially, I guess, again, I think the
government could do that. I think there could be a system
where it's like the government are quite strict on this is how
we teach these subjects and you've got to stay within these
boundaries rather than it's completely open.
And then everyone ends up buying in schemes to do the complete
opposite. I think they could be a lot more
like neatly packaged with the, with the wider curriculum,
longer, more in depth curriculums.
Not prescriptive in terms of you have to teach Romans, but
prescriptive in terms of the things that get rid of the the
the the knowledge based curriculum that we buy in that
we don't actually like that much where it's like, no, no, no,
that doesn't fit the national curriculum because National
Crime is way more detail them and you can understand it more.
It's like it, it actually says in it.
If you're not doing local studies, that's rubbish.
It's like, Hey go, everyone has to do that now because we all
agree that's. Good.
So who do you trust more to create a creative curriculum
that kids enjoy, the government or the teachers?
Well, that's the problem. That's the problem, isn't it?
I mean, my ideological world again.
And I actually don't think the government will do it.
So. So my point here is then, yeah,
I want the same outcome as you. Yeah.
I think it should be very open curriculum, which is leaves room
for inspiration for those, for teachers to do good things that
you're good at. I think what needs to change is
the office how how it's how it's judged.
Yeah, yeah. Changed the Ofsted framework,
change what we're actually looking for so teachers aren't
pressured into doing that rubbish.
Why do we feel pressure to do these retrieval questions?
Why do we feel pressured by these schemes?
In two reasons. One, workloads huge.
Two, because offset gonna rinse. Yeah, we heard from local
schools. Ofsted rinsed that school for
this thing. So now we buy a scheme that they
asked one of the students who, you know Anne of Cleaves enjoyed
seeing on on her downtime and they didn't know.
So we need to know all of the facts about all of the things.
Great trip. We need to.
We need to teach. This.
And I think why I got history all the time is because I did a
degree in history. Yeah.
I have a university degree in history, yeah.
And I would argue that the most important things I learned at
university were how to interpret sources, umm, the wider changes
that came about because of, you know, people's opinions on
things or governments or, you know, religious beliefs and
stuff like that. And the stories, I remember the
stories. But, and, and, and it's about
being critical. I think when you, when you look
at history, if it boils down to Britain invaded this country and
then Britain made sure this thing happened and we traded
with that. And then Henry the Eighth
seceded from the church. Cool.
You can find out whenever you want if you're a child in a
classroom. Hmm.
Or you will really care about is the story.
Yeah. Make it a really interesting
story. Hook them, hook them on it.
If they want to find out more, they can and do the important
stuff. Like we could modernise the
history curriculum. In my opinion, it could be very
much a away from, you know, Britain ruling the world.
It it could be a really enriching experience for the
children. Sure.
Different cultures and stuff. Just just encourage them.
Just enrich them and make it more interesting.
Sure. So back to my ideology, I think
there's a wider I want to discuss it more because I think
you'll disagree with me. I just kind of want have those
conversations. So I I was thinking about no the
government systemizing stuff more not.
Just. My whistling noise and not just
the quickly I think I think your point really actually I agree I
I that conclusion was good but in terms of other areas that the
government things the government consistently wrong again Yeah
probably here you go How about this idea.
I hate this. I think the government should
provide schools with a suggested, doesn't have to be
followed, a suggested timetable that fits in.
Ohh. That actually fits in OK.
Basically they take, I think the government should take the lead
on saying, oh you know, you know, we tell you to do 900
hours of stuff a week. Well, rather than us just
leaving it at that, here is how we think it can actually be done
and giving schools a suggested timetable to work from.
They don't have to follow it, but the idea is look, it can be
done in like a standard 9 to 3/3/15 way.
This is how we would do it. You can adapt it how you like.
Obviously schools are different in terms of their times.
So you can adapt it or not. You can adapt it, but I think
they take the lead on it, I think.
This is a fantastic thought experiment that would never
happen because I actually really get your point here.
Because what, what essentially you're saying is we don't, we
don't actually want this timetable from the government.
What we want them to realise is their expectations are insane.
Yeah, because, because what I would argue is this timetable
doesn't exist. Yeah.
So then doing it would strip back the expectations.
Exactly, I completely get what you mean cause that kind of
comes in with the fact that the one thing we do need is a strict
back curriculum, which will never happen because of optics.
The government will never give us a suggested timetable because
it simply does not work. And it would be them admitting
that the current curriculum doesn't work and these stripping
back, and then when they don't strip it back, that that's just
either way, they're screwed. Yeah.
So I I you've worded it in a way
where I actually don't. Disagree.
Yeah, now I change it as I was. Saying no because, because what
what we're basically saying is here, OK, if you ask me to do
all of this stuff, prove to me it can be done and they can't,
OK. And if they did, and if they
did, it would be awesome. Yeah, if they came out like a
three-week timetable, if you follow it, it's quite strict.
But if you do it to the minute, you do actually get all of your
allocated time in. For what subjects?
Do you know what I'd be like? Let's do it, let's do it, let's
find out, let's do it and see. Because you need to have a bit
of an open mind, this kind of stuff.
If they did that and they were like, we are literally the
government, by the way, and we literally inform Ofsted what to
inspect. I know hospital independent, but
we are in charge of this. Yeah, we're gonna judge you by
this. OK, cool.
Because the problem that was current and problem, by the way,
one way, the current, the current problem we have is that
we all sit around and pretend everything's OK.
And then it's all dandy pandy. And this, this, this lovely
curriculum. Can we fit in?
Ohh. It's we've got all the time.
We all know. That can't happen, but we all
still just crack on and pretend it can.
And when Ofsted coming in, we all put on a show.
Hmm. No.
Very rarely will anyone have the balls to say this doesn't work,
by the way. Yeah, I'm pretending.
I'm pretending for you right now because this doesn't actually
work. Because you want to see advanced
progress in this child's reading, The only way we can do
that is to do afternoon interventions with this child
during their history time. So I'm gonna pretend because
you're in this room that we never, ever take them out of the
core curriculum because it's so important and we know it can't
possibly the curriculum. Yes.
Sorry, that's wrong. I just see the curriculum
school. But when we don't take them out
of the question, we take them out of history in the afternoon.
No, cause of course we don't. We got history is so important.
Yeah, but we do because we need to make sure they can read.
Cause you gonna judge me on that instead?
Such a fun. So we all just pretend it's just
this make believe world where everyone has a timetable in
school which doesn't actually work.
And please let us know if you have one that does work.
But I'm pretty sure when you say it works, part of that will be.
We don't really do worry that doesn't work.
Then obviously is not a. Time to let us know and keep
going down this rabbit hole and keep getting you getting you
thinking Next one the government are going to do in my made-up
world is they are going to be extremely strict on workload
policies and it's enforced. It's not like a it's not a what
it currently is, which is always had a meeting about it and we
think schools should consider these things to manage work like
this. No, no, no, this is completely
enforced now and you're completely accountable for it.
This is the world of policy for the UK, for teachers.
Every school has to adhere to this and if you don't often
doing your. Part, it doesn't work because
offset are gonna rip you apart. Do you date to it?
Because if you do a date to that workload policy, right.
Any workload policy let's introduce for teachers will
decrease the amount of work teachers do by definition.
Yeah, because we're saying this problem, we do too much work.
So any workload policy that comes in will come with a
decrease in work, which comes with a decrease in output, which
comes with a decrease in standards for our children.
Well, it's just like a managing change policy or it's like you
still get things done. It's just as sort you're now
completely accountable for. Whatever it's dressed up as,
right? Just honestly, the only way we
fix workload is to produce work. So if you're spreading out
whatever you think you can call it, whatever you want, the only
way to reduce workload is that teachers do less work, right?
So in the same time frame, less stuff gets done, whether it's a
year, two years, three years. OK.
So yeah, managed workload, instead of a year, we did over
three. So how do you make a call?
Everything that you have done in year two and three you're not
doing. So it is less work, right.
And that does not work until we go back to the root system,
which is how we're judged as teachers.
So it's all well and good. And This is why, This is why the
government will never take it seriously because it comes down
to two things, like this kind of scheme that we've got here.
We need budget stripped. Well, no.
We need a we forget budget. Right.
I'm thinking of ways we could actually do this.
Yeah, sure. We could strip back the
curriculum. Yeah.
And we could change how estate judge scores.
Yeah. OK.
They're the two things that if we're not got budget to
increase, that they have to change to actually reduce
workloads. Yeah.
And until those two things change, if we keep those the
same, but we have the government going, Why don't you do less
work? Because there's a problem.
Why don't you? You're going to pay us more?
No. Are you going to stop judging us
in the same way? No.
OK. Well, I can't do less.
Working, it's like a try, you know, the classic triangle.
So it's like, pick any two things exactly of the three,
yeah. It's like you're with adulthood.
It's like sleeping time. And in this one it's literally
like funding. And then the two things you just
said, which was Ofsted, Ofsted judgement, lowering probably and
stripping back the curriculum, managing work.
But two of those things. Pick two of those things.
You can have any 2. Or just one thing.
Just give us. So if if funding can't budge,
which is the which is the whole thing, we've got the anti fancy
nice things. Ohh.
Well we're going to come in and do a new guy.
We're gonna look after teacher. None of that matters unless you
give us more money or strip. Back on time if Ofsted was
sorted out though right? If teachers were judged
properly, would you? Would you be up for that idea?
Having government LED enforced 1.
Percent Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because because to me anymore
all all I see there right Enforce OK, so if someone wants
to do something I think would be insane to tell them they're not.
Allowed to do of. Course.
So when you say. In full, but like you but by
enforced I mean the policy is we're not slot aren't allowed to
tell you to go. And do this thing and all I see
that as right is just making us in line with pretty much any job
ever. Yeah.
So, yeah, of course, of course it's fine because you know what?
You could be in school from half seven till half four, right.
Let's think about that for a minute.
That's nine hours straight away. Teachers work for their breaks
all the time. Might get half an hour to eat
your lunch while you're doing something else, maybe.
Or even you block it out and you're really good.
That's still longer than a normal day's work, OK.
And that is simply delivering lessons and marking your books
and prepping your lessons, OK? No planning.
No planning involved. So it's it wouldn't work.
It just wouldn't work straight away.
You know, we get into this profession because we don't mind
doing the extra. Stuff it's.
So pay us more, is that? That's what you have to do.
You have to keep paying. And if pay gets chipped away,
we're at that balance now where it's like, cool goodwill runs
out. Yeah, the counter arguments, my
own point there, because you just made me think of it, is is
this is the classic example, but on a massive wider scale of when
the head teacher comes round to you at 5:00 and says go home, I
wanna work. Doesn't actually go away.
Even if the policy does tell me to go home and have weekends and
I can't work at the weekend. So I gotta get the freaking work
done though, isn't it? So yeah.
So yeah, all of these things come with lots.
Of, and This is why I don't think This is why actually I
don't think there's a solution because I do honestly think it's
either funding that won't happen, lowering the standards
for our children that won't happen because it's optics is
terrible. Whether that's stripping out the
curriculum, lowering offset expectations, that won't happen.
So we're left with the third one, which is what's currently
happening, which is everyone closes their eyes and hopes
teachers just make do. Yeah, we we just advise the
government advises teachers to do this knowing that they can't
really do it, but just saying come on, I'll just.
Fit all this into the timetable, I'll just do a bit less if we
actually got you to sit down and.
Manage your workload. Come on, we're not going to
enforce it. We know literally can't happen,
but just manage it. Just managing.
OK, last one from me, then we'll end this conversation.
Another government come along and say we are now taking
control of this marking policies, marking that we have a
UK way of marking now. It's not up to schools anymore.
Some of you got your fancy pants ways of marking.
Some of you draconian Victorian ways of marking.
This is how we mark in the UK now.
We've decided research says this is best.
Every school now must mark like this.
I don't like it. I don't like I don't like
anything which is topped down. You have to do this from the
government and and the look, this is it's it's a double sided
coin because with that freedom, right?
We currently have that freedom, I'd argue, but it's completely
broken because the freedom is do how you want, but you need to do
all of these things are really high level, but not very.
Much because they come in and they will judge.
It's a classic government, kind of especially conservative in
the last 10 to 15 years. It's like we're gonna give all
the power to the local authorities.
You're an Academy trust. You've got all the power now.
But here's your money part, and it doesn't cover everything, but
you've got all the power to do what you want with money.
Yeah. So when you decide not to hire a
site manager, that's not down to me.
Yeah, but it is because you give them less money.
So I see the same problem here, right?
Yeah. Schools right now can have
whatever marking policy they see fit.
Ofsted won't have a specific marketing policy they want to
see as long as it's consistent and the outcomes are good and
it's consistent across the school.
Like, that's all well and good. OK.
But, you know, the, the, the government then coming along and
saying, no, you have to do it this way is equally insane to me
because there might just be a school where things worked
really well. Yeah.
And there might be a mixed way of marking where actually, you
know, there's no written feedback.
But maybe there is just a bit on their independent writing
because we find that really works well.
Our children. Yeah.
Or you've got the flexibility as a teacher to be like, you know
what, today, tomorrow, the next day, it's kind of a flow of
learning. I don't really need to assess
them because I'm gonna carry on this lesson tomorrow.
I'm gonna have a whole week of doing money.
Me individually assessing every day is kind of pointless.
I'm going to assess them at the end of the week because I can
see where they've got to and I'm gonna react as the as the week
goes on. Next week, however, I'm just
doing a shape standalone lesson I really want to have on there.
So I'm gonna assess them. That's fluid and that's good
teaching. That's good assessment.
Top down of saying you have to do it like this.
There will be points where it's not suitable and that would be
silly. My my overall point here, we
need freedom as teachers to exercise our professional
judgement because we are professionals and we've had
training and a lot of us have been doing this for a long time
and we know what's good for the children.
However, until those you know, what the government can do,
which doesn't cost any money, but it looks bad optically.
Yeah, is kind of to strip. Things summarise what I think.
I think you made really good points there and that was a good
discussion. So I'm seeing this as the
freedom is good, we should maintain the freedoms that
schools have, but if we want to fix the problems that are that
do this, which is which is my overall point, really, it was
that I kind of want schools not to be unbelievably different to
work in, which is true. It's the undercurrents that
affects the pressure and the culture that we experience that
actually push schools to make these decisions, which we're
deeming as mental, which I'm, you know, are the reasons I'm
thinking maybe the government needs to step in and stop this
happening. Actually, the freedom is good.
The government needs to step in and help to change the culture.
They need to sort out Ofsted. They need to give us more
funding. They need to stop teachers.
They need, I think they should come in like they're doing right
now with the workload and and work life balance policy and
stuff and just be a bit more hard on that in terms of like,
yeah, actually it is really, really important.
We change the culture we're gonna make, we're gonna really
encourage all heads to think it's really, really, really
important. And you can kind of do with it
how you will. But yeah, changing the culture
really important. Let's not pretend we can do less
work though. No, have the same.
No, no standards you're completely agree with.
So we're funding. It's kind of like that.
Fixes a lot of that. More people and more people is
better. Two people can do the same.
This one job, you got 12 hours, OK, two people do it, six hours
each, done fine. Just give us the money to get
the people in to do it, basically.
So depressing ending really is that none of this can possibly
happen because the government will never be the funding.
It's too far gone, the fundraise.
The Tories have stripped back education so, so badly now that
it's irreparable. Um, the curriculum can't be
stripped back because we again, the Tories have made it so
ridiculously overweight and you need to learn so much stuff now
that the only possible way now is backwards to actually make
the curriculum good for our kids.
And that will always look bad for government, so they'll never
do it. And then what is the Third Point
was about Ofsted? Yeah.
It was like it probably could fix that one.
Yeah, I think we could fix Ofsted start there.
Yeah. That's the issue we're currently
facing. I think there are some things we
can do. I think schools need more
autonomy. I think the pressures, pillars,
basically government, Ofsted, SLT, yeah, Honestly, as a
teacher you don't really have control over those things.
So do what you can do as a teacher and apply pressure where
we can to these three pillars. Hopefully it changes.
Will it change? Am I quite confident that in
five years time, at the end of the next parliament, do I think
that we will transform the education?
Absolutely. Not, no, absolutely not.
So let's finish up then. Dylan, I'll ask you the title of
the podcast again. Do we need a new national
curriculum? New.
All right, guys, thanks very much for joining us.
Really, really depressing ending to the episode.
No, I actually enjoy the conversation and let us know
what you think. Please get in touch at each seat
podcast. I say so quickly.
I worry that. This is a teach teach sleep,
repeat podcast on Instagram. That's where we see everything.
Sent us a message. Come along for the ride.
We're off to centre box now so they'll probably be an episode
next week, don't know. Yeah, we can reflect in our week
swimming and pretending that it's gonna be a really nice they
actually we've got two babies under a year, so I'd be really.
Stressful. Ohh, no nice.
Well joining next week because it will be we'll definitely have
a reflection on the fact that we took two babies on holiday.
It'll be it'll be a good. Laugh, it'll be a good laugh.
See you. Then see you later, bye bye bye.
See you now. Bye bye.
See you later. Bye bye.
See you.