Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode
of Teach Step Repeat. My name is.
Dylan and my name is Hayden. I'm back with Season 37, episode
nine, Series 2. We had a good luck too with the
chat before trying to clarify what it was.
We finally looked and we were all wrong.
Yeah, normally you just go. I don't know what episode we're
on. Good cares.
We're all here for the good times and the good laughs.
Hey Hayden. Hey man.
Last week we did an episode. It went down very well.
It always seems to be this is the horrible spiral.
We're going down with this podcast sometimes, but whenever
we're a little bit negative, seems to do quite well because I
I suppose people just feel that way.
They like to have a bit of a moan.
Everyone loves to moan. We all love to moan.
So you can live through arm moaning, yeah.
And then carry on not doing anything about it in your life.
Brilliant weekend for weeks. Let's do it Hayden.
So you and me start of our. Week Shall you or me do the
starting? I'm thinking that you will do
the starting. How's your week been, Dylan?
Good. I've got a son.
Ah, who had one minute 10 on their radar?
Radar. Can you tell that?
The only way would say was that last night?
Yeah, we were up every hour and a half of him.
Ohh. And that was really.
Fun. Don't worry.
That will stop soon. Ohh.
I don't think it does. Yeah, I'm gonna go on about it.
But I just, you know, when you, like, feel all the parents out
there probably feel like, OK, they're not routine because
they're very young. It's only 5 weeks old.
No routine yet, but last few nights we kind of know what
we're doing. Yeah, feeds and then I'll go
down for three hours or so. So I'll go down for longer.
Oh, my baby went down for 8 hours.
Oh, I don't care. Shut up and don't tell me,
please. That would be about it.
But you know, he's staying down for about 3 hours.
As I said. We can deal with that.
Yeah.
Last night you fed at 10 half 1113, half four six half seven.
And finally, Victoria Station. Wow.
Please. Cool.
You're really making me excited. No, But here's the problem.
Here's what I said right, And it was backed up by Lauren's mum.
She was saying they make them cute for a reason.
Because if they didn't make them cute, I'd have chucked him out
the window. It'd be it'd be fine bye if he
wasn't really, really cute and I didn't love him so much.
Yeah. In the baby gone.
In the bin, Gone. Bye.
See you later. I don't wanna do this.
Yeah, I did say before last night, I said.
Should we just sleep tonight? Ohh, what's the what's the worst
That obviously we didn't Our baby needs food.
BA Very sweet. You're very involved, aren't
you? Not like these old fashioned,
old fashioned dads. I had a friend messaged me
saying. Last thing on Rory, I had a
friend messaged me saying ohh by the way we were chatting, he was
seeing some from the podcast Ohh by the way, you really sound
like David Brent last. Week, David Brand.
Go on in the bit where he was like, yeah, I'll help out.
Not for praise. Don't praise me.
Actually, I do stuff at home. I'm a dad who changes nappies.
Yeah. You've watched way too much on
this. I don't know.
I don't know if I'd be complimented or I don't know if
I'd feel complimented cause I love David Brent.
Don't think it was a compliment. Yeah, I said.
I'm gonna have to splice them together.
Yeah, Dad, work from home does the.
Nappies being a dad, Is that the reason that you forgot since
last week's recording? To read the bear story, Bring
the best story, the story we mentioned last week.
Very quick. One, any listeners that I have
been given a Goldilocks and three that story, but it's been
swapped in with the Guardian and the gorilla.
Long story short, it's involved with my classroom.
Last year they remembered she wanted to write me a story for
our baby. I've got it.
It's coming. OK, so the last thing I'm gonna
say for my week. Let's move from school to home.
No, he's at home. But then I'm not in my home now.
So instead of home, I think it's one week for each transfer.
So school to home was a week, another week for it to get here.
As next week it will be ready already.
I'm trying to clarify it like there's a guy in a gorilla
story, no one knows what to talk about, but the last thing,
something like semi serious I suppose about my week, just a
quick win. We did worry monsters.
We got worry monsters in school where they're basically just
like decorated shoeboxes with a hole in.
If you've got a worry it just allows the children to write it
down, put it in the box without feeling like they're making a
thing out of it. Just something I'd recommend to
everyone, even if they exist in our school.
But just making the point of saying them right.
This morning I had to slide up on my screen.
It's like I brought the worry monster into the class.
It's right here. You've all got a sheet of paper
in front of you. You can read your book.
You can write, you can do it. It's a free choice and not gonna
force you to have worry. You're not worried, be worried.
It's worrying most the time. What you worried down?
One down, kid. But then, turns out it was just
you. Sleep.
I'm so worried, but yeah, just a quick win because obviously
there are some funny ones in there, something not worried at
all. It's one of them just said I was
worried because when I came into school this morning my mum said
it was going to be someone else picking me up and I was like,
ohh, OK like that's sweet. But I very quickly said to them,
you know, that you'll still go home.
And they were like yeah, I know, I just want to see my mum was
like, so that's like low level worry, Yeah.
But there were also other things that I wouldn't have known.
Why isn't, you know, things going on the playground, things
going on between children and it just give me that insight that I
could have just floated through and then come April, that could
have been a really big problem. Because it's not been.
You would have known. But it's true.
If you don't give kids the a really, really easy way to say
these things and they just won't do it.
Some of them will. You get those.
You always get the boys for children who are every day
they're there. I wanna tell you a problem.
And then I guess it's easy to then think, Oh, well, you know,
they're just like that, just kind of a bit over the top and
everyone else is fine. Well, there was one goal just
very quickly, For example, who that morning had come in.
I always speak to them when they come in like, hey, how you
doing? You okay?
And she was like, yeah, OK, good.
And she sat down. She's presenting.
Absolutely fine. Then her worry was something
that was worrying her right then.
It was like something from that morning And I'm like, why?
I just wouldn't have known that cause she was very smiling
cracking up front. Would have had a single clue.
Kids do yeah put on front quite quickly I find.
So just I just fought a nice quick win.
Anyone at school just try out. Just want to start.
We all do this. But just explicitly put 5
minutes aside one morning just to say.
Guys let me know there's something to let me know.
All anonymous is really cool. That's good.
Yeah, my job. I had a really good Ohh.
I'd have had a really good week, you know.
Don't convince me mate. Why?
But you know it's. Not a really good week, I
believe. You Mickey Mouse hot.
Well thanks. Well, thanks for making me
within 3 seconds, that's why. You know, why not choose?
I don't wanna hear it because I've already read it, you know?
Come on. Yeah, but how was your week,
mate? Did you manage to get any visits
from ex pupils? Do you have a really nice week?
Nice kids at school realised you're sick at the recorder.
Did you measure around your stomach?
Go now, go now. Ohh quick.
Listen. Quick Fire had a really nice
week, really positive week. I just had one of those weeks
where I finished finished my whole 3 days.
Very loose definition of a week. Ohh, I feel bad.
Anyway, whatever, you don't. Whatever, whatever.
Finish my 3 days and you know, just the kids were just so nice.
Everyone's respectful. Like it was just I just had a
really good week. I didn't have any problems.
Yeah, it was really nice. So that was good.
Also been playing recorders and I was quite proud of myself
because I've never touched a recorder before.
The day I had to start teaching recorders, it was like, only
this, yeah. Yeah, first time I've ever done
it. I've always done other subjects.
You've been a primary school teacher for nearly 10.
Years. I've never taught recorders.
Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. Yeah, I know.
So I was like, I'm gonna be rubbish at this.
And I just sort of stayed one step ahead of them.
And we got to our little final piece yesterday that we're gonna
be playing in a church. I looked at the sheet music and
it's gonna be painful. I've got to try and teach it and
I could play it straight away, read it, OK, there's two parts
of me right here. Don't take this away from me.
One part of me wants this really big you up and be really nice.
That was someone I knew less. That's all I do.
Yeah, that's lovely to hear. Yeah.
But I will just say there's a reason we teach 7 year olds in
the quarter. Because you're moving on
extremely easy. I didn't hear that.
Don't worry about it, mate. You should be proud of me.
And the other thing I want to mention the bit bore personal
and embarrassing. So you know, we had a vet,
didn't we? We're a little bit because
obviously both of our girlfriends were pregnant at the
same time. People take like a month.
They were, you know, very, very similar timings.
And we had a little bit of fun just saying, oh, I wonder at
what point they will overtake us in the size of their stomach.
Because we're just joking about ourselves because we're big
Bolshy made a lot of rubbish. And it was like, Oh yeah, you
know, we've had a sweepstake on Abate, 4 months, four months.
After a while it was they obviously looked very pregnant
and it was like of course bigger than us.
Well, no, turns out Ohh. My mum's the other day and my
sister thought it would be really, really fun to get the
tape measure out. Really.
And yeah, just because she knew what fun event doesn't start the
tech again. Be It was great, but she knew
that she would be able to humiliate me.
And she measured around Lawrence Bump, right?
And but just for context, she's 38 weeks pregnant.
She's ready, ready to pop and measured around me.
And I was like 2 inches bigger. My circumference is larger.
Leave it. I was mortified.
If you were both planetary bodies, she'd be your moon.
Still, she's a little smaller, yeah.
And I've just eaten a Kit Kat and I had another one and I put
it back. That's the perfect situation.
Like summarise, Yeah, after that, the fact you had a
secondary cut lined up. Get ready to go.
Ohh. So yeah, a bit gutted about
that. OK, that's my way.
Yeah, I gotta go on a diet now guys.
I hope you enjoyed that. We did say we're gonna try and
streamline our week a bit because we have got into the
habit of going on and on. We started with that delirium,
that delirious week, because I think that week the whole
episode wasn't intro. I don't think we had any
structure whatsoever. Ohh dear.
So yeah, that was all week. Brilliant.
Should we get into the chunky, chunky bit of this?
All right. See you next time guys.
Right. So there's there is a danger
hater that for two weeks in a row we go down the negative
spiral. So we made an agreement weeks.
Ohh. We made an agreement that if
we're going to talk about some negative things again we have to
either come up with some solutions which we'll do later.
Yes. But also we're gonna have a nice
little 2 minute nice little happy thing right now.
Happy segment. We welcome to the happy set.
Here we go of the angry podcast. Hey, ready.
So the first. One day I'm gonna make it.
Collection of a compilation of all your little compilation
little jingles that you make up. Please do I I love it.
This is what I do all the time. I don't think the viewers know
this. This is what happens every two
minutes. In my house, it's great because
we're becoming more and more comfortable with recording this
podcast. We're becoming more comfortable
talking on the. You can't talk.
I can't talk most of the time anyway.
Becoming more comfortable. Another pressure.
Go on, try again. We're becoming more comfortable
on this podcast, and you're beginning to see more.
Behind the Mask is slipping Dylan.
Ohh, soon I'll be whacking my head and running into the wall.
That's a story for another. Day.
That's for a future episodes. Anyway, quick thing, right?
Just wanted to do a nice little thing.
All right. And I'm gonna ask you a
question. Yep.
You know the question is because you can pretend ohh question.
You isn't listening. Just build really good.
Oh, no, I haven't asked you. I'm sorry I haven't asked you.
Got away. OK.
If you're gonna pretend. Yeah.
Yeah, We'll do it again. Do it again.
Here we go. So what's 1?
What's one thing that you do with your class?
Yeah, to build rapport with Don't don't wanna.
Fantastic. Well that's I'll have the same
answer. So that's a good question.
I don't just do one thing is the answer.
So I'm gonna try. I don't find it hard to pinpoint
but it's really it feels like a cop out answer.
I always say it but I think it's such a powerful way to go about
seeing your class and some teachers just don't they just
don't know. They don't because I work with
them and they're not bad teachers but they just don't do
this. And I I just treat and see every
single child as an. Imaginary friend again, this is
Brent is back. Not everyone does this, but I
do. But no, you see and treat every
single child as their own individual personality.
I think every teacher treats them, does treat them as an
individual in terms of their ability and maths and English.
And they can, you know, put stuff in place with them and
they're there to make them better at maths, better English.
But I just absolutely love every single year spending the time up
until Christmas, not only teaching them lots of stuff,
obviously, because that's the biggest part of the job, but
just building a relationship with them where I know them
individually. And I'd like to think that by
Christmas, if you said any child in my class, I'd be able to tell
you three or four individual facts about them that I've got
from them, from just talking to them, just getting to know them.
I think that's such a powerful thing because I think loads
comes from that. So there's those little bits
like do the register silly or all that kind of stuff.
But for me, that's the biggest thing is they're their own
individual personality and just talk, talk to them without the
end goal of they're going to learn some mass by the end of
this conversation or they're gonna know some more history.
I just talked to them as I would talk to you.
Well, do you have cause quite as quite a wide point?
Yeah, it's a very good point. But I was thinking more to be
fair, like like a specific answer your question.
Right. It was a little point I was
thinking of because I do it all the time and it's just funny and
just, I don't know, just saying their name, slightly silly.
And then they love it. And there was one child who came
up to me the other day and just said to me in the register, I'm
called you. Yeah, the same Mr. Price.
Then I answer. OK, brilliant.
And they love it. Yeah.
They have a day. This kind of backfired slightly.
I was just saying the register and I was just six children in
very close to the top and I said a name.
But apparently all the. I thought I didn't, but
obviously I did. I said it at the start of
accident trying to stumble over my words and so I'd replaced the
1st letter with the team accident and they're like what?
What? What did you say?
Was that I was like, no, no, I didn't thank.
You. So I proceeded to say every name
wrong after. That, yeah, just changed.
They go home. What did you learn that?
I don't know. But but Mr. Price did this thing
and it was unbelievable. OK, OK, but we really need you
to learn your times tables. Did you do that?
No, but I changed the letter to start well name.
Was brilliant and we did it all day.
Was actually. Can't spell your name now.
No, you've regressed. Yeah.
Was it funny? Yeah.
OK, Right. Yeah.
I think little things like that. Yeah.
Do the register funny. And I I guess one thing I do in
lessons is I will very happily break for two minutes.
And what I mean is it's not like break, stop and just rest.
It's like, OK, I've realised that they're really bored.
They're really bored right now. So I'm going to Gee them up a
bit. I'll get them unsused and be
silly or you know and and one thing I do all of the time, my
friends get annoyed I said it before on the podcast is I
constantly praise them like I, I, I kill them with praise like
they could be doing anything That's right and I'll be and
some people say don't do that because then they do something
no I don't care. I'm gonna.
I'm gonna kill them with praise and then when they do something
wrong call them up on it. Yeah, but then I'm going to have
90% of my time is praise, praise, praise, praise.
Particularly those children, because I've always remember
training years ago about the hidden child and it's like it
was a way to get you to think about the the quietest child in
your class, because quite often they're gonna get the least
interaction could simply because they're just not making as much
noise. That's it.
And I've always been aware of that.
And I quite often do exactly what you're doing.
And I'll actively think to myself, Right.
Who is it? Because it's going to be five
children, at least in this class, who constantly do the
right thing. They never do the wrong thing,
but they don't get much praise for it.
Yes. And I'm like, whoa, you know,
little Timmy over there, let's, you know, can we be like him,
please? And he's probably thinking, oh,
sweet, like, I've just got praise.
I do this all the time, but, and some people will go well, he's
just doing the bare minimum. We should be praising that.
Well, finally enough, more than half the class aren't.
So I'm going to praise him actually, because that's not
obviously the known compared to other.
People. I guess positivity then is
actually a really, really big thing for building report.
Like I always try to. I think of ways where they can
earn something as a class, like so it develops a bit of
community spirit and it's like, right, if we do this and you're
going to earn yourself, every time I put this thing on the
board, you get another minute going to extra play.
We get this work done to this standard.
We go outside, we have some fun because you've done the hard
work and they're so driven by that sort of stuff.
And then they like you for it and you just build up a nice
relationship with them because like this teacher rewards me,
Don't. We don't just do more.
Hard work as a reward for getting the work done hard.
I completely agree. I I think it's it's an issue
sometimes where there's a bit of a bell curve like inverted where
in the middle, if you're a middle one, you might not get as
much out of them but if you shower them with praise and they
they really, really adore you they can get loads out of you.
But also I saw a point the other day and I think it's probably
right, is sometimes the most like staff member in school is
actually getting the best out of their kids because there's
another way to make children like you and it's just to let
them do whatever they want whenever they want.
Yeah. And then you're the walk over
the cool teacher. Hey, with that, we don't have to
get our work done with this person.
This is awesome. Isn't he the best?
But then there's the other way, which is Ohh.
Yeah, he's really cool and funny.
Like, we work hard. Yeah, but.
Really strict rules and in place.
But he he is nice as well because I think yeah I really
want to fight against the blanket thing of and the
statement was basically the most liked teacher in your school is
probably the worst teacher. And I was really triggered
because I get the sentiment and I understand there will be
teachers like that. But I think that sentiment feeds
them into you've got to be a monster.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you just.
Don't know it's a fine line though, isn't it?
Between being that and. Being a fun, respectful teacher
that kids like who does actually still get really good.
Like, yeah, progress and results from their kids.
It's hard talking of being a monster.
So you've seen the title and you clicked on it, Someone shared it
maybe. Or you're just an avid fan.
Thank you for coming back. And it is a bit negative.
OK, so the question is loaded. How do we fix terrible school?
Click bait. Click, maybe?
And then we get with the Rory poo story how do we fix terrible
schools And and I think the my favourite part of the title is
problems and solutions because I always feel like a bit of a a
negative Nelly when I come to something with just moaning,
moaning, moaning. But I've not come with any
solutions. Yeah fix it.
So we're going to dive in. When we say bad scores, we mean
not underperforming schools like how do we make progress better.
We're gonna kind of harp on from last week, which was quite
positive with people, positive feedback and that is schools
that are just become hellish, schools that become and negative
place for staff and negative place for pupils.
How can we fix these places? What is wrong with them in the
1st place? What are the problems in these
kind of institutions and how can we maybe try and move forward
and what are the solutions that are practical and that will make
somewhere a much better place? To be There are plenty of good
schools, and by good again, I'm not, we're not talking offered
today. We're not talking about gradings
of schools. We're talking about places which
people like going to work in, right?
There are plenty of schools where staff retention is great.
People love working. And they get good results out of
their kids. And there are plenty of schools
that are Ofsted graded good or outstanding that are horrendous
to work in. We've got a really good example
in a minute to share with you. They still, they might get their
progress, but they're horrible, horrible places to work in.
So what is the difference between them?
How can we make them better? And I think one of the biggest
rises we've seen over the last, I guess, decade, I suppose since
we've been in school is the rise of the kind of really harsh
hardline Victorian style inner City Schools.
You think of Michaela that score with them, the head teacher
who's apparently or the strictest head teacher in the
land and they get amazing progress data, unbelievable data
for children in in inner city London, I think.
So this is just in London and the name of the staff that
worked there slipped my mind. But if the school's called
Michaela right, gets really good data progress points, They were
released recently, like, honestly, like probably.
I think she was one in the country, like top ten at least.
OK yeah. So unbelievable results for the
children, which you can't turn your nose up, like.
No, that's fantastic. Because that is at the end of
the day, one of the biggest reasons we're in school is to
get that. But the very, very, very
negative press for how they go about it, OK?
And we see high levels of exclusion that we'll talk about.
High levels of staff turnover, high expectations from staff,
horrible workload. Horrible kind of place to be.
If you're a staff member. It's not a nice place to be
unless you're in that mindset of this work is my life and they
get results and this. I guess this whole point here is
we're going to try and balance that.
And I think whilst progress is really important, I suppose the
foundation we're going to lay here is we're going to come at
this from the perspective of the well-being of the teachers and
the staff. Yeah, sorry, the teachers and
the and the children. Yeah, Yeah.
So of course there's different ways to make progress.
Fine. But we're going to say right now
a bad school is a school where you hate going into work.
Yeah, like you just said. So we can't start this
conversation without referencing something that came up this
week. So Hayden take over for?
Well, Dylan messaged me the other day and sent me a link,
which has obviously gone viral because I've seen it in loads of
places now of it. It was a letter.
Was it from the union? The actual letter it was from
the local executive order has NSFW.
Yeah, yeah. So they wrote it and it was a
letter to the parents, right, about what they're doing.
So. It's based around a a trust
called Australia Austria and no Australia Austria, Austria,
Austria, Austria. It's called Australia Australia.
A terrible joke. No one's laughing at this point,
everyone thinking about what was in the letter.
Yeah, yeah, you might have seen it.
So if you're in the teaching world, you probably already seen
it. So Super Australia, whatever you
want to call it. Australia, they're a trust,
right? Yeah.
And they have a big trusts in the Midlands schools and they're
known for being extremely strict, extremely militant.
And there's a particular school, St Ivo, which is what this
letter is based around, who they've had a horrendous time.
Don't know. They've been in the trust for
long. I got the impression from the
letter that it's been. For the last couple of years,
perhaps they weren't in the trust before, but I don't know
if that's true. Yeah.
Anyway, let's should we summarise some of the points
that have come out of this. So, so like the the point was
the letters from the union, because the teachers are
striking, right? It's got to the point where the
teachers are striking in an individual school because of
their work and condition. Striking against the trust.
So the trust are in charge saying Ivo have their own
leadership whose hands seem to be quite tied here.
They can't have the authority to make any decisions.
But at the same time, the leaders of the trust are saying,
well, it's a local issue, we can't do anything, so nothing's
getting done. So what has been happening in
this school? Yeah, that means that we've
ended up having an individual school.
It's taking strike, actually. It's ridiculously draconian.
So there's a few points and we'll go back and forth, so I'm
gonna mention one. So from this letter, apparently
the staff there, they've introduced a dress code that is
so strict that basically no one can deviate from like one
particular outfit. And people are saying it's
really not very modern and it goes against a lot, a lot of
modern rights for people and how they want to dress and represent
them. Especially women, apparently.
Yeah, it did say especially women.
So I Christ knows what. High heels and skirts, please,
probably. It's probably is something like
that. Your high heels and skirts and
and a we don't know. Just put that out there.
No, but it's gonna be something like that.
So that was one point. And it's expensive.
Yeah, they said the uniform is expensive and the only thing
they've given back on that is, OK, we'll phase it in.
So it's not, not. Got a straight away I'm not
gonna do it. The thing that got me this is
the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen and it's you know
those those jokes you make before.
Yeah. And we talked about not having a
chair and we were like, that's meant that was real.
But that's that's that's as bad as it gets.
Kind of start from you got chair in classroom.
Sit down. No.
I guess What You can't have lined paper on your desk.
What What kind of lined paper? Not allowed.
You know what It's a distraction from the learning.
You can't have lined paper. Yes.
And did you just move the bin from the assigned place for the
bin to be in the classroom? That the letter said that if the
bin wasn't in the assigned place then it would be disciplinary
action for the staff member in disciplinary action.
Do you know what I want to put in the bin?
Ostrich, Australia, Australia. Australia, Australia, Australia
can go in the bin, OK. Unbelievable.
MAD and also posters. Apparently they're not allowed
posters on the walls unless it's like the Trusts own posters.
Propaganda isn't. This is like Mussolini in Italy.
She she Austria, Austria, Austria.
That's unbelievable, man. Apparently is a lot more.
But yeah, yeah, so it's it's horribly militant.
And treat the school, treat the staff awful.
Treat the children. Awfully high levels of
exclusion. Yeah, we see this a lot in Multi
Academy Trust where they come in and like, cool, we gotta make
data better. How can we make data better?
Hmm. Let me think, What are we going
to do with the children? Have low data.
Bye bye. See you later.
What's really interesting was they did so typical.
Kind of trust where they only care about the progress data,
right? That is the only thing that's
important. Well, they did a survey in the
school. I was reading through the
website, like the parent website they've got from the school and
they did a survey in the school. And I was just looking at some
of the data from the survey and they were asking children and
parents and families things like, is your child happy at
school and do they suffer with any like mental anxiety and
depression? What sorts of things?
And it was so high. Like horribly, horribly high
where these kids are not enjoying being at this, this
work, that this school. And that's to me is the crux of
the issue. OK, as teachers, we're adults.
We can vouch for ourselves. You know, we can argue against
something. We can take them to the union
and strike. The children don't have a voice
here. They're born in that area.
That's their local school. There's no other places.
They've got to go there and it's horrendous.
And and that's where it kind of kicks in for me and stop being
funny and starts being serious. Yeah.
And I know you spoke to a mum from the area because you spoke
online to one of the parents from someone whose child goes to
that school and she was devastated.
Yeah, yeah. She said it was.
I mean, she didn't say much other than agreeing with
everything in this letter and saying it is just, she said it
was a nightmare. Was her word a nightmare that
her child goes there? Because I've got lots of
schools? Yeah, I think.
I think it was that school. It was one of the other schools,
Yeah, but, but, but, but they OK.
What other schools have we got? Another Austria school, Yeah.
Well, under Austria, yeah. Never got 41.
Austria, like all the schools in one area.
Sorry mate. Do you wanna go travel now?
An hour and a half? This is dreadful cause.
I mean, we've talked about this a lot and we've kind of
mentioned it already ironically at the start of this episode
about trying to make your kids happy and and that's how you
build good rapport with them. And these, these these staff,
they're not allowed to do that. They're just not allowed.
Which would if if you were told no, next time you do the
register like that again and that's disciplinary action.
Take their names silently and if they answer you back, they're
out of the park. When they said take the name
silently and mouth it to them. Yeah.
Then that's it.
You're out. You're fired now.
OK, bye. But you're being horrible, isn't
it? Taking away your autonomy, Yeah,
yeah. And I think this links really
nicely into the kind of the list we've put together.
So this whole thing kind of sparked this idea of Hayden and
I. We've worked in different
schools. We've seen first-hand how
schools can be very different from one another.
And I think we've got a nice list here about what you would
see in a school where you do not want to work.
Yeah, What are you gonna see? And we've taken some ideas from
other people because I know last week, unbelievably, we finished
the top five reasons people are quitting.
And I was like, we didn't talk about behaviour.
That's a huge thing right now. So we put ourselves out there a
bit, asking people for some advice and we've got a list
we're gonna work through. So for anyone who's working in a
school, that's awful. Do you see yourself here, anyone
who's working in a school that they think is bad?
Well maybe you'll read this and you think, well actually it's
not too bad and if your parents, this is something to look out
for and it's something I'm really passionate about.
Hayden is any parents listening? Do not just go off the one word
Ofsted report. You want to be looking for these
kind of things because if your staff are not happy in a school
it will feed down to the children and that's important.
And even progress data, like we're saying right now even
progress data isn't the be all end all because if your child is
not happy at school, there's like are we just going to
pretend that's not important? I'll let you decide.
So yeah, I asked a few people online kind of what their
experiences were. And.
What they thought it was a mixture of teachers and parents.
Wasn't it? Yeah, it wasn't there.
Yeah, it was. Yeah.
And here are some things. If you want to jump in at any
point, feel free. I'm gonna read off this list.
So the first one was that the terrible score is when there's
an embedded expectation that you will sacrifice your time for the
job. I think, I think what would be
good if we go through this, I'm going to try and play the
opposite, OK, So I'm going to come through and be like I agree
with this, but I suppose embedded expectation is that not
the same everywhere. Is that not just part of being a
teacher? Or part of working in a way.
It's kind of an expectation in there.
I guess it was the IT was the idea that you will sacrifice any
time for the job. And I suppose systems in other
jobs outside of teaching are in place that if you do have to
sacrifice your time, here you go, here's more money over time
because we will pay you for that overtime.
Yeah. But I agree.
This person, yeah, they were just making a really good point.
I think about just there was just it's not even a question
embedded. It's not even asked.
Would you mind? I know this is more work and
your timetable is already full, but there's this thing that's
happened. Would you mind dealing with
this. It's just well, of course you
will. You're a teacher, for example.
There is someone joining your class, someone joining your
school. You're in charge of their, you
know, programme that you're. You're their teacher.
Yeah. And you know, they've got some
additional needs that either aren't funded or are just not
not not well known yet. And then it's kind of just like,
here you go, OK, that that only adds to what I've got to do.
Now if I've got to do anything bespoke for this person, which
I'm a teacher, of course I want to do.
That's why I'm teaching, to want to help every single child.
But that does mean that that overrides my actual time.
We talked last week. We mentioned we about how.
The makeup of your class, which is potluck, complete potluck, it
is a factor in in terms of like why some teachers are quitting.
Because if you're just unlucky. And in terms of you have a class
that just requires 10 more hours a week of your time because
you've got to plan individual things for children, which is
part of your job and you have to do it.
And we agree that it should be done because it's about outcomes
for these children, but it's 10 more hours of your of your week
and you're not getting paid anymore for it.
So it's that kind of point. I think it's just an
expectation. Now you're just sacrifice that
time. Well that's time of your newborn
baby. Exactly.
And that now that's the thing now where I, you know, honestly
beforehand I was kind of moving towards saying no, umm, at this
point I I will not do it like I'm I just won't.
And if it is an issue, I'd like, I won't go with it ballsy and
say, well I'm not no, it's wrong because I know things have to
get done. Yeah.
I will go to it with the idea of OK, how can we solve this then?
Yeah, because it will not be solved by me doing 5 hours of.
Extra on Sunday. Yeah, that's not solution.
So let's think of a solution where it's built in, and I'm not
doing that actually, because I'm not gonna do it.
I think the next one I'm gonna come in cause the next two kind
of go together, I think. Yeah.
And it's something I really feel passionately about and because
I've seen it first hand and I know how I react to management
who do this and it's it, it forms how we manage our tutoring
business. I think.
I hope. I really hope it does, and how
we interact with people as mass leads and things like that is
the idea that working in a school where it feels like the
only thing that ever comes down from the top is negativity.
Things that have to improve, things that have to improve,
only ever things have to improve, have to improve.
And this idea that, you know, the baseline is this is not good
enough. Yeah, that's the idea ahead.
And some would say that's a healthy thing in some
businesses. Yeah, you can always improve.
Yeah. Yeah.
But as a staff team, that is. Exhausting.
It's been really taken out of proportion because I would agree
it is a healthy thing to have a mindset of I can always be
better. I do think that's healthy, but I
don't think it's healthy when that's the only mindset.
Your mindset is also I I can, I can be better.
Because I'm so terrible all the time.
That's what's really happened, isn't it?
You're not terrible all the time, and it's it manifests
itself in things like support plans.
Yeah. Observation, right?
If you are, I'm sorry. I again, maybe I'm wrong and I'd
love to hear someone come back at me.
Maybe you can come back to me at this if you give feedback to
someone about their lesson and they cry.
Yeah. Over 90% of the time that's your
fault for your feedback. Like I I I really do think that
that is you've got to look at yourself when that happens.
There are some situations, obviously, where someone's maybe
going through something else and it triggers.
Something or to be fair, some people are just really hard on
themselves and it doesn't matter what the outcome was going to be
like, you know, in terms, it doesn't matter how you
delivered. If there was something slightly
negative, you could have said 19 positive things.
One negative thing really tried hard and they will still cry.
So I think there are going to be people who, I suppose, react
different. Moving on to that, then, what
would that look like in a school that's awful to work in?
It would look like that consistently.
Whenever there's a yeah, whenever there's observations,
someone's crying. Yeah, And it's a cross.
And I tell you what it looked like is those same people, when
observation is coming up, extremely anxious, already
getting upset. If if that's a massive sign.
If someone getting upset beforehand hasn't even happened
yet, then you know that they that they know.
The only thing is going to be the culture is negative.
But moving on to the next point, micromanaging this.
This came up a lot when I was talking to.
People, it's just that idea of and again it goes removing
point, removing autonomy, being micromanaged too much makes the
workplace horrendous people. So do you think there's any, do
you think there are any positives ever to a school
having really fine rules details in place that they say you have
to do this? I mean, I I, I think the kind of
have to have that and I I think micromanaging to me is you can
have those things in place, but it's not letting people just go
and do them and explore and find the mistakes themselves and and
just learn how to do. Maybe there is a really, really
strict policy and it's super fine, all these little details,
but just let OK, give them the policy, let your staff do it.
Let them have a go and then review it in a few months, OK,
well, that's not working. I wonder why it's all either all
of my staff are terrible or maybe maybe my policy is a
little bit too bitty. Rather than just constantly
being on your car every single day, micromanaging.
Have done this, done that. I've checked this, but I've done
this. No one likes that.
The ultimate example of that is when something's introduced, OK?
And as professionals you feel not heard because something
might be brought into with really good intent, Really good
intent. We're going to start doing this
in our music curriculum, OK? When the staff team turn around
and all of them think that that's a bad idea and they say
no, I don't think so. Because XI don't think so.
Because of Yi don't think so because of ZI think in a bad
school that's completely ignored.
Yeah, in in a school that's awful to work in your
professional judgement as the literal people who deliver the
change that's being implemented. So the teaching staff who are
going to be delivering this change, you're trying to put in
place, if they are saying no, that needs to be top of the.
OK, well, why? Let's find out.
Yeah. Because then a good leadership
might come along and say, well, we wanted to introduce this
because we need to do that. And then the teacher can say,
OK, well, maybe we can do it this way.
Maybe it's that way because the way you're telling us to do this
now is not gonna work. Yeah.
And here are the reasons. To add to that point slightly
more, because you did kind of address it really.
I think it's also bad management though to do the complete
opposite, which is all your staff team say no, so you don't
do it automatically, yeah. It has to be, and you were
basically just fleshing that out right then.
There has to be a middle ground of if all of your staff are
saying no, the least you can do is listen to their concerns and
as a as a good manager try to come to a conclusion about right
is there validity in why everyone thinks is bad?
The chances are there is if everyone thinks it's bad for
sure. What often happens in schools.
I know this is every school ever I've hopefully people nodding
like, yeah, there's always going to be one staff member that
resists any change anyway because it's just different and
it doesn't mean that. Bad.
Does it? No.
Yeah, doesn't mean it's bad, but like, yeah, so I suppose in in a
in a school that's terrible to work in things to look out for
red flags, when when management basically work completely
separately to the teaching team, Yeah, there's no, they're
completely separate. Like our government.
Our government. So the education secretary, who
is completely disassociated from all of us, has nothing to do
with teaching anything about it. It's the same thing.
And we none of us respect her. Yeah, If literally 10s of
thousands, I think, if not hundreds of thousands of
teachers are saying this, the thing we do 60 hours a week
isn't is completely broken. And then the people in charge
go, no, I think you're the problem.
Yeah, one person. I worked in a school, don't
really visit them often. Maybe it can't be me, maybe the
teachers are the problem. Maybe it is the 100 thousands.
Maybe it is the four days they head off instead of the millions
of pounds they've lost. I I think it is actually.
I'm going to record a video and post it on X GET in the bin GET.
In the bin, just quick side point, did you see that video of
Rishi Sunak with the transition? So good, so good, so good.
He's clearly got a team around and got right Gen Z, they're
doing transitions non-stop, so whenever you want to make a
point, you just go up to the camera.
There you go. I'm doing it right now and
watching. Your hand to the camera.
Also, I'm going to be stopping the boats and I'm going to be
halving the inflation, which I don't have control over going
up, but when it goes down, I'll pretend I have control over it
and it'll be good for me and also.
For anyone listening, he is putting his hands on camera.
I'm going to also did I say stop the boats, Please vote for me.
What's the thing that will get the most votes?
Just say five things over and over and.
I'll fix it. You know, I just, I know we got
off 1 slightly, but I promise I won't be too long.
But I had a interesting conversation with my mum.
Don't hear it. You were like, this is
political. He loves a political thing.
And we were talking about like, we're going to the elderly
drivers. OK, all right.
Really random, random discussion.
And my mum was just basically quick to say, oh, a few years
ago there was definitely talk of introducing a test for people
over a certain age. Still drive or whatever,
essentially safely. Because there was a rise in
crashes and things. Yeah.
And. And she was like, yeah, I know
that's not coming. I was like, OK, who, who's the
primary voters for? For the Tories there?
Ohh, obviously older people. OK, well there you go then
nothing will ever get done. If it affects the largest voter
base, that's as simple as that. As well it was.
Teachers on the whole are never going to vote Tory.
Yeah, so why would they bother ever giving us anything?
Of course. Why do you think Rishi Sunak is
going back on all the green pledges after doing loads of
green stuff as the Chancellor under Boris Johnson?
Incredibly green, like government to be fair, did a lot
of green stuff. Why do you think now he suddenly
doesn't care and cares about them?
Won't somebody please think of the motorist?
Won't somebody please think of the person in the one tonne
metal vehicle? Ohh.
What they going to do? Just that they're gonna go
slower for a bit, mate. Yeah, they're gonna go a bit
slower and and the world's gonna carry on, for God's sake.
Yep, Honestly. Anyway, back in the bad school,
Yeah, basically Soon. That would be in charge, yeah.
And he would just completely change his mind every three.
Seconds, got some bad news for you, Yeah.
He's done everything of the whole thing.
So yeah, I mean, we're going off on a bit because it's easy too.
But in a bad school, this is what we see.
Management separated from staff, no autonomy for teachers,
micromanagement to the empty degree, general negative vibes
around the place and that can seep even from the staff room.
And the baseline of teachers, Yes, you are doing a bad job.
You have baseline and I suppose what I wanted to do was OK,
everything there is to do management and I think it's
really easy for us to just say OK, what makes a bad school
management. I wanna kind of push the boat
out a bit and and think what else what, what other factors
are there as to why schools become a place that we don't
want to work in. And I think the majority, sure,
it's down to management. But there's a lot of extreme
like extremity factors. Extreme factors factors on the
outside that I think really can have a big part and you can work
in a school with really strong leadership but this can still
make this make you dread going into work.
Yeah. OK.
And I think the biggest one at the minute, we missed it last
week is behaviour. Yeah.
That can really get people down. And the point, I guess links
into something else. If you're in a year group that
you simply don't want to teach because you can just be moved,
Yeah, that's very, very. Easy.
You might just have a preference.
Yeah, I have a preference. And it doubles up with behaviour
though. So you're in a year group, you
don't wanna teach and you've got a class which again, like you
said, potluck just happened to be the most disruptive class
possible. Yeah, that's gonna affect your
mood. That's gonna affect your outlook
and the school, no matter what's happening.
From and you happen to be working with a team that you
just don't gel with? Yeah, that's not because you're
horrible. Horrible.
But you know, we don't. We're not all best friends,
everyone. We don't always gel with people.
We have different personalities and people who work differently
to you. I've had this for sure, and I
know that I've been the person I think I I.
Definitely. You're the outlier.
Yeah. I've been the person who does
differently to like the other two or three, and maybe that
might be that the other two or three are just much more
organised and planned way ahead and then we share planning and I
just don't. And it doesn't get to them in
the same timely manner as it gets to me.
I end up feeling bad because of it and they end up feeling rest,
I imagine because it's not how they would.
Do it. And you made them quit, so they
quit cause you're the problem. That's the answer to the
question, yeah. What though, because I was
thinking about this, you did. You did mention this to me when
I was discussing ideas about the the, the episode, and I think,
pretend that we know what we're. Talking, yeah, I still think
they're really, really separate. I I kind of put all those things
into just like a potluck category, whereas I think the
management thing not potluck. It's I guess it's potluck, no.
But I think it can be really easily controlled.
You can't change the behaviour. It is kind of just luck, right?
Good point. You can't really change, like
it's not up to you as a staff member that you can't change the
other staff members like personalities, really.
Like whether you tell them or not, it's kind of a you problem,
but you can't change the leadership's personalities and
the way. They no.
But we can change the leadership, we can change the
staff. That's the, that's the, that's
the outlook of some. People, yeah, I don't know.
It still feels different. I can't really work it.
It just feels different to me, like it's good for a podcast.
You can't wear something. Ohh wait.
I don't know if you're not, No. I'm playing out of gear.
I think you're right. I think it can be more of a
system. It's more systemic, the other
things. And with systemic stuff, you can
uproot the systems and change them.
Yeah. Whereas, you know, no matter
what systems are in place, you're gonna get a child like a
class. That's boisterous.
You're gonna get individuals that you just don't get on with.
Like you said, that's not bad. Not bad.
Teachers. There, but it might be because
my point there, I guess it's because of your personality for
those teachers didn't get on with you.
Your personality. We might have gone, but I don't
know, it just seems different to me.
Yeah, it's the systems in place. You can change the policies.
And if you've got a poor management team resisting these
changes, it just makes a horrible place to work.
OK, so how about this one then? This is, I suppose, my last
point here about what makes bad schools before we go into our
solutions. What about then, if that's the
case? The only way that we're ever
really going to change that is if the staff make a point and
almost like they have at Saint Ivo and gone on strike and said
no, this is unacceptable. Yeah, because as long as there's
a lack of a drive to change anything, then that those things
at the top that can change won't.
So it is is one of the biggest problems.
And I don't necessarily think this I'm asking you is is one of
the biggest problems that as teaching staff we tend to be a
bit more passive, a bit more likely to sit in the staff room
and have a moment of each other and a bit more likely to go home
and, you know, let it affect our personal lives.
But realistically, from the top down, they think, well, they're
all doing it, isn't that. Great.
Yeah, definitely, definitely. I think absolutely on something
in terms of our culture that we impact, we all impact the
culture. For sure.
And if, yeah, you're right, it does happen a lot doesn't it?
Just moaning and then ohh, have you have you told the head
teacher what you think? No.
Yeah well you money then. Like I suppose if they're if
you're in a good school, brings it back around.
If you're in a good school, maybe you people do go and speak
and they feel like they can. The heads more proactive in
asking. But there is the middle ground.
You can still have schools where you do have a nice SLT team, but
they just don't action anything. I think that because we sort of
wrote that down, it is that lack of drive.
Yeah, OK, You recognise these problems?
We agree their problems are problems.
Six months later, nothing's changed.
Yeah, it's like, OK, that's probably a quality of a bad
score. It's just not maybe as bad as
the ones that are like, no, we have, we absolutely disagree
with you. And now you're on a support plan
for mentioning it because that's absolutely right.
That lack of drive. The drive would just mean that
your life is even worse. Yeah, people just make that
choice of, OK, my life like a three out of 10 now in this job.
But if I kick up a fuss, it'll be a solid one out of 10.
So I'll just keep the three out of 10.
Yeah. And then that's just the worst
place to be in. So I I I don't think it's as
simple as me sitting here like I sometimes do.
You've just got to not do it. It's like, I know, I know, it's
tricky. Yeah, I reckon there are staff
like you and I that would be in places like St Ivo and
absolutely have been so ground down.
We have no possible way of of being like that.
So now we've done all the. Negative stuff.
Yeah, only 50 minutes of it. So we spend.
I think I want to spend the next little bit just thinking, OK,
ideal school. What does it look like?
What can we do? How can we fix these problems?
I know we do this. It's all really positive.
Now let's play the Jingle and have a merry time.
Are you single? Then go on.
Didn't. Didn't let's be positive.
How can we run a school still going?
We will make it good, but not good like Ousted.
Good. Like what I think?
Yeah, yeah. Good luck.
What? I think.
I love that. That summarises you well,
doesn't it? Not anybody else's opinion, but
mine. Dylan Price, That's me.
I'll spend 5 minutes trying to convince you that I'm right.
If you agree, then that's OK. If you don't, then you're wrong.
I'm not going to find it now this last minute, but yesterday
you said something to me. We were talking and I didn't
call you out on it, but it made me laugh so much you said the
phrase. You said actually, yeah, you
said Ohh, come on, I'm gonna get it wrong.
I'll get it wrong. But it was.
I think it was something like. You're absolutely, you're
absolutely right, because I agree that was the phrase you
used and I I remember typing. Right now you agree.
So I'm right because you made a point that was slightly
different to mine. And I couldn't just say yeah,
I'd say yeah, I also had that train thought.
Yeah, and therefore it's it's more valid now.
It's more valid now. Cause Dan Price agrees.
Laughed. But let's fix this bloody
school, shall we? Let's fix them, shall we?
Move on from you. Embarrassing, right?
So I'm sufficiently embarrassed. Good Hayden, What can we do to
fix these problems in the school?
What is it? Good school look.
Like, it's all about trust. All about award loyalty,
satisfaction. Yeah.
Well, when when I was having the conversations with people about
what makes negative schools, they were then inadvertently
telling me what a good school is and the good schools I've worked
in. Sure.
And the biggest thing that came from it was this idea of trust.
And I think it's quite a wide point.
Maybe we can delve into it a bit more.
But it was always, yeah, just to trust.
Trusting me, trusting me as a teacher, trusting all your
staff, trusting that the right things are going on.
So like, should we break that down a bit more?
I suppose the opposite to that baseline which I spoke about,
where a lot of schools and I've worked in a school where the
baseline was, It's not good enough that I have thought very
felt very clearly that it was cool.
Fix that. And then I knew, OK, what's the
next thing? It was never cool.
It's working. Yeah, Never ever.
Were you feeling like you're in a state of.
I'm just delivering and doing a good job, which is fine.
You can think that for even a term.
But there are some places where you can't think that for a day
and that's perpetuated by the top.
So I guess in a really good score whilst to trust, What do
you think here? To me, trust doesn't mean we
leave you to it all year. That's it.
Yeah. And it's just then it's potluck
from the SLT point of view, whether you're doing a good job
or not. Yeah, I agree.
Trust is is exactly what I'm gonna say.
What you're saying now is just the assumption that you're doing
a good job already. That's the that's the baseline
assumption. You're doing a good job.
We trust you cause we've employed you.
If we didn't, we've done a terrible job of employment.
Haven't we really Exactly. Like, we've known that.
Linked to that is the idea of autonomy.
So what would what would autonomy look like?
Because I'm. I'm really interested in this
because I think that if I was a member of SLT, in charge of a
school, I think that would be, I would very easily fall into the
trap. Jokes aside, like what you're
saying, I will just think, well, this is the way I do it, so it's
too inconsistent. I can't be.
I can't be sure that it's happening.
So, OK, you're all gonna do this.
So where's the line for you of autonomy?
In a good. School.
I find this one really hard. I think you probably will as
well for the same sort of reason, because I don't think
it's good practise to have too much autonomy.
OK, I don't think it would be good, right?
If me and you weren't went to school.
And between us and all the other teachers we all had a completely
different way of teaching English.
Like you were like, hey, we've got, we've got a book for this
time. We're going to do that and I'm
like, no, I don't, I don't do, I don't do texts at all.
We do everything sentence level and then we do a bit of writing
at the end and someone else has done something completely
different. I think that would be terrible
because I don't think. That SLT, other than Potluck
because they could everyone could just be happened to be
really good at doing those things.
I think there's I don't think they could have a really good
hold on what their staff are doing and a good management
system. They're OK.
We can assess this. Well.
So what does autonomy look like then?
Because I suppose what we're saying is there'd be some
baseline rules in charge, like, you're going to use this text,
OK And we want you to make sure you're covering these kind of
strands with your questioning. We want to make sure that you're
covering the curriculum and you're writing.
So what will autonomy look like in terms of, let's say, a
parallel class? Yeah, or even year groups,
whatever you want it to be. You walk through a school.
How would it be different then? My opinion on how autonomous
something is is pretty much based on the point in which we
stopped getting involved as management.
So that point for me is you can, you can be quite prescriptive
all the way down, I think even to the learning objectives.
And at that point if you stop, it's it's autonomous for me
because it's like cool. As a teacher, we trust you to
deliver this curriculum in a really good way.
Here is the curriculum and you have to deliver this.
Curriculum, you got to deliver this curriculum, Here it is.
Here are all the objectives. I'll even let you decide how
long you're gonna spend on the objectives.
But here they are in order across two terms.
You've got to teach this and the autonomy for me is saying to the
teacher, giving them all that and saying go on then off you go
and not getting involved every day and micro manage and say, Oh
no, I think you should spend 15 minutes on that task, 20 minutes
on this one. That's a bad lesson.
Because of that Well, I'm thinking back to observation
feedback I've had before where there there there really are two
types of observation feedback ones where it's like, OK,
actually, yeah, that's really useful.
I, you know, I did spend too long on that.
But because you explained to me that that had a detrimental
effect then on their task, detrimental effect on their
independence, but that's that's really useful good feedback.
But when it's not useful is. I always remember a lesson you
had with metaphors and similes, and you simply got the children
to write down a definition of a metaphor and simile in their
book so they could refer back to it and understand because
they're working with both that took a.
Minute, a minute. And I really wanted them to
write it. And that's because it was
autonomy to say, OK, I'm going to use that as a learning tool
for them to come back to in my lesson that I've planned.
And that was a problem. Yeah, I got told it was a waste
of a minute. And bear in mind I'd really
meticulously thought about my lesson.
It was observation and and I specifically, I'd already run
through the options of. I could just give it to them on
a bit of paper and stick it in and I was like, no, I want them
to write it down because it literally is going to force them
for one whole minute to think about that.
Like the worst case scenario is someone manages to write that
down and not blindly and not think about it, but most kids
are going to be reading the words.
And I wanted them to do that. Not terrible.
I got bad feedback for that lesson because that should have
been on a sticker or a bit of paper and just stuck in their
book. So you could get on and do you
want. The worst thing is in these kind
of schools where that's a problem, depending on who's
seeing you, if you've done a sticker, someone would have said
it was a problem. Yes, of course.
Someone else would have been like, why don't you get to write
down it will embed it more. It's so objective.
And I think in a good school you get rid of the subjective stuff
because you just trust your professionals.
You can judge them on, oh gosh, you're a year four teacher and
you didn't. You've not taught this objective
in addition and subtraction, but they need to know this.
Yeah, that that should never be offensive to someone because you
need to cover the curriculum. If you go in and you say, well,
actually I did think that the fact you spoke about your
weekend for a couple of minutes halfway through the lesson, I
don't think that was on. I think we could have spent
that. They weren't learning.
Yeah. Get over.
IT yeah, the teachers professional.
Yeah, exactly. And I think it really nicely to
the next point about having clear systems in place.
So I guess for me, autonomy stops at the point of AS
management, you've got really good policies and systems.
Place that your staff can follow easily, so that they can be
autonomous with the delivery of those lessons.
That's such a good point, because in itself, having a
system that everyone follows isn't autonomy, but it allows
for good autonomy. It's interesting, So how would
that look in your score? So are you talking about a
scheme of work? Are you talking about a
behaviour system? Like what do?
You mean, OK, I'm right? Now the example I'm thinking of
is something like a scheme of work, right?
Because we have subject leaders. Now I'm thinking back to a time
when I first became maths subject leader and I was super
super. Super passionate about the
subject, yeah. And I just had this assumption
that everyone else was, was passionate and I look back at it
and and I learned a lot from that time because I think we
lead maths quite differently now to how I LED maths way back
then. Because back then, and I think
this was terrible, was I put in place loads and loads and loads
of really intricate things that were just amazing.
They're very time-consuming but really, really good passionate
things. Because I was so passionate
about maths and I was like everyone has to do this now I've
given you this resource, right? You've got to before you plan,
you gotta check this, this and this.
And you've got to get one of these in.
And I was like, this is great, like as if because if everyone
does that, these maths lessons will be perfect.
But really in reality no one was anywhere near as passionate as I
was at that time about maths. And it was just a huge burden
and it was a really, really complex policy that no one could
actually get their head round and follow properly.
So I think that coming back full circle a better system in place
would be, would have been much more simple.
Maybe sacrificed a few of those things that I know are really
great. But you know what?
Teachers can be autonomous and put those things in if they
want. Because if your system's really
good, there might just be a little vocab, a little Bank of
resources there they can use if they want to have that autonomy.
Yeah. But here's the core system in
place. Yeah.
No, I think that's really powerful.
I completely agree with that journey.
And I think a lot of people listening who do work in the
school or in any kind of job, I suppose, is when someone puts
their passion or their, you know, job description onto other
people. And it's like, OK, I understand
how much you're passionate and I actually know that what you're
doing is really good. But that does not mean that it's
going to be beneficial if you force everyone to do it because
what happens to history happens to science, happens to English.
Yeah, it's just too much. And I think you're absolutely
right about clear systems which feel sometimes maybe you're
taking autonomy away. Good leaders will make it very
clear that there is autonomy built in because you can do X,
you can do you can do Z. From our case in maths, it's the
pitch, it's the pace, it's what you want to alter.
There's a curriculum and progression.
You've got to use it. Yeah, but how will you think you
need to deliver it for your children?
Even in that lesson, you think, OK, we need a practical lesson
here. I'm going to go off script
because I know the end goal is given to me and I need them to
get there, but I know that my children will get there this
way. So I'm going to do it If we
walked in and we saw someone going completely off script, but
we just watched it and went, oh, I get that.
Yeah. Yeah, which is very different to
Imagine we were in a poor school, Imagine we were the bad
management. We walked in, we saw them going
off script and we told them that was terrible.
They didn't stick to the script. That's awful.
You've now made. You've started a terrible
culture, and good teaching is often painted in a bad light.
That's objectively good teaching.
If you make that choice for your children, you would be making
people scared to make good choices for their children
through being scared of. The risk of or it could be a bad
choice. You know what it might not be
though. How about then when we're
thinking about what makes a good score?
And I guess it's the kind of antithesis of everything we just
said about bad score. But I think this is so important
is we talked about positivity with the children.
Yeah. OK Yeah.
And I'm really, really passionate about this.
And I know sometimes it can become quite condescending to my
friends who laugh and joke. They they understand why they
think it's nice. But I always say this when I
play golf with my friends, they hit a good shot.
I kind of feel like going to teacher mode.
Ohh, what a shot. What?
Unbelievable. That's so good because I just go
into that. I feel like I want to praise
everything because I get the most out of my kids.
With adults it can be seen as condescending and we can be seen
as very professional, especially in these schools were not nice
to be in and you know you talked about the baseline of negative.
It's something's bad. So my job, by definition, is to
fix things as SLT in a good school.
What does that relationship look like between management and?
Teaching it looks exactly the same as the relationship between
you and your kids in a good school.
Tell them what to do and they do it.
The same year? Yeah.
Not that it's the same thing, because it's just psychology.
That point we made at the beginning of this episode about
building good rapport with your kids?
Really, It's not really about kids at all?
No you don't. You don't want 30 mate to A7.
Yeah, exactly. That's not really what why are
you building? It's psychology.
It's because people feel good when they've been told they're
doing things well. That is really quite simple.
And when people feel good, guess what?
They do things well, yeah, yeah, there's a cycle, right?
And when people feel bad about stuff, it's the classic thing.
You're a teacher, think right now how many kids can you list
on the back of your hand who are are not very good at reading
than they hate reading. It's a cycle.
I'm not very good at PE, hate PE, not very good at math, hate
maths. Of course they do.
Teachers. I'm not very good at teaching
now. I hate teaching and I've quit.
It's the same thing. So I've just think.
I don't think it's condescending really.
I live life like that as well. I really, I really try to go out
of my way to look. I'm sorry.
Yeah, you're you're literally the only person who I'm, like,
constantly brutal, brutal. Because we have a deeper
connection, we have a deeper connection.
But it's true. When my friends do stuff, I
always try to like big them up and be nice.
But I might have the odd joke, but I actually hate it.
I find it cringe when you have those friends or people that
hey. But you know what I mean?
There are those people out there who they only they only ever
make things like Take the Take the Mick out of good things like
Ohh. Well, we've done that for.
It's like. That's because it's an affront
to them. Again, I feel like I did this to
you, but it's because we're, I feel like we've gone past it,
but like, it's an affront when they've done something.
Well, yeah, you ever get that. And I know people where if I
were to say and I don't even like saying, like I've achieved
this, I don't really like that. But if I were to say that there
are some people I know who would like really picked me up, and
there are some people I know who their first thought would be,
what have I done that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's that kind of all right. I've had a kid constantly.
I'm having a kid. Yep, that's me, baby.
But yeah, no going back to that kind of thing.
Yeah, it when you got that feedback from your English
lesson about your metaphors and similes.
Yeah, right. Did you After that, I think, Oh
my gosh, I'm transformed now I'm going to teach English so much
better because you've told me I can't write it down.
Or did you think, OK, screw it, boring lessons from now then I'm
not gonna. Bother I actually thought I lost
complete faith in this city because they didn't, because I
thought I did plenty of good stuff.
I don't think I'm perfect where we're.
Lesson was perfect. I reckon they're always.
I can look back now and reflect on that lesson.
Yes. And teach it way better.
Yeah. But they didn't give me that
feedback. Yeah, they didn't give me those
constructive things. They just picked on something
really arbitrary that I thought was just pointless point to
make. And they didn't mention anything
good. So I was like, cool.
I don't like being bolshier, I guess, and quite stubborn and
arrogant. I just took that as cool.
You have no idea to talk about. I literally don't respect
anymore. I have no, I do not care what
you say to me, right or wrong, OK?
That's clearly a bad environment to work in.
So no matter. Doesn't matter if you're right
or wrong in that situation. If SLT are giving that kind of
feedback, you're going to get that kind of response.
That's not a nice situation. No.
And if I was less arrogant and stubborn, big if, yeah.
If I were less arrogant and just basically a normal human being,
normal teachers, I probably would have taken that feedback
really badly and then made sure to never do that thing again.
Which I thought was good about getting children to write things
down because I think there's value in them writing it.
Always put on stickers and then my teachings.
Worse. Yeah.
That's such a good point. There's too much autonomy,
actually squashes teachers. So I guess OK And me kind of
playing this role of well, OK. But you know it's all well and
good saying to someone. Well done, well done you.
Thank you. Did you do all that planning?
Well done. Well done, though.
What did you do that planning at weekends.
Did you know that planning though.
Yeah. Well done though.
Yeah. What about, you know, I, I know
a lot of you know people in those kind of positions from
previous life, let's say, where I'm like, OK, you present very
nice. Yeah.
But you perpetuate this toxic environment, so it'll be real.
So what? What?
OK, what can we actually do? Yes, we're gonna be positive to
our staff, but it's that W word. Hmm.
You know what word I'm talking about?
What? What can?
What does that look like in a good?
Score. Well, yeah.
OK. So just gonna go back a step
because that's awkward because. I don't know.
Workload. OK.
I was thinking what you talking about?
I was thinking, hopefully you'll think about my point as well.
So. The fakeness.
It's so easy to spot, isn't it? Insidious.
Yeah. Ohh God, it's like I I genuinely
think if like if our head teacher right now said something
nice to me, I would take that, I'd believe it 1% because I
think it's genuine. But I have definitely been in
situations before where someone could say something.
I'm like cool, this is a mask. Get to the point then what's
what's the negative thing you want to save underneath.
So true all I think it's not real.
You don't really think this about me.
You know that classic like, sandwich of of feedback?
Relative sandwich, Negative sandwich.
Yeah, because I like that it's from my uncle.
Because he was like, he's right, you don't All the sandwich,
what's on the outside, it's not bread sandwich.
So yeah, the whole positive thing.
How many times do you see this? You'll get an e-mail, right?
I have seen such fantastic things from you.
But one one amazing week. We've had amazing teaching from
the top down. However, here's 17 things you've
done. Wrong.
And it's like, OK, completely contradicts what I've just said.
And at that point, the whole sandwich doesn't work anymore
because it's got to be genuine. When you do that, yeah.
And I think the sandwich, the positive bit on the outside
can't be contradicted by the little bit.
Yeah, if I was giving. Feedback about maths, right?
I said wow, your maths teaching was fantastic, And then I
immediately told them something was terrible about that matches.
It's like the first bits now, a lie.
What you should do is pick out something that was genuinely
good and unaffected by the negative thing.
I thought you had lovely hair. Those heels and that skirt look,
that's. Fantastic.
I'll tell you what so good that the the policy now in school was
going to be that everyone has to wear these heels and these
skirts. God, you know what?
The makes me cringe even you saying that.
But that's that's. What happened at this school, we
don't know. We're assuming that was a Hills.
Yeah, but something like that with the with the uniform.
But what it has to be if you're doing the negative sandwich.
I like it. Sounds nice.
Is if you you know. It's wrong, Dylan said.
It it's wrong, he agrees. It's wrong.
I've said it. What's a ham sandwich?
Is it ham, Bread. Ham.
Don't think so. Blooming should be.
Yeah, more how this is great. Anyway, just to summarise, it
should be that you pick something out that's genuinely
positive that you actually think you're not.
Just it's not just a game. I really like the way you book,
report and you're startups were fantastic in the main lesson.
I just wonder what happened here this bit and you have a
negative, but at the end of the lesson you really pulled them
back and this was crap. This bit in the middle.
Shocking. Shocking if you ask me, but I've
not finished my sandwich, so here's something nice.
Some more families, Yeah. But yeah, no.
OK, so. Absolutely right.
But the workload very quickly. Last two things.
Yeah. Second to last workload.
How is that managed in a good school?
What? What?
What can we do? Because the job is hard,
actively. We've got lots to do, right?
We've got lots to do in our role.
We can't suddenly just say, OK, just don't plan English.
Well, no, I need some English lessons.
So what? So what does it look like
effectively in a school? Knowing that we have a high
workload, how can it be managed? Effectively, first of all, it's
acknowledged. Hmm.
And I don't mean the classic and well done.
No, not even that. God, I hate this one.
Bringing me out. And people, nice people do it.
And I know they don't mean anything by it.
We've said it before, which is go on, It's 5:00.
Go home. Go home, your Rascal.
Go on, go on. Ohh, you are the person in
charge of why I'm. Here.
Yeah. Can I not mark it?
No. Go home now.
Go on, When can I mark? It does.
Stop it. You get it done.
Get it, don't get, don't get. Well, you're still here.
We've got marked by tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, that's the fake.
That's the fakeness again, isn't it?
It's that it's that playing the game of positive sandwich,
playing the game of. I'm supposed to tell them to not
work too much, but I'm not going to reduce it so good.
Schools are active in the reduction of workload, so they
will monitor it. There has to be something in
place. Yeah, OK, employ someone to do
it. Or as the head teacher, that's
that's part of your workload. Now monitor it.
Do something about it. When it gets too much.
Don't just do the thing that a lot of schools do is they go, Oh
yeah, it's bad isn't it? Yeah, Ohh, it's bad.
Let's have a meeting about it next time.
And then the term after we'll think about implementing it and
hopefully by the time after that you forgotten about it.
We've implemented 7 other things since then.
You know what we'll do is we'll implement 7 other things, then
we'll get rid of one of those things.
A good thing is time costing, isn't it?
Yeah, that's a good way to do it.
It's like OK, if you're going to, you have to have a baseline
of it takes you X amount of time to plan lessons, right.
If you're going to introduce something that literally adds an
hour a week, yeah, time costing would be you'd have someone look
at it and say OK, we need to save an hour somewhere else.
If we can't save an hour somewhere else, we're not
introducing and you have to be bullshit to do that because
quite often things are introduced with the creeping
shadow of Ofsted. So you saying OK, no we're not
going to do it because of workload is you essentially as
an SLT saying no we're not going to make our curriculum better.
So where's the line for you? Because you have to say, no,
we're not going to make things better because of workload.
Yeah, where's the line? I don't know.
You gotta be smart with it I guess, haven't you?
This is where it just takes really good managers to be able
to time cost and also cost it based on how much impact it will
have. And also just everything else
that already exists in your school.
Just every now and then reevaluate them maybe and be
like how much impact, how much this is costing us like 2 hours
a week on average for staff. How much impact does this really
having? Because this other thing I want
to bring in is going to have way more impact.
OK, let's swap them. I think it just is just down to
good management. There's no there's no easy
answer. I don't think it's easy
sometimes with our podcast when we sit chatting to be like
aren't we putting the world to rights really easily.
But I I think this is a really big problem that a lot of really
good leaders are really good heads have where they actively
know because you're saying don't just know it.
Well, there is a problem where heads know there's a problem but
there is not an easy solution because the easy solution and I
said is the only solution is to do less.
That's what I always say and it's easy for me to say that
because me doing this means what there's less planning.
We don't have an English lesson on Friday.
We don't have a maths. Everything we're doing already
feels exactly. I'm already doing what I need to
do. That's why I'm doing it, Yeah.
So I suppose, yeah, I don't. Know someone online?
I'll just finish with this. Again, talking about the whole
question about all this stuff, talking about workload.
And he was saying that he worked in a really bad school in the
past, really, really bad. And he's like, you know, mental
health was terrible. And then he restarted, refusing
to do all these extra things. And I'm not doing it anymore.
He's fed up with it. I'm not, I'm not doing a club
anymore. No stuff your club.
You know, it's one of those schools where it is voluntary
and a great side effect, a win, win situation really for good
schools is that he was saying that when he worked in a
positive school, he was actually really happy to give up his
time. Into a club because he felt
trusted and respected and he wanted to give something back to
the school because he really felt valued there.
And isn't that funny? Like how much of emotional
reactions we have to stuff. It's like in the other school,
ironically they got less out of him, even though they were
trying to work him harder. He didn't do the club and now
he's doing the club. Why are you a teacher?
The money. I'm joking should be the worst
answer possible. I'm a teacher, but two reasons.
I absolutely love teaching. As in I love seeing people learn
things. I just like helping people, so
do the podcast. You learn so much.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And the second thing is, I really like the autonomy.
I like having a day where every day is a bit different.
I don't really know what's gonna happen other than the lesson
deliver stuff. But the.
Children's very different because I hated.
A job that I had before where I was just I I knew my whole week
already. I haven't been doing this, but
beans on the. Showing put beans on shelf, I'm
gonna, you know, scan customs things.
I just didn't like that. And other people loved it, but
it wasn't for me. So they're the two things.
And I'm a teacher because I did a week when I graduated.
When I didn't know what I wanted to do, I did a week in London,
in a recruitment firm, in an office.
I did a week. I probably told you, probably
forgot I did a week. Well, I said I did a week.
I was lined up to do a week. Did a week, four times, mate.
I've got a week. I've had a baby, right.
I got to Tuesday lunchtime. Yeah.
And I walked into the guy who owned it, nice guy.
And I was just like, Nah, it's not for me.
Because all we had to do all day was pick up the phone, cold call
people with jobs, right. You were trying to sell jobs.
You were head hunter. You're trying to sell jobs in
it. I knew nothing about it.
So I'm trying to go, yeah, it's a it's a C job, Yeah.
Just rest of the day, OK? I don't know what I'm talking
about. Yeah, that's.
No, that's a coding language. JavaScript and Orange Peel,
whatever. So I'm trying to sell it jobs,
cold calling people. Yeah, because I get a Commission
every time we play someone a job.
And the base Saturday was rubbish and you just basically
all day. Phone, phone, phone, proper,
like city, like job with eight other people around you on the
phone I said not conduit. And teaching was always this job
where I thought, OK, not only can I have an impact, I feel
like I have an impact because it's in my control to make, you
know, I can teach children to read.
How good is that? You can help someone learn to
read, but that's unreal when you think about it.
I can help someone to enjoy maths but that's so powerful to
me to be able to be in a position where I'm like, OK,
you're gonna start with me and you don't like maths and after a
year you're going to love doing maths and you are going to be
better doing maths and you're gonna have an outlook in the
future where you think you can do maths.
Friend again? Friends back, maybe.
Friends back, but that. But that is why, and I fear, and
I've said this before when we talked about why we're striking,
you're absolutely right. Because everything that's being
eroded in a profession is everything that makes it good.
It's the autonomy, it's the trust.
You're professional. You're going to get on with your
job and do the things that are important to you.
You're being ground down. You're not going to go the extra
mile. I will be really honest right
now. I don't go anywhere near as far
in this job as I did when I was 123 years experience, nowhere
near as far. And I put that down to two
things. One was the environment that I
worked in for a few years. And two is that it's the chronic
underfunding from the government.
And I don't just mean my pay, I mean the underfunding of the
entire thing. I mean if you worked in a
private company and they squeezed funding as much as it's
been squeezed in education, you would feel it around.
You want to get that across to people As to why we're striking.
If you're if you are suddenly squeezed so much where there
were layoffs and you didn't have the right thing to do and now
you're doing 3 jobs instead of 1 because they got rid of some
people and actually the roofs leaking but they can't fix it
cause they've got you would notice that it would affect your
life and that's what's happening in teaching.
And not only is it then just I'm not being horrible to people who
work in office jobs but that's affecting your office job where
the world will go on Virgin Media can't ring someone in a
day. This is affecting, like the
livelihoods of children, the next generation, the next
generation leaders. Point.
So it's really it's heartening and I'm, I'm just worried that
all of this mixed in with the, I think the control we have from
what we've talked about management and external factors
in the school with what's happened with the government
over the last 13 years, I just, I'm really worried.
Yeah, I agree. Bye.
That's my contribution. No, no, no, I do.
I I was, yeah, very interested in what you saying.
But I do. I fully agree.
And I think it would be really nice to hear from you guys
because almost definitely. Like, we finished our last
episode and we thought we didn't mention this one thing.
That's probably a few things we've not really mentioned that
you might have been thinking and screaming at the screen or
whatever through this episode. Please write to us.
We'd love to hear what What is it that's made your experiences
good or bad, in schools? And if you don't work in a
school, are we being a bit dramatic?
Is this just the same everywhere?
Yeah. We see.
I've been listening to Adam Kay's book.
This is going to hurt an ex Doctor Who's like a TV comedian
writer. Sorry, I can't meditate and hate
it when I met with the microphone who's been who wrote
a memoir a few years ago. And it is horrendous being a
doctor. Like the workload and say is, is
it's five times worse than being a teacher.
So all this, you know, these 37 episodes we've had times that by
five. And the doctor.
Oh, no, sorry, the Doctor can't do a podcast.
He's working 24 hour shifts. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
So like, you know. Something into perspective
sometimes. Good.
Yeah, for sure, but. How can I get to us?
How can they write to us? Dylan?
Find us on Instagram. Always the best place.
Teach. Seek repeat podcast, guys.
I asked for guys, I asked for some Q&A's recently and we've
got them all. We didn't have time today, but
I'm banking them and we'll be using them.
So every time I ask for a Q&A and I don't ask it, don't think
there's no point. There is because they're going
in a bank. OK, so keep asking us questions
and send us some lovely stories. When we eventually get time to
stop moaning, we will go through them.
And also enjoy the memes. Dylan's being creative, making
me talk about them. Next week.
Go on, go to our Instagram and like my memes, please.
I enjoy them. Good.
Well, I hope you enjoy the episode.
Thanks for joining us. See you next time.