Hi, Ofsted, just a quick one from me.
Teacher here. Just wondering, saw the
announcements this week of how you're making reforms to how you
judge schools and we are just wondering what on earth are you
thinking? Raising standards, that's what
we do. We are fixing education.
Right. OK.
So let's just rewind for a second.
If you think that's what's happening, you did, I think a
while ago you called it a listen or was it?
No, it wasn't just a listen. It was a big listen.
We listened big to you guys. You did, but did you hear
anything we said? Because I'm pretty sure when
teachers were typing away saying, oh, instead of
listening, isn't that nice, this isn't that lovely, and we type
it away. I'm not sure this is what we
asked for. What do you take us for?
Of course we listened. We listened to big.
Did you not hear that? OK, We listened big to
everything you said and you told us get rid of those one word
judgments. It's too much pressure and
overall judgement for our school.
That's nasty. So do you know what we did?
We scrapped them, didn't we? Yep, that was good and we were
very, very grateful. I think back at the time we were
all over like, wow, we're still on the same page as we're
getting rid of those one word judgments.
Thank you. Also, you got rid of those
outstanding labels and requires improvement.
And we thought you, you know what?
This is a step in the right direction.
But then we saw what you replaced it with.
Well, we replace it with a much better system.
We got rid of those one word judgments that were horrible and
putting all this pressure and crushing schools, and we
replaced it with nine different standards in which we attach a
colour. Okay, and the colours have a one
word attachment. OK, it's cool.
So just to clarify what's happened here, you've got rid of
one overall judgement, which is scary and horrible, replaced it
with a much more granular system where we can still get judged on
individual things massively over the top.
And instead of just having a word, you've got rid of the word
change it for a colour. So we've got a nice lovely Nando
system. And then when we had the colour
you thought, you know what these colours need one word, attach
them. That is exactly what we did
because we listened to you and that is what you wanted.
You're never, ever going to change, are you?
We changed for the. Hello everyone, and welcome back
to another episode of Teach Sleep Repeat.
My name is Dylan. And my name is Hayden.
We are here to listen to you and you are listening to us, Hayden.
You snap out of the skit now you're not.
You're not an absurd Ofsted spokesperson trying to justify
the most insane changes we've ever seen.
I'm so sorry, I really got into character.
That's fine, don't worry about it.
We're going to talk about it more a bit later on.
OK, So if you click on this episode, we will dive into it
and I'm sure you're waiting to hear exactly what we have to say
about the new what's in dubbed Nando's card system before
judging your absence is Lemon and Herb.
Anyway, let's have a quick catch up.
I wanted to talk first, hey there about something rather
exciting because I'm not sure what's happened in 2025 at the
podcast. I don't know, behind the scenes
someone is just sharing us to an unreal platform or just being
pushed out there or maybe just simply we are growing.
But the podcast has reached #12 in the UK education charts and
to me, when I see the people around us huge podcasts, I find
it insane. But.
Considering we weren't even in the charts, you know, even just
like a couple of months ago. We've flirted with the charts
before, we've been in and around, we've been in the top
150, baby, let's go. But in the last few weeks it's
gone insane. So I just wanted to say a huge
thank you to everyone who's been listening.
Not only 12 in the Apple education charts for the UK,
we're in like the top 30 for Spotify as well.
That's incredible. It's just mad.
That's a harder 1 to get into, isn't it I?
Think so I think their algorithms are a bit like
different how they judge I don't know but at the end of the day
these these big huge platforms for podcasts are ranking guys at
29 and at 12 and it's just my. I just think it's mad because I
don't know how people that listen could actually help us do
that because they clearly are doing something and I wonder
what that thing is that they're. Doing maybe it's because they're
rating us and sharing us and doing all those good things.
So that's what I wanted to say first.
Just a very quick thank you. I'm not trying to blow around
Trumpet too much, but you know, we have done nearly 100 episodes
now and this, you know, it takes up a chunk of our week.
We love doing it, but seeing almost like the rewards being
reaped in that way, it's really nice.
And I do have one shout out. I've not done a shout out in a
while, but I got a message and basically I wanted to just
mention three of our favourite listeners, three of our biggest
fans, and those people are Theodore, Ivy and Alice.
Now, if you're listening to this in the car, it's because you
have chosen to listen to teach sleep.
Repeating. Because your mum says every time
it comes on in the car and you put something else on the
Spotify, you 3 or complain and moan and say go I want to put
teach, sleep repeat on. Hang on, how old are these?
These are children in their mum's car who want to listen to
teach Sleep, repeat and they always ask to listen to the
Undearth story or rewind back and have all the funny bits.
So you three, I want to say you are three legends.
Your mum, she's 4th on the list but she's a legend as well.
But you 3 a huge thank you and I think I think it's use for you
has caused us to be this high in the charts and I.
Can't believe it. Top listeners, we'll stick
around because we've got a really funny story for you in a
moment. Really funny story.
I thought you were going to take the Mick.
Then when you started that, I was like, here we go, it's going
to be Rishi Sunak. Again, top listeners.
And it was serious. I love that for about 6 months,
I think we had four listeners and one of them was Rishi Sunak.
It was. It was.
Yeah. Well, that's pretty cool.
Yeah, that's really. Really nice.
So anyway, quick, quick shout out for those guys.
Appreciate you so much and everyone else has been
listening, whether you've been listening for a long time and
you know on what on earth Hayden was talking about when he
mentioned Rishi Sunak. If you you been around for a
while, but if you don't, well, why don't you go back and have a
listen anyway? Right, Dylan, I'm jumping in
here because I want to talk about my week, okay?
And I want to a very specific thing happened in my week I've
been looking forward to sharing on.
Couldn't think what that is. And I'm sure you couldn't
because it definitely doesn't have to do with you ruining my
day going. SO I was teaching PE this week
and I had, you know, I went outside, we're doing some
tennis. It was fantastic using the whole
playground, brilliant kids learning, all because of my
fantastic PE guidance, because I'm such a PE specialist.
You see, I'm a specialist in every subject because I'm a
primary school teacher And. And I just happened to be
standing near Dylan's classroom. Yeah, we can see out into the
playground. And I thought, well, I don't get
too. I told, I told my kids.
I said, oh, guys, come back a little bit.
I said, I don't wanna go too close to those classrooms.
Don't disturb their learning because, you know, they'll get
annoyed at me for constantly hitting tennis balls at that
window or whatever. Next thing I know, door opens,
extremely dramatic. Whole class at the windows like
this, like, as if they're like, oh, no, we're trying to escape.
OK, Child bombs it at me and shows me a picture.
It's me fall in half. I'm thinking, what on earth is
he doing? So can you sign this?
Can you sign this? I need your signature.
We need your autograph. The whole class needs your
autograph. Open it up, Dylan.
Take over. What was inside?
It was a picture of our good friend the priest Keith Hebden.
We we who looks astonishingly like you.
And we we had printed this picture.
We were doing RE lesson all about we're doing Christianity
at the minute and we were talking about how in the lead up
to Holy Week and Easter's coming up, we've talked about Keith
Hebden, who is a priest who went on a hunger strike and runs food
banks and his big push was how to help people who need it the
most. I know I did it.
I'm telling me for. Well, the point is, I'd printed
off some like clues about him to dot around the classroom when we
were like gathering information, so one of them was just a
picture of him. But he very clearly looks like a
priest. He has got the dog collar on and
he does bear a striking resemblance to you, like he's
bold, You've got a similar face and you've got the dog collar on
and, and I and I don't. Normally wear that.
Just to clarify, I don't normally wear the collar at
school. You don't.
You don't believe it's funny because you're not religious at
all. This is why it's funny.
Anyway, I printed off some clues like some some quotes from him,
whatever. And we spread them round and the
kids came in from lunch and this child said to me, are we
learning about Mr Stevens this afternoon?
Because he saw the picture And I was like, Oh my God.
And it wasn't even just like, oh, he's bored.
Isn't that funny? It was like he literally thought
it looked like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's so funny to me. So anyway, we're doing our
lesson on Keith, Keith Hebden. And his story is quite amazing.
Really. Like, genuinely, the kids were
like, that's really cool, isn't it?
Yeah, no problem. But this one kid couldn't let go
of the fact that this person really looks like.
And the picture of him was stuck on my wall.
Yeah. And he put his hand up.
I was obviously in the flow of teaching, and I was just not
thinking. I was like, yeah.
And he went, can I take the picture out to Mr Stevens,
please? And I said and and to be fair, I
looked and you were like mid modelling amazingly.
Can I say how to serve a tennis ball?
I mean, I didn't think you'd be able to do it, but you look like
a mini Roger Federer out there. Yeah, this is amazing.
And I was like, no, we can't. Look, we're in the middle of our
lesson. And I was just saying all this
stuff. Really.
I was like, you're just busy. I was like, OK, not right now.
He was like, oh, OK, So we then carried on and just for context,
we've done maths and English in the morning.
We're doing an RE lesson and we're trying to fit in two
lessons in the afternoon. It's an intense day for the
kids. And obviously after you've done
a bit of input, the kids were just practising, doing their
drills and you're just kind of walking around.
And I was like, do you know what?
Do you know what? I'm going to make this happen.
This is the moment. So I took I took the picture off
the wall, I folded it. And I said, guys, listen, you're
working really hard, OK? You're working really, really
hard. So after this, you're going to
come in, we're going to do it. We're going to finish up our
tasks, then we're going to do some DT, OK?
We're going to get ready for tomorrow.
And they're like, yeah, OK, why is it with me?
So I got the kid over and I said, here you go.
Give this. Go out to Mr Stevens now, take
this pen and ask him to sign the picture of him.
So he, this kid has never been more excited.
My whole Class A sudden like what, what, what?
And that's what they're doing. Like they stood up and like,
it's okay, I can sacrifice 3 minutes of this afternoon to
give them something to hold on to, a bit of fun.
So he bombed it out. He got to the door and I was
like wait, wait, wait, wait. And I checked you were OK and I
was like, yeah, OK, go on then. And he?
Did you should have seen his face?
Honestly, if you ever want to get your children to run more
quickly, do something like this. He was running like that, Yeah,
straight up to you. And then he put it back in and
you had signed it. But you didn't decide it, did
you? I can't remember what I put.
What am I right? You put Saint Stephen's the
third. Oh yes, I was like, I'm going to
do. So now it's on a whiteboard.
It lives there now. And honestly, the kids were so
engaged afterwards, they did their work.
We cracked. And I think the whole story here
is just, you know, what? If you have those moments with
your kids, it's OK. You know, don't feel guilty.
Don't feel what if this, what if that?
You know what? It was 3 minutes.
There'll be sometimes where it's absolutely not the right thing
to do. You want to control your class
wherever you're fine. But do you know, there are some
moments where as a professional, you can just choose to do
something like that? And it was funny.
Especially when it's at my expense.
Exactly. You know what I mean?
It's much funnier. I almost take the disruption to
my lesson. If it's at your expense, you
know what? That's that's a sacrifice.
I'm willing. So my year sixes obviously were
a bit like what Earth has just gone on there.
They were trying to play tennis, looking at me thinking what's
going on? They said what was that about?
I said, oh, just kids trying to get my autograph.
They were like what? I said what were you signing?
I was like, oh, just a picture of a priest.
They were like what? I was like, don't worry about
it, don't worry about it. Just practise yourself.
There's. Too much to explain, They just
wouldn't get it to explain it. Obviously it was so funny, but
you know what? It was funny and it made my day
as well because it was hilarious.
And the idea that those kids just had a few moments of fun
and then back to latitude or whatever.
No, back to the actual lesson of of the guy.
Nice lesson. Yeah, but yeah.
And he actually looked like you. That was so funny.
That's what was so funny about it is you dressed as a priest
like the most, the biggest oxymoron I can think of you
being a whole. Can you imagine?
Imagine me as a priest. Oh dear.
Anyway, yeah, we had a message from someone this week.
I wanted to reflect on it and I wanted, I wanted to kind of open
this not kind of worms, let's say, but almost challenge
ourselves a bit because the the message did challenge us a bit
as well. And it was from someone saying
they loved the podcast, they they'd seen how we're climbing
the charts now. It's great.
I love that you're reaching more people right now, a really
positive message. And part of that positive
message is, and part of the thing we love with you guys
listening is when you challenge what we say a bit.
And and the main bulk of his message was, oh, and by the way,
he said you'll have to pass this on to Hayden because he knows
Hayden does absolutely nothing for the podcast.
He said yeah, yeah, he said that bit.
Yeah, yeah. He's very specific.
So I'm trying to make sure that, you know, it's because you do
nothing. I'm bring it up now.
So. So in general, he basically
asked, you know, he said you guys seem so passionate about
leading maths, which we are really passionate about teaching
in general, which we are. We absolutely love helping the
kids out. It's like Our Calling, almost.
But when we talk about SLT in general, this person's part of
SLT, and he just feels a bit like he he doesn't like how we
use the term. And I thought, you know, we've
talked about this. Yeah.
He's probably right, He's probably right because we have
because you know what, at the end of the day, this podcast,
right? A lot of what we do in this
podcast is we call out the rubbish.
We call out the toxicity in this sector.
And unfortunately, unfortunately for SLTA lot of that toxicity
starts at the top. So we quite often talk about
this notion of toxic. SLTI have tried to in the past,
but I mean, you'd have to go back some episodes when we
really focused on this, try to say a few disclaimers along the
way of like, by the way, we don't think this about
everybody, but we are just here to call out the ones that are
doing a bad job. Do you know what I mean?
Is that what he was getting out of the face?
It was a bit. Because the message, the message
essentially was saying how completely understands how there
are totic totic SLT out there. But but from his point of view
as SLT who feels like he's trying to do the right thing.
And I'll so many of leaders out there do that.
And it is such a tough job. It did just make me stop and
think for a second like, do you know what?
I'm not, I'm not going to stop calling out the stuff I don't
think we ever should. I think it's a big reason why
lots of people are listening to us because it validates what a
lot of people think and feel like.
They can't say, but I do think there is room for, for sure for
us to talk about really good leaders.
Yeah, definitely. And one example of that is the
fact we got a comment this week on our Instagrams simply saying,
do your SLT know about your social media presence and what
you're doing? And I replied saying, do you
know what? Yeah.
And they, we talk about it sometimes and they very much
know what's going on. They respect that we have the
the the opinions that we do and we want to talk about in the way
we do because we're not disrespectful to them at all.
I think they understand that although we might not always
match up completely on what we think, we're a professional and
we're allowed to have an opinion.
And, and it kind of, it struck me because the reply was, wow,
that's great. I don't think many would agree.
And I just thought, I don't think anything we say really
crosses a line other than I don't want you to say that.
You know, I can't imagine SLT saying, oh, that's horrendous.
That's being really rude and personally horrible to me.
I'm but no I'm just my opinion is that we shouldn't have to do
6 hours of work at the weekend. Yeah.
And even should you? Yeah.
That's the thing we always say isn't it is like we don't ever
say, but SLT should. Yeah.
Head teachers should be doing all this extra work.
They should bear the burden. You know, that's not actually
what we're saying, I think. I think when you go up ladders
in general, in jobs you do generally, you are generally
paid more because there is more of a burden to to bear.
I understand that idea. So do you know what it might
transpire that actually SLT and heads maybe do do a bit more of
that outside of school and they feel like, oh, I should do it
though, because I'm being paid 70 grand a year.
Do you know what I mean? Like a bit, but it's but I would
never sit here and say teachers, we don't have to do any of this
stuff. But SLT, you might use your
fault. So you should be going home and
doing all my marking. I'm not saying that.
I mean, we're never saying. I hope that doesn't come across.
And I think a big thing is like attitude of SLT is what we talk
about a lot. And I just think that if, if
your base attitude is, you shouldn't be saying that.
I was like, OK, can we look at what I'm saying rather than
whether I should be saying it or not?
Yeah, Yeah. Can we can we look at the actual
substance of the conversation we're trying to have?
And I think I'm just going to say now because of what this
person has said, I do think there are so many amazing
leaders out there. Yeah.
And to be honest with you, when we post on social media and I
see you don't obviously because you don't have anything to do.
I don't have anything. So what I see a lot of are, you
know, heads commenting, yeah, a lot of heads saying, John, I
wish I could do this for my staff.
The budget restraints are horrible.
Or I do this for my staff. I push.
I push this as much as I can. I see a lot of positive
leadership out there. And I I just want those amazing
leaders to know that when we talk about SLTI, hope you you
don't take it personally. And I hope that your overriding
thought is, wow, I'm never going to be like that.
Yeah, rather than all these guys are calling me now because I'm
absolutely not. Yeah, yeah.
And at the end of the day is a scale.
You're not a toxic SLT or an amazing SLT like there is.
You know what the realistic side is.
There probably is a huge middle ground where where people are
trying their hardest to do the right thing.
But because of the constraints of this system, which we
constantly say is broken by the way.
And we know that you're kind of forced to maybe do things that
you don't even really want to do.
But it's like, unless I do, the kids don't even get taught this
week. So I do get it that there's a
there's a space in that middle there of like people trying so
hard to do the right thing. But occasionally being that, you
know, that they're forced to do perhaps an approach that isn't
even really what they want to do in an ideal situation.
So that is different. We're not, we're not calling you
out. We're calling out the people who
are literally wake up in the morning and like, like, I'm
going to be toxic and I'm going to continue to promote a toxic
culture in my school. Because I'm in charge and what I
say goes and I'm going to make sure it changed because I saw
this thing and I'm going to have no absolute thought for what
it's going to do to affect you. It's better for my school, I
think. So I've decided we're all doing.
It Yeah. Do you know what the big one of
the biggest indicators for me is is when people, when people
genuinely, and I think many do is when they genuinely,
wholeheartedly believe the only thing, the only thing that
matters in the school is the progress of the kids.
Yeah, when someone has that as the only thing, it's like, OK,
this is probably not going to be a good place to work.
I think it should be a big thing.
That is literally, it's kind of our jobs.
I get it, all right. But when it's your only thing
you think about as an as an SLT member, you're going to end up
being toxic. I'm just going to say that.
So the fact that this person's even commenting and thinking
about it, the fact that you're even reflecting tells me
immediately you're not those, You're not that person.
Those people aren't listening to
this. They don't care.
They don't. They literally do not care.
And it's that it's that almost toxic use of phrases like, you
know, getting better never stops, or we can always do more
or there's no standing still. And it on the surface again, if
it seems amazing, but this job really is a bottomless pit.
So when you are only driven by data and data points and moving
children doing this, you become like the Academy trust leaders
who decide to exclude children because they're worse for data.
Like when you are only thinking about data and we say, oh, it's
our job to think about data. Do you know what in that expect
it's absolutely not our job. Our job is to look after those
children who you've decided to exclude because your data will
look worse. You have failed those children.
So it does become it gets to the point where just focusing on
data is actually detrimental as well, rather than making the
school look good on ADFE chart that you could go to and point
to fantastic. But you know what what about
this? What about the welfare?
What about your staff? And I just think it's just such
a big, big picture that it's just, it's too simplistic to
just be like, well, my data is good, so everything I do is
justify. It it's kind of like a last
episode, isn't it, where we're talking about different metrics
to measure, Like what What makes good, what makes education good?
Is education good for children these days?
We talked about it and we're like, yeah, it is if you just
focus on the metrics you want to focus on.
Do you know what I mean? It's exactly the same idea,
isn't it? Well, my school's great because
my data is great. It's OK.
Your your teachers hate being there, though.
And the children aren't even that happy.
They're getting good data, but they're not happy.
Do you know what I mean? Like, you don't measure those,
Don't measure those. So it doesn't matter.
And we're not saying for anyone who likes to see us mention one
thing and then make it think that we ignore everything else.
We're not saying data is pointless.
We're not saying that. We're saying it's a bigger
picture. This happened this week.
OK, We, we, I did a reel from last episode about this amazing
PPA initiative for teachers. And if you listen to last week,
you might remember it, but it was basically that this school
had to given staff a day a week of PPA instead of half a day.
And that was, it could happen because they do Forest School
that day, they do PE and they do art with a specialist teacher.
And the point was that the school had invested in this.
We can talk about the budget separately.
I mean, I'd love to see that budget.
I'd love to see what's going on. But the point being that it was
an amazing initiative for teachers because teachers PPA
doesn't cover the extra work they have to do.
And just so we're all clear, we know that teachers are expected
to do work outside of the classroom.
It's literally part of our contract.
We have directed time and we also have that clause which says
also there is a reasonable amount and the whole debate
comes into what's reasonable, there's a reason about our work
we have to do outside of directed time to meet the
standards, etcetera. And that's what's abused by
people a lot of the time. So we already know PPA for half
day isn't enough. So this half day it was just
like a feel good post about this head who's thinking about the
well-being of his staff. 70% of the comments on that reel.
Were from teaching assistants, support staff people do an
amazing job in school, but almost being immediately angry
and and they were saying things like, oh, well, that's great for
the teachers, but what about the Tasmania?
OK, that's fantastic. But I've I'm ATA and I've got to
do this and I don't get any prep time.
Oh, it'll just be the Tasmania covering what about their
well-being? And I just thought to myself,
that is not what I'm talking about.
Like this is a reel about APPA situation for teachers.
That's really good for teachers. We have no idea if TAS are at a
detriment because of this policy.
I didn't mention them. I can't talk about everything in
one reel. I didn't talk about admin staff.
I didn't talk about SLTI, didn't talk about office staff.
I didn't talk about the caretaker.
There are so many amazing people in school who do really
important jobs, but I can't mention all of them in every
single reel I do. And I'm a teacher, so I'm
talking about my experience and what I would like.
Like, I can't mention it. Like if it's like someone
commenting honestly and saying, oh, don't you care about animal
cruelty? Yeah, of course I do.
Yeah, all the teachers getting their PPA.
Do you know how many animals suffered whilst they're doing
that? Do you know how many?
Do you know how many worms were? Stepped on in forest school yeah
OK that's also bad Like I get it don't extrapolate because what I
think what more than anything was the almost suggestion that
we don't care about TA's support stuff are amazing and.
But you know what, I thought, let's let's take a moment
because my thought on that is I can see what is a bit like, oh,
it's annoying because I missed the point.
Yeah. But you know what, There is a
point though, and let's just give them some love for a
minute. Yeah, We don't talk about
Tasmania loads on this podcast. We occasionally big them up and
say, yeah, you're doing a crazy job.
But we talk about teachers because we're teachers, all
right? We talk about teachers because
we're teachers. We're talking about our
experience. But Tasmania, do you know what
they are incredible. We often say that, you know
that, but but the situation that Tasmania are in.
So if you're listening, you're a teaching assistant.
We, we feel you. We understand the situation
we're in because the pay has been stagnated for Tasmania just
as much, if anything worse than it has for teachers.
I know that at the moment the unions are fighting for £3000 to
be added, which isn't even like a crazy amount really.
The fact that there's even going to be pushback on that is
insulting to you because you are the backbone of our schools.
We can't do, we can't function in a school without the support
of Tasmania. It's impossible.
I work with IS already as teachers, it's already
unmanageable. So anything the TAS are doing to
support in the classroom, to support outside the classroom
besides the classroom, whatever it is your role is, we need you
in the schools and we know that you end up covering as well in a
lot of schools. This is like something I'm going
to call out as just, it's just crazy part of our system.
A lot of Tas end up basically being teachers because they're
cover supervisors. Classic HLTA cover supervisors.
Okay, what do I do? Well, on the odd day you might
have to be pulled out of class to cover a lesson.
You know what happens five days a week?
You're covering 3 lessons a day and you end up doing as much as
a teacher and then you don't get any PPA yourselves.
So I get it. Like these are all issues that I
think are dreadful and I'm sure you agree with this and we
should do something about it. So just giving you a little bit
of love at the moment and saying that we hear you and we do with
a big listen and go back into office mode.
The big listen here, we're listening.
But in all seriousness, we know it.
We know it's dire, just as dire for TA as it is for teachers.
Yeah. This, this two kind of prongs to
this for me because I also think we need to absolutely go out of
a way to help well-being for teachers.
Sorry for teaching assistants and support staff in general,
whether it's the family liaison office or whoever it is, support
staff in general. But there are two prongs to
doing that for me. And I think maybe because we
work in a school where I think it does take it quite seriously
at TAS contract in general, I think that that is really seen
as OK. Look, the first way we can
really help with teaching assistant well-being is that we
absolutely do not expect you to do anything outside of your
hours. Yeah.
So if it, if it comes to prep for a group that I've got to do
I, I absolutely would never, ever, ever expect a teaching
assistant to have to go home and prep that.
No, I would build in some time within their contract, even if
it means I'm coming out of the classroom path now because I've
decided if this group is that important, I value your time too
much to expect anything for free from you.
So the first problem would be to really respect a teaching
assistants contract. That's one way to go about
fixing this because it sounds to me as from the comments,
teaching assistants and support staff are being completely
exploited. I had one person mention they're
a teaching assistant and they have a read write in Group and
they have 12 kids and they're just doing the teacher job.
They're literally. Just.
Teaching, they're just prepping. They're just teaching phonics.
They are they I say just what I mean is they're literally a
teacher. The school have gone Oh, that's,
that's a nice cheap teacher. They're prepping, they're
marking, they're assessing. They're just doing a group as a
teaching assistant. Hang on, what the school's done
is they've gone. Are those kids going to get us
the right data? No, they're a little bit,
they're a little bit too low ability.
Shove them with the TA, cheap TA.
Let's crack on with the kids who are key marginals.
They're really close to getting our data.
Let's give them. We talked about last week.
That's probably what. Happened and it's it's
horrendous because that teaching assistants probably doing an
amazing teaching job, not on the teaching salary.
No should not be expected to do anything extra at all.
And the other flip side like you just said is HLTAS or Tasmania
in general who are covering basically all week should get
some PPA. I've got a story when I started
my teaching as a newly qualified teacher or an ECT, you get your
half day PPA every week, but you also get an extra half day.
And we called it NQT time. I don't know what it's, maybe
it's called ECT time now, I don't know.
But just time basically because you're really just getting your
foot in the door and learning. Here's a bit of extra release
time. So as as a, as a, a new teacher,
you get the equivalent of a day out every week.
And it's almost like what we're saying all teachers should get.
But it was really, really useful.
And I remember there was a HLTA at our school that I started
teaching at who was like the mother of the school.
I know exactly who you're talking about.
The most amazing woman. I still, like, just think I'm in
awe. Like, as a new teacher, watching
her with the kids and stuff. Yeah.
She was, like, one of the top five teachers in the school.
And she was a HLTA on a teaching assistant wage, completely
exploited every week because you'd walk into the staff room
and you'd see the cover board. Yeah.
And her initials were genuinely on every single half of every
single day so that she'd be covering in this class in the
morning on Monday, that class in the morning in the afternoon on
Monday, next for same for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, all let's say 10 slots of ampm during the five day week
she was covering. And I, I went up to her.
I remember I had a conversation with her and I just said, you're
teaching more than me right now. You're, you are teaching more
than I am. And I am on a teacher's wage
that is basically double yours, and you're teaching more than
me. Is that not crazy?
And she basically went, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's on. But you know what?
Yeah. It's my job.
You know, I just, I love, I love teaching the kids.
I'm just going to crack on. And it's that amazing attitude
that is exploited up and down this country that I just get so
angry with. And then when people get annoyed
at us for being negative or anything, I don't care.
Because that amazing woman who does an unbelievable job, if
it's negative for me to say that she should be treated with a bit
more respect to be given time to do something, all the money for
the job she was doing, then call me negative because I do not
care because that should be called out and fixed
immediately. It's disgusting.
I agree, I agree and someone might.
Do you know what someone come along and say?
Didn't have to plan those lessons though, did she?
At the weekend covering. OK, Yeah.
Do you know what, though? Start to prep them, prep them,
teach them and mark them. Which is like at least 2/3 of
that of that job for half the pay.
Yeah, exactly. No PPA, no time out, no break.
You could even argue with the pay.
Just give some time to just get your heading gear.
Just look through some. When is she looking through the
lessons? I know.
Yeah. Because you're not not only is
it just like, OK, I'm in year 4, another year 4 curriculum.
I don't really need to prep too much.
Oh, I'm doing determiners. I've done determiners before.
How difficult going to be? Take me 5 minutes.
Often the HRTAS are teaching themselves the lesson
beforehand. So even if they didn't have to
plan it, here it is. Here's the smart.
And the amount of times I've spoken to A10, they've gone, oh,
can I just look at tomorrow's lesson, please?
Because I'm not sure what we're doing.
And I talked them through it. That is.
That's prep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That counts as prep. And just add to that across
multiple year groups, you just said when you're in your own
year group, you kind of get confident because you're, you
know, I'm know that I'm going to be in year 6 tomorrow and the
day after year 2, then year 6, then year 3, then year 4, then
year one. It's like, that's mad.
And then just to, just to finish this off, the, the biggest
insult is the HLTA is supposed to be prestigious, right?
Comes with more pay. It's negligibly more than like
just not being an HLA, isn't it? Less than a pound?
An hour? I have no idea, but I.
Know it's I know when back then because I remember I remember
talking to her, she was quite open.
It was like 1500 lbs more a year than just being ATA, just
supporting in the classroom as normal to be a HRTI was like, so
you're going from zero teaching to teaching every single day all
week and you've been paid £1500 more a year for this, like on
top of your like 14,000 lbs salary.
It was, it was just so insulting for what this person was doing.
When I'm sat there thinking I'm a new teacher, a teaching car,
not even as much as you because you're actually covering my
lessons this week for one of them because I'm, I get time out
because I'm a newly qualified teacher and I'm being paid like
15 grand more than you. And you know I loved about.
This person in particular was always had a smile on their
face, was the nicest person in the world, so supportive and I
feel like when I look back at my journey and starting off as a
teacher. I got lots of help from
teachers, don't get me wrong, but it really was specifically
those motherly TA figures. And I think of a few from that
school to be honest with me who I really felt kind of took me
under their wing and, and helped me and kind of shielded me from
all the rubbish that comes with it early on because they took on
so much of it and really helped me.
So I'm so appreciative. And I think a big part of my
reaction to lots of those comments was I don't think you
understand how much I love and care about Tasmania.
And I really think it's a problem.
So please don't assume because I'm talking about one thing that
it means the other thing is like not important because it really
is. You've nailed it on the head
there. That's.
That's where it feels a bit like a oh, I'm getting your back up
because it's like, no, because I agree with all you guys and
you're all commenting as if I don't.
Yeah, I get it. But yeah, big love to Tasmania.
We think you're amazing. I think it's an incredible role
in schools. It needs fixing as along with
everything else. So we're sorry that it's not
being fixed as quickly as it should be now.
Going. Against the popular belief that
I don't do anything for this podcast, we had a submission
this week. Dylan, did you know that it's
listening, saying it as well? Sorry.
Sorry, did you? No, not just.
This. It's just you.
Wait, Sorry, wait. We had a submission.
This week, how did? You know, did you know that?
Dylan The. Answer is no you didn't because
I saw it, because I do check our emails, I say now.
We had about 40 submissions each week, so right well, one of
them. One of them I intercepted
because I saw it come through on her e-mail.
Joking no seriously picked up on ping up my phone and I was like
this is really good did you delete it?
I deleted. It I put it in the.
Archive in our In our because I didn't want you to see it.
So I I've got it on my phone because I thought the password
for the e-mail. No.
What is it? Yeah, so it's a really short
submission. It made me laugh.
And I thought this is perfect to tell them on the podcast because
it'll make you laugh. OK OK so someone said I emailed
this in and said I work in A2 form.
Oh, sorry, not that bit. That's.
The funny bit. No, the funny bit's coming up.
OK, sorry. I work in A2 form mainstream
school. That's the funny bit.
Oh sorry I missed you. Missed it.
Anyway, I'll carry on. I work in A2 form mainstream
school and we have daily occurrences of racist,
homophobic language, fat shaming, children, telling staff
to F off, calling them names, children going berserk in class,
throwing things, flipping furniture, storming out.
Sorry, where's the funny? Right?
Hang on, hang on, it's coming up.
But luckily that guy on Instagram told you that teachers
aren't leaving for behaviour so it's all good.
You. Would love you remember you.
You took the Mick out of that Instagram comment.
That was that person. Oh.
My God. OK, All right.
When you say I've got a funny message and the first half is
that I was like I was waiting for your face to.
Drop I was like, I'm going to say this and Dylan's going to be
like, Oh no, Hayden, we need to delete this whole episode
because you're wrong. Just.
These things aren't funny yeah that was insane like I I this
isn't really a rile up, but I'm going to not be riled up so I'm
going to really control myself here, but that was insane and I
think we've we've referenced this before that's hilarious
that person seen. Are.
You the real about how a teacher said they left because of
behaviour and what their comment was teachers aren't even because
of behaviour. Yeah, and that's exactly.
All there are. There are 20 people in the
comments saying they left because of behaviour.
The person in the real, the teacher left because of
behaviour. But you're you.
You just have this ideological like stance in your head.
Then it's not because of behaviour, it's because
everything else doesn't exist. Don't know it's.
Because of behaviour. Because you know.
What when someone throws a chair at me that might make me not
want to come to work? Actually like, and I'm laughing
because it's so stupid. I'm not laughing at the
situation in the same way we're not laughing at the fact that
this person obviously works in a really challenging school
behaviour wise. But he was just, he was, you
know, he was being ironic and taking the Mick out of the fact
that he's going, you know, completely squashed though,
because someone on Instagram said no, no, you don't.
So, oh, OK, thank you, Mike. Thank you for invalidating my
entire life and existence. Exactly.
Their point was. That it's, it's not behaviour,
it's pay. There's always a line that
people would take because they'll take the amount of money
to do it. Like if someone paid you
£1,000,000 a year, do you know what?
Yeah, OK. Throw a chair at me for
£1,000,000 a year. Throw a chair at my head every
day. I'd.
I'd take that probably. I can't wait to work a million.
Pounds because I don't know I'll be spending it on anyone out
there wants to pay me. £1,000,000 a year to throw a
chair at my head every day. Get in touch, OK, teach, steep,
repeat pod@gmail.com whatever. I don't even know what the
e-mail is. It's in the episode I do because
I actually. Inserted it and it is exactly
what you just said. But yeah, I mean, it's just
like, get a grip and and do you know what?
There's a wider point when a teacher or someone in education
says their experience in a school, what happened to them?
OK, the reply, You can have a chat about how widespread it is.
You can have a chat about whether it's a problem or not,
like, or you can say, oh, well, in general, maybe this or maybe
that, Maybe you could have done that.
What you can't do is just say to that person that, yeah, no, no,
didn't, no, didn't happen. Doesn't happen because you just
look and seem insane. OK, you cannot like something.
You can be uncomfortable with someone's opinion on something,
but you can't tell them that that's not their opinion.
Or what literally happened to that is that is called we call.
That gas lighting, it happens a lot in education.
And you know, and you know what, because I know we're getting
into this episode, but I just want to finish this section.
I've got a few while outs, but I just want to do one.
I've got one thing I saw and it kind of links to that SLT
conversation. And This is why I want to speak
to that person again. Even though we know there's
loads of good SLT out there, this is the kind of thing this
submission here that makes us go on a rant.
OK, because someone said, someone asked the question in a
forum saying is it the norm to have a book look every single
week and then receive an e-mail every single week criticising
everything that we do based on what they see in the books.
And then we change all those things based on what the head
wants to be shot down further and criticised again, again and
again. It's just a constant, constant
negative down downwards trend. That's what someone asked.
Yeah. Yeah, that.
What what it is, is right. What I guess we can extrapolate
this to nearly every industry ever.
OK, Yeah, it's just bad leadership.
I really just think it's bad leadership.
And I think specifically because we're teachers and we're in
education and that's what we're talking about.
If you just, I can just think of the average teacher and the
amount of extra stuff they do just to stay afloat and exist,
right? That should always, always trump
everything when you're giving feedback to someone because you
have to start off by thinking, OK, wait a minute, I want to
criticise what they did sometimes, right?
What teachers do has to be criticised and it has to be
improved, correct? There is a way to do it and it
should always come with the caveat of but you know what?
Yeah, okay, I don't quite like how this person is doing this.
It does go against our policy that we all agreed on because we
have a good way of making policy, et cetera.
But you have to just think that person did do 4 hours of extra
planning on Sunday though, because we decided to change
this big part of the curriculum and they're putting a lot of
effort into this job. And do you know what?
They're going well above and beyond their contract.
Yeah. So if they could do much less
work and still be within their contract or their job, Yeah.
So maybe within the job and we have these policies and rules
set, if they're not quite meeting those aspects of it,
maybe we should just think that there's a bit of a balance going
on here. And maybe the conversations that
we have shouldn't be rooted in constantly criticising what they
don't do. Maybe if it's 70 to 80% of the
conversation is about how amazing they are or helping
their workload or seeing what they can reduce and seeing what
they can change, those criticisms sit better in the end
and are more likely to resonate with them.
And actually, I'll go, John. Yeah, this, this amazing leader
has helped me so much. So when they pick up on this not
quite being right and they give a reason for it and they treat
me like a professional, I actually want to help them.
I want to run for a war for them.
And I'm already doing loads. So I'm going to make these
little tweaks here. Thank you for showing me that if
it's constant, you just turn off and you think, OK, do you know
what? Not only am I turning off to
this criticism, I'm completely disengaged in this job now and
I'm not going to do all this extra stuff that I was doing
anyway. It's going to end up turning
people off the other way of other things rather than fixing
what you want to fix. I agree.
There is a level to how? Much criticism you can give
before it. No one, no one cares anyone, no
one listens. It just turns them off.
I recently have been planning some English.
I've been I've been spending so much time.
This is a classic example, like our school at the moment, we're
revamping our English because you know what, it needed
revamping. It just it was get a bit.
We all knew that. We all knew that.
We knew it needed some time. And that is our, that is our
primary focus this year. But it does come with a lot of
workload. And you know what?
Schools can't then magic up an extra 10 hours a week to go and
do that workload. I get it.
So guess what? It's me at the weekend planning
it, right? I spent absolutely honestly,
like two whole days of the holiday, one in the holidays and
one at a weekend planning this three-week unit for English.
It was on something completely unfamiliar to me because we've
just genuinely not done it before, or at least in many
years. It was on a balanced argument,
quite a hard text type to do and and we've been doing it
recently. And do you know what some of the
lessons I are on reflection, I've been like, I wouldn't do
that next year. I would change it to do this,
this and this. So they've not been like exactly
what I wanted. It's a little bit annoying
because I've spent so much time on them and the idea that like a
member of SLT, which they haven't just to really made that
clear, they haven't. But the idea that a member of
SLT comes and looks at that planning and just goes, that was
rubbish, that didn't work. Look at the kids books.
This is this is terrible. You need to change it for next
week. I would, honestly, at this point
in my career, I would tell them where to stick it.
Yeah, the problem is. Ten years ago, I wouldn't.
I would have just gone home and cried.
So sorry I cried and you know. Whatever, cancel my.
Football that I've got this evening.
'Cause I'll change it, but right now if.
Someone did that because of bad leadership 'cause they're not
thinking about me as a human. Like actually they did spend 10
hours doing this at the weekend, even though it didn't give them
the quite the outcomes they want.
I would honestly it, it would be, it would be a bloodbath of
words and and like. You're clearly a very competent
teacher as well. Yeah.
So these mistakes and these things that are going wrong, do
you know what sometimes the question is?
The question is why are they going wrong?
What's happening here that I can do to help this person?
Rather than that's bad, just say that's bad, fix it.
That's yeah, fix it. So do you know what?
When I spent 10 hours doing it, if I knew it was bad then I
would have fixed it. It's like what do you mean just
fix it? If I knew how to just fix it
straight away I would have done it in the first place.
Sometimes you have to teach it before you know.
How to fix exactly that? A few of those lessons.
It was just like, OK, now I've done the class, I can see
exactly what elements they're finding tricky.
I can I would tweet that next time.
But yeah, it's just to just to back up that that whole thing.
That's brilliant. OK, we've.
We've I think we've talked about 74 different things we have.
Should we get to the actual point of the year?
Yeah, we love that. Book them in.
Don't we? We did a skip this week.
It's not often these days that we do a little scare at the
start. When we started, we do what
every week. I know it was a lot of effort.
It was so. Fun, but we.
We felt that we had to do on this week because of the changes
that we saw from Ofsted. Now our podcast releases on a
Monday. So a few times what's happened
is we've released the podcast on a Monday.
We're like, let's talk about this really important issue.
And then it's released and in the morning, it's like the
government and Ofsted have announced this huge change.
OK, we're a week behind, but we we had to reference this.
We had to talk about it. So Hayden, in a nutshell, what
have Ofsted done? Because there's been this huge,
big lesson. They've got a new leader come
in. They were talking about making
change because it's, you know, we're listening to staff, you
know, we're gonna do what needs to happen to make Ofsted a force
for good. So what's gone on this week?
So in a nutshell, they. Quote unquote listened to
teachers feedback and the biggest bit of teachers feedback
was these one word judgements are crushing.
They put so much unnecessary pressure on teachers and it's
not fair to capture the school. In a word or two, yeah.
And and it's. Specifically, what they started
off with was the headline judgement.
I think that's important because still now schools are getting
one word judgements on the individual aspects that's been
broken down. But the big one they immediately
said was, you know what? What is really, really harmful
is that one word judgement for an entire school.
And that's simplistic and it doesn't hit the mark.
And it's just that was causing a lot of anxiety, wasn't it?
Which I completely agree with it.
Was, you know, and they did, they have got rid of that
overall one word judgement for school because it isn't fair.
It doesn't make any sense when it's a school is so complex to
have one word that summarises the whole thing like what a
stupid system. And the other part, the other
huge thing was about was about deep dives.
Sure. So this idea that, you know, we
talked about it before, Oh, we're all just suddenly
specialists, are we? In every single subject.
What planet do you live on? Of course we're not.
It was adding deep dives were adding on so much pressure to
teachers and it was massively, massively negatively impacting
smaller schools as well. Yeah, because smaller schools,
less teachers, they take on more stuff.
I think we need fewer teachers, mate.
You need to. Require improvement on your
English I'm afraid. And now your whole school is
requires improvement because you don't have to do grammar
properly. And you know, jokes aside,
that's exactly. How it was, you know, your whole
school is now requires improvement and it was
ridiculous. So they've, they've got rid of
this idea of deep dives as well. We're not going to come into a
school and scrutinise you for three days on your on your
scrutinise your history lead for three days.
Can I just pick up on that quick?
Because what really annoys me about that is like what we said
before, where management might say this is a really important
initiative and if you're not doing it, then I'm going to pull
you up. Imagine if a school didn't put
hours and hours and hours into preparing for a history deep
dive or hours and hours in geography, and then Offset came
and said, we're doing geography deep dive.
This isn't good enough. Your school's bad.
One word, judgement. Awful.
What's kind of annoying is that now they're saying, oh, yeah,
that was bad, wasn't it? Yeah.
You should never have done it because we've already got all
the hard work done. We've already spent hours and
hours of our own time pretending to be a geography specialist
when we're not putting hours and hours into courses doing loads
of folder prep work because we. Oh, you shouldn't have to do
that for Ofsted. No, we shouldn't.
But we do, don't we? And you know, we do.
And when you come in and perpetuate that, this is normal.
This is you being terrible. So it winds me up, even though
they're doing the right thing to get rid of deep dives, it's
really, really wound me up because the damage is done and
you need to listen sooner. We are professionals, We're not
just moaning. We work hard already.
If we moan about something, it's usually because it's stupid.
I agree. So one of the biggest.
Ironies that we'll look at a good rant by the way.
Sorry, I thought I've got nothing to add to that.
One of the biggest ironies is that is that they did, they did
listen in a way, and they did say, OK, all right, we get it,
deep dives. OK, It adds unnecessary pressure
on because there's far too many subjects, right.
So every teacher in the school the with the way Ofsted works,
not knowing what they're going to deep dive until literally the
day before every school was there.
Therefore saying like, right, everyone needs to imagine that
you're going to be the one that getting offset it.
So every single person has equal pressure, which is horrendous
amount of pressure because there's too many areas that we
need to be expert in. I'm going to quote that again.
There's too many areas that they that they might look at anyone
time. So, so in all of these too many
areas that we have to focus on, it's causing us too much stress
because there's too many areas at once to think about.
So very quickly. So they've got.
Rid of deep dives. That's true.
Yeah. OK, so they've done a couple of
big things, right? But you're talking, I don't know
why I keep mentioning about too many areas.
Maybe we'll come back to that very soon.
But so this week then, because those changes, the big, you
know, headline change that was very quick that got dropped
talking about deep dives not being anything anymore.
OK, be annoyed as we want. It's a good thing that we're
getting rid of them. So what was the big news this
week then? Because it seemed like when we
spoke about it, you said, oh, is this news?
I, I, we thought this was happening anyway because there
was a bit of a lean a few months ago.
What's been confirmed now, right.
So what's been confirmed is. One the scale, the sliding scale
that they're going to be using to I'll go get to the the
categories in a minute. The sliding scale they're going
to be using that replaces the one word judgments from before,
you know, there's four one word judgments that we had before
standing good they. Replace that with five one word.
Judgments now, but rather than being an overall judgement, it
just judges in a specific smaller subcategory, right?
Because currently there are 4. Categories that get judged,
yeah. And we're making that up to 11.
Yeah, up to 11, depending. On your school, so one of the
categories might be sixth form. Obviously not every school has
that. One of the categories is early,
early years. Not every school has early
years, right? But there's nine sort of core
ones in the middle that all schools will have, yeah.
All schools will have so it just.
Like this is the, this is my biggest criticism, criticism of
the whole thing is this idea that they've they've said, Oh
yeah, OK, so the problem with deep dives was it was too much
pressure at once because there's too many areas to be looking at
at once. And it's not fair for teachers
on top of their jobs to be thinking about all of these
different areas. So what we're going to do is
we're going to scrap what it was before and we're going to make
loads of different areas that we're going to look at instead.
And we're going to really like sub categorise them.
And you're going to be graded on all of them at once, by the way.
So we got rid of deep dives. We'll pick one out of the 10,
all of them now, all nine of these things.
So we're not subject. They're not subjects.
So you know there is. An argument to say, well, come
on, come on, Hayden, calm down. They're not subjects.
They're all essential things anyway, which, you know, we can
have a discussion about. But my point is here, my
overarching point is they didn't listen to the idea that teachers
are overwhelmed, right? They didn't listen to the idea
that there's too much pressure on teachers.
And that is what is driving teachers out of this job because
what they've done is they've made a system that puts too much
pressure on teachers in so many different areas at once.
It's the same thing repackaged in terms of the perspective from
a teacher. There's no teacher.
And we'll look at the data in a minute that is looking at that
thinking, oh, I'll be so much less, fewer stressed now.
I'll be so much less stressed now because of this new system.
They're just going to be thinking, oh, I'll be stressed
in a different way. It's scrutiny, isn't it?
It's. It's scrutiny where we
completely need to be scrutinising schools and
teachers. But like, like you said, what is
the role of Ofsted? Like is the role of Ofsted to
just come along and point a finger and say that's bad?
Yeah, yeah. And come along and point a
finger and say that's good? Or is the role to actually try
and raise standards? And it's just like their mantra
and what they say they stand for just isn't what they're doing.
And this was a real chance to kind of shift that.
And I feel like all they've done is repackage what's already
there, make it not look like what what they'll oh, guys, it's
completely different now. We're not going to say that
you're requires improvement in something.
We're going to say that it's red and you're causing concerns
like, OK, you've done the most fundamental like top level
change that you possibly could whilst apps actually really
changing nothing. That kind of says what I want to
say. About this, and we'll come to
the 9 things in a minute or the 11 things potentially, but I
just want to say this is what's happened in my head.
There is this circle of where Ofsted operates from it within,
right. And within this circle, whatever
they were doing, they were like, oh, this is bad though.
And what they've done is they've said OK, let's just reinvent
this circle in a different way. Let's stay within the confines
of how we were already operating, but let's just
repackage it in a different way. Get rid of few things, add a few
things. And what they needed to do, if
they listened to teachers in this big lesson, is they needed
to reinvent the circle. They needed a square.
They needed to go away from the circle and completely reinvent
the system. And that's what they failed to
do, which is why everyone is so annoyed at this.
Yeah. Do I think this is better than
the old system? Yes, I do.
I do think it's marginally, marginally better.
OK, All right. And we'll go into why in a
minute. Sure.
But do I think it it's enough for an enormous government
funded body of millions of pounds and spent on this to for
them to be like, yeah, we fight. It took us, you know, 5000 years
to do this and we've finally reformed it.
And they've come out with the most like meek, worst possible
outcome really, of a reform you could call a reform.
I'm like, come on. Like it's just so insulting the
idea of Ofsted going. Into like a pyramid and watching
an ancient Egyptian lesson and then it being the same of 5000
years later. So I think that.
Jumped out at me that really really just it made me laugh in
a way that I'm just I just despair is is that they have
genuinely changed outstanding for exemplary.
They have genuinely changed good for either strong or secure.
So more chance to be positive I suppose.
As 2 is 3 now, I've added in an extra.
One isn't it and it? And we've got we've got a darker
green rather than a light green. Isn't that lovely?
And they've instead of requires improvement, it's attention
needed or causing concern. What is wrong with you?
Like that is the most like it. It's the most.
Are they are they trying to gaslight us?
Yeah. Into thinking they've changed
something because they just go well, the words are different.
Yeah. Then you have not listened.
Like you have genuinely not listened.
Or save your little little. Feelings by not calling you
inadequate anymore, we'll just say causing concern.
Causing concern. There's big alarm bells ring now
when they come, they have a little they have they have to do
you know all of the inspectors now have to wear this little
thing on their shoulders. It has 2 red bells on it right
that go an alarm goes off when they when they feel they're
causing to like green and. Amber like is it?
Is it? No, it's only.
No, they can't do. The good things, they just they
just kind of get ignored. But when something's bad, they
and, and it says, yeah, because, because obviously Offset expects
to have had training now it says to them, don't cause stress,
don't cause stress. So the Offset inspectors are
reminded, oh, let's not cause any stress to these teachers
when we call, when we're saying that this area is causing
concern. They've had training because
when they. Say it's causing concern.
They say it in a nice way. Yeah, yeah, guys, your school,
it's causing concern. Little round of applause.
Smile and it feels. Great and it's just changed
everything. Yeah, I want to very quickly
then we've got some teacher tap data we'll come into later and
we've been in touch and we've just wanted to teach tap they've
got some really cool data as to the reaction to this but let's
just dive a little bit deeper. Sorry for using the term diving
deeper. No, we don't do that anymore my
little rings. No, no, we can't.
We can't dive deep. Let's scuba low.
We'll call it that instead because that's not the same.
We're going to scuba low down here into the the what?
What is happening in terms of what we're judging them on now?
So we've talked about the, the one word judgements have
changed. So the red, red to green,
exemplary, etcetera. Yeah, but what are we actually
judging them on then? What?
What are these 9 to 11 things that you've been talking about?
Yeah. So fortunately, you'll be
pleased. To know they got rid of teaching
and learning. They stopped.
They stopped.
Bear with me. They stopped judging teaching
and learning. It's now developing teaching and
curriculum. Oh, they're separate.
What I'm trying to say, I'm joking, is this.
It's the same thing. They've just repacked.
You looked at me so panicked then like, no, they didn't,
Hayden. No, no, they didn't.
I wasn't panicked. I was thinking.
What on earth for them? Yeah, No, they didn't.
No, they didn't at all. They didn't really change
anything to honestly, they just, they just sub categorised it a
bit more. So the 9 things I'm looking at
plus the extra 2, the sixth form in the early years are they'll
look at achievement and give you one of those five gradings,
leadership and governance, OK attendance.
Do you want to do you want to go off on that or no, not
particularly because we've. Said it before, we've done this
before. I just think the the problem
here, the problem I see straight away is just it's going to have
the same old problems as before where there'll be leadership
panicking. Yeah, this isn't going to stop
schools panicking from wanting to impress Ofsted because we
still feel like we need to get these report cards.
Of course, instead of it just being so old, we need to get to
outstanding. We are.
We need to get to exemplary. And all that will happen now
instead is there's nine ways for people to get stressed.
I just don't. I don't get it.
I don't know. Before I was like teaching and
learning. I was like, OK, well just skip
behind that now. It's like developing teaching
specifically. It's like, cool, I get the idea.
Because the government and offset are trying to put
pressure on to schools to do well in these things.
So the only reason attendance is there is because attendance is
awful. So the only reason it's there is
because they absolutely know what they're doing.
They're not doing it. They're not doing it to help
schools. This is what winds me up.
None of this is to help schools. The only reason attendance is on
this list is because they want to put pressure on schools to
push themselves to the limit with no extra budget being put
in for it to fix attendance. Same with inclusion.
They they want to make, Aren't we?
Aren't we? Aren't we amazing Ofsted and the
government because we're making inclusion the front 'cause that
we're really pushing and now it's got its own thing in our
Ofsted judgement. No, no no, no, you're horrible
gaslighting idiots who just want to say that because you know
schools will then panic and put all of their effort into it by
working themselves to the bone. Because we really, really,
really care about our kids and we really do care about
inclusion. We want to help as many kids as
we can. All you're doing is making it
even more stressful for us because we're now going to be
really harshly judged on it in a system where you are also in
charge of the funding and the money we get for it and you are
not giving us enough. So you are not helping us
remotely. You are adding pressure so that
you can look like you can wear a badge saying aren't we great,
this government helping out and doing the best we can with
Ofsted. No, you're increasing pressure.
You are not helping remotely because if you were helping and
were listening to teachers, you'd be whacking up investment
in these areas. You'd be helping us with some
support and you'd be taking these children seriously who
can't even get a diagnosis for three years.
It's disgusting. This is not helping.
This is just labelling something so you can say you're helping
and hope someone else picks up the Flack for you because
they'll be the ones getting judged on it.
It's horrible, it's disgusting. I think there's one more element
as well. Of this just listening to you
talk about that, that they've been really smart with this play
of just saying, well, we'll just put attendance in the report
card. It's because they don't want to
do The Dirty work. Exactly what what they don't
want to. They want schools to to put
their necks on the line. They want schools to go in and
you can be the controversial ones who put in some draconian
measures because you're so panicked about attendance now
doing things that maybe you think are even wrong.
But because you've got this report card now it's kind of
forcing your hand. We don't want to say it as off
said because do you know what we know we'll get a bad, bad light
for it in the press because actually what we want to take
what we want to say is, OK, we're going to start fining kids
for not coming in. We're going to come pick you up
every single day. We're going to do all these
other like draconian kind of things, but we don't want to say
that, as I said, even though be much easier for us just to say
it from top down and everyone just does it right.
We want the schools to make those decisions so they look
bad. They're putting they're at risk
of looking bad if the parents don't like it.
But you know what? Overall though, yeah, some
schools will look bad because of it.
But attendance will go up though, and who's going to take
the credit? We put it on a report card,
guys, and it's got better. So it does.
No, it's not. It's disgusting.
And the more and more I think about it, it's the entrenched
system of what we have, which is just horrendous.
And this does nothing for that. And I think that's why I teach
so exasperated because do you know what I think?
I think if you just look it on the surface level, right, and
that there is an argument you could have where you're saying,
well, I think it's slightly better because of this.
I also really think you could say it's worse because of the
reasons we've said as well. So what, you know, we can look
into the Teach Tap data now. Maybe that'd be really
interesting. But I guess my overall point is,
I think where the most anger and disillusionment comes from is
that we were gaslit for two years into thinking they were
listening and they were going to change.
They were going to do something. I, for one, never thought that
was going to happen. No, I never, ever thought that
was going to happen. And I'm glad I didn't fall into
that trap because here's what's happened.
It's just repackaged into nonsense.
Yeah, it's, it's do you know what?
And and people will come back to us and say, well, don't you care
about these things? Isn't it good that we're caring
about these things? I care about these things more
than anyone because I love teaching, because I love my
kids. I love education, I love my
classes, I love helping them as much as I can.
The only reason I care is because I care so much.
The only reason I care about these changes is because I want
it fixed so bad. So when these artificial changes
come in that literally do nothing to help the fundamental
cogs in our education system just so that someone can get
some political clout, it winds me up so much.
Easiest analogy here right is. As your your teachers right now
put your imagine Ofsted. Is the teacher OK in this
situation? Do you improve things in your
class by measuring them? Is it and my point here?
Is they're not doing the next bit.
I measure stuff all. I measure stuff all the time and
then I do something about it and I raise standards.
As the teacher, I take responsibility for that thing
that I'm measuring and I do everything I can in my power and
my time and the money I have to the budget I have, whatever it
is the situation I'm in to do something about it and raise
that standard. This is why I don't like Ofsted.
They don't do the bit that they say they do.
It's like, well, we're measuring attendance now.
OK, So what you so you already know it's bad.
We already know that. So well done.
You found information that we already know.
So that's done Nothing. What are you doing about it?
Well, stop there. OK, Brilliant.
Cool. Let's just measure more stuff.
That's what we're doing. Measuring more stuff.
It's like what we said about leaders.
Earlier who just criticise and moan and say things are bad,
that is the exact same thing. If Austin are just coming in and
saying that's bad, like thanks, OK, cool.
We do need to be called out sometimes, like I said earlier.
But can, can we please like have a supportive environment where
you're helping us do this thing or again, just political clout?
Let's finish up the list. I'm going to start.
Again and give you the 9 areas on the top of sixth form and
early years. So it's achievement, leadership
and governance, attendance, curriculum, behaviour and
attitudes, developing, teaching, inclusion, personal development
and well-being. And that's the last one because
then it's at 6th, 1:00 and then there is one that.
You've missed, but it's just a, it doesn't, it doesn't come into
this starting category, which by the way, I think is a good
thing. Yeah, this is a good change.
Safeguarding is simply, you've met it or you haven't and
separate. And you know what?
Yeah, it's separate. And you know what that is?
That is what safeguarding should be.
You, you either are a school meeting the safeguarding demands
or you're not. And you know what, if you're
not, you need to be called out on it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because it is so serious. Yeah.
And I think that's, I think that's important.
I think we can still talk about the consistency of, you know,
judgments and etcetera, etcetera and all that.
That's always going to be a problem When you have a
judgement system and there are individuals who are going to do
it, that's always going to be a problem.
But I think that's a good thing. And I think the safeguarding of
our children is paramount. And I think that's, I agree with
that. I think if safeguarding was
secure or strong, like what are you talking about?
It's just, it's so important that you're either doing it or
you're not. I would go as far as saying.
That it's the only part of what I've said do that is actually
worthwhile at the moment, in that kind of terms of just.
Criticising and judging, yeah. As in looking at safeguarding
honestly. I think all of that stuff, they
could put all that in the bin. Yeah, OK with themselves and
just leave a couple of members to come around with their little
special. Yeah, because whistles and their
and their, you know, shoulder pads and come around and
honestly just look at safeguarding because that is the
only bit that they're doing, which is right.
I agree with you. It's like, hey, get rid of the
rest. Can you those have a 9/11 areas,
get rid of them. Can you just come and look at
safeguarding until you've thought of a better system
please on how to actually raise standards because you know
you're not doing it. Like when you judge attendance.
We said this before. Is it just going to be like, oh,
it's 96%, so it's green. Yeah, of course it's number.
It's 89%. So it's orange.
Like that's so maybe it won't. Maybe.
Maybe it'll be a bit more you know, consider considerable of
like the what you're doing the area.
I don't know. Maybe your school has
notoriously bad attendance and you're you're, but you've
actually. Raised it a bit.
And they're like, OK, you know, this is an exemplary example of
how to raise attendance from 40 to 50% if your attendance.
Like if I take an actual figure that might be realistic in the,
in the most like tricky of areas, let's just say your
attendance is like 87%, right? Let's just say may I don't, I
don't know what they are, but let's just say it's like that
and your leadership and your and your school have taken it to
93%. To me that, that that would
scream exemplary. That would scream like, wow, you
are moving the dial. That's you could not do more
than that. Because at the end of the day,
it's not you have to get the kids into school.
And all we had to do was fire all of our.
TAS buy seven cars and we go and pick up all the kids now.
So it's so much better, isn't it?
Because this metric has improved My school now I think they've
bought 8 cars. Seven, we used to pick up kids
and one of them was the maternity.
Maternity. One of them was the MAT CEO who
just got the car. Yeah, yeah, a little bonus.
Yeah, I don't know anyway, but there's there's the areas.
Let's talk about teacher tap, shall we?
Yeah. So this this.
Teacher Tap, by the way, quick shout.
Unbelievable. We've been speaking to them and
they've been offering us up some data, which is so useful.
So in the future podcast as well, you might see us do a
little bit of a teach tap of giving us these insights.
They sent us these blogs and they've had some reaction
already to these changes because like I said, we're a bit behind
because this was announced when we really started that last
episode. So first up, straight up, I
wanted to mention something to do with school staff and who
they are in a school. Head teachers were the most
likely to have read the plans, which makes sense, of course.
Head teachers have given the race to the ground.
It's them. They're the ones ultimately have
the, you know, the the judgement resting on their shoulders so
they've properly read through the Ofsted.
Plan exactly so head teachers. Are way more likely to have read
here, but they are also the most likely to feel negatively about
these reforms. So 43% of head teachers surveyed
by Teacher TAP said that they felt very negative and 24
percent said somewhat negative. That is 67 percent, 2/3 of head
teachers had a negative reaction to these reforms.
At what point do we look at that and do we say these reforms are
bad? Then like by definition, you,
you can look at that and maybe someone in the government.
No, no, no, we're driving standard.
We're doing well, we're doing some spokesperson for us said,
no, no, it's because of this. It's because of that.
If your head teachers have 2/3 of them saying.
That this is bad reform. Yeah, it's probably bad reform.
Of course it is. And it was the year before when.
They asked them and the year before and the year before and
the year before. But what politicians are very
good at is going, OK, what is 1/3 of all the head teachers?
Is it a couple of thousand? OK, cool.
Use that stat. Thousands of head teachers think
that this reform is great. There you go.
Politicians win, Gaslight everyone like they always do,
Repeat the cycle. It's depressing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Honestly. Absolutely.
So in general, when asked and
teach TAP as people who work in schools, how do you feel about
these plans? What percentage, Hayden, do you
think felt very positive about these plans?
Oh, let me guess without looking at the.
Screen in which I know is it 00 percent?
Yeah. Zero, no one feels very positive
about these changes. 6% feels somewhat positive and so and the
rest of it is either neutral or negative or they haven't seen
the plans yet. Don't get me wrong, a big chunk
of people hadn't seen the plans yet.
I think it was close to 40% people hadn't seen the plans.
That's fair enough. But if we look at the the
percentage saying that it's positive or very positive, it's
6% and this is 10,000. Teachers, by the way, just to
clear, make that really clear, 10,000 teachers did this, not
0%. So a.
Significantly low amount of people, close to zero, thought
that this was yeah enough that it got rounded.
Down to 0% like right? Almighty 21% said neutral, I
think. I think if you, if there wasn't
this huge push in the last couple of years for it to really
reform and change and the horrible situation with Ruth
Perry and this people feeling really strongly about it, I
think there'd probably be more in the neutral camp.
I think there'd be more like saying what didn't do anything
neutral. I think the again, the the
pushing of the negative stuff is just people saying, well, this
does nothing. The fact it's neutral makes me
negative about it because what was the point?
Yeah, it's true. Do you know what?
When I did this. Teacher's app because obviously
I did it on my phone. Download the app yourself.
You can do it as a teacher. I think I put neutral at the
time and I kind of wish I could change it now, but because I was
feeling like, yeah, I haven't read read through them properly
yet. I've seen a few headlines.
I was like, OK, well, we talked about them before the leaked
versions. I was like, well, I'm just in
the middle. I don't think it, I don't think
it's any better. Sure, I think I think it's worse
in some aspects, but I think it's better in some aspects.
I'm like, it's just, it's just the same thing repackaged.
But having this had this conversation now, I think I'd
probably go down one and put somewhat negative.
That's probably where I'd really vote.
OK, so the the vast. Majority of school staffing that
and again, like we said about the head teachers saying mostly
negative the school in general, like come on, this is this is
enough data for you to look at and you should be thinking
that's bad. And if you were actually working
for staff and education in general, if you had that as your
forefront, you would make changes now you'd be like, OK,
this is wrong. But but they already had the big
listen. They already chose not to do it
because we know the path again joined to be a politician again.
Ready. Yep.
Well, actually we've seen that 38% of teachers didn't even
bother to read our plans. Teachers do not care.
They don't care about driving standards up, but we do.
I think that's more a daily. Mail spokesperson.
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, they would look at
that. And they'd be like, well.
Look, no, it's just a communication thing.
This is what wines went more than anything, right?
When people go, no, no, you know, you just don't understand.
I had someone comment on Instagram, I've got to say this
quickly because I was talking about multi Academy trusts and
CEOs and stuff like that. And I get that I'm way more on
one side of this argument and there's other sides to it, but I
simply held my case against someone who was defending them
and saying why they're good. And I was like, no, I get all
that. But I think overall, I think
it's this, this and this. And one of the replies I got was
what what you're doing there is confirmation bias because
you're, you're seeing it in, in play and you're, you're
extrapolating that to everything.
And don't, don't worry about it. Everyone has confirmation bias.
And I was just like, I had to reply.
I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm literally saying that I
understand that you can't just dismiss my opinion because you
framed it as something that's bad and yeah, you've now framed
it as confirmation bias and oh, it's OK.
Don't worry about it though. We all do it.
I don't. Yeah, I don't do it, but we all
do it. So don't worry about that.
But I don't do it. So you're my point of view is
right and yours is completely wrong because I've decided it's
confirmation bias. That's what people will do this.
They'll go, oh, it's a communication thing.
People don't really understand what's going on.
No, no, I really do understand it.
I've read through all of these blogs that you posted.
I've read through the education statement from the government.
I do understand it. And I think it's bad.
Yeah, so that's the end of the conversation in terms of you
can't detriment my opinion. I'm a teacher and I think it's
bad. Let's talk about it.
I find it so funny when because people do.
This in all walks of life, when people use confirmation bias to
therefore go one step further and say therefore it doesn't
exist, I'm like, what are you talking about?
You know, the confirmation bias. Fair enough.
That might be a thing. Yeah.
But it does still confirm, though, from my own experiences
and people around me, that this thing does exist.
Yeah. Maybe I'm misrepresenting how
much it exists. Sure.
But when someone says, oh, it's just confirmation bias, so
you're completely wrong. It doesn't even exist what
you've experienced. It's just confirmation bias.
So what do you mean the word confirmation?
It's in it. It's in it, OK.
It's a bias. See what happen?
Yeah, Yeah, no. It's not existing, it's just.
Confirmation bias. So no, no, I'm confirming that I
that I have seen this happen. It's just that I might be not
seeing it not happen because I'm surrounded by people.
Just shut up. What you talking about?
Yeah, it's just such a nice way of.
Trying to shut down an argument with someone just because I have
a different opinion to you doesn't mean I don't know what
I'm talking about. It's a classic.
Oh, I'm just, I'm better. Than you don't worry, Hun.
Don't worry, don't worry, Don't worry.
Love it. Don't worry, love.
It's just confirmation bias. We've all been there.
You probably didn't know what it was called, but now you know,
Point Wink. Next time you'll be all right,
Right, Let's take a look. Want to take?
A look quickly just say the data here in terms of the five tier
system you know from causing concern to exemplary because we
spoke about how insane we think it is.
Do we think that it is a good thing?
Will it will it provide a fairer picture?
What's the question for schools? So will it, will it do what it's
set out to do and be fairer for schools?
Much fairer. What percentage always freeze
numbers gone then one. Percent think it's going to be
much fairer. Somewhat fairer, 24% decent
chunk and I can see why because the idea being instead of just
teaching and learning, maybe it's fairer because you know
what, we're good in both. It's not just hiding something
and some schools may be behind. Maybe it's fairer because it's a
more accurate and the argument from the government is no, no,
this is more detailed, this is what parents want and there is
an argument to say that, OK, do you know what?
Will it be fairer? Maybe because it's showing well,
it also really simplistically. I'm just not even making this
complex. It is objectively fairer because
there's five now instead of four.
Yeah, doesn't mean it's better. Yeah, sure, it is fairer.
So of course it's fairer because now I've got three chances to
not be labelled as rubbish rather than two.
So it's like it's almost not even a point.
It's like, yeah, it's somewhat. I think I put somewhat fairer.
I'm like, yeah, because 5 is more than 4, not better.
I think it's a stupid system. It's like if you said is it
fairer now, we've now got a 10 point system.
I'm like, Oh yeah, OK. It's a bit bit.
Fairer because there's more points you could be at, but
we're not talking about the. Implementation.
Yeah, that doesn't make sense. So.
So 40, sorry, 63% said no difference.
Yeah, I can really understand that point because it's just
like what it is no different. You're still judging everything
in a school on the same way you did before and you're choosing a
different word this time. Yeah, yeah, somewhat less fair
and much less fair only counted for about 12%.
So in general, we can see here people think it's more fair or
the same. Do I get that?
That's kind of your argument earlier where you say, well, is
it a bit better maybe than the previous one?
A bit, I guess in this respect, you know, depends how you
interrupt with that question. I think yeah, sure.
But really? The the massive one there was.
No difference because it is literally the same thing.
So exactly that and and the last.
One is just about inclusion, and I think this just nod towards
what politicians are saying, like we really care.
So inclusion has its own thing now.
And that sounds great. That sounds fantastic, right?
But you know what's going to really help with inclusion in
the school? Yeah, funding stuff properly so
that we can actually help our children get diagnosis, get the
support they need. This having it on a strong,
secure, exemplary base is not going to impact how I help my
children and how I have inclusivity.
And well before you do the stats of this right, I want.
To really just root this again, and if you said to me, do you
think putting attendance on the report will improve attendance,
my answer would be yes. Not for good reasons.
I don't think it's driving standards.
I think we'll do it because it puts that horrible pressure on
schools. It comes with a huge price.
Sure. So I kind of take this question
the same way, you know, do you think inclusion, do you think
adding inclusion on the on the report will lead to meaningful
improvements on how schools support disadvantage the S&D
people? I'm going to slightly push back
because I. Don't think there's much extra
room for what schools are doing right now.
It suggests that there's more we can do on what we've got.
So in saying that it will improve because it's now in this
form what it's suggesting that we can do more, but we're not at
the minute. And I kind of my point here is I
kind of think we're doing as much as we possibly can.
Like I get what you mean in terms of maybe you'll do even
more because something else will drop off.
That's what I'm saying. But there's still 9 things like
what's going to drop off like is attendance going to drop?
Is teaching and learning is leading government is like it's
all there covered. So something else might drop
off, but it will still be on that chart.
OK. And all I'm saying is.
That's thing is teacher well-being, it just goes back
to, yeah, do you know what's going to drop off?
It's just teachers, even more teachers, more teachers are
going to quit. More teachers are going to get
the burnout. More teachers are going to have
breakdowns in school because this is completely unmanageable.
That's kind of what I'm saying. So I think it, I think it will
improve. I think the support schools give
the disadvantaged pupils will improve off of the back of
teachers again and other staff in the school.
And it's just, it's just like it doesn't work because what we
really need, like you said, is the funding to do that and
that's, you know, the resources. So 53.
Percent, Eva said. Probably not or definitely not.
So it won't actually make a difference.
I think those I think those people are just saying what I'm
already doing. I can't possibly do anymore or
something anything unsure. 30% of people are just like probably
disillusioned. I think that's the big feeling
from this disillusioned. Yeah.
It's like OK, whatever, we don't do anything and then probably
will make it fairer or definitely is 16%.
So I think that's your line there.
But it probably will help in this way, but it's not the way
to fix things. Just a lump more.
It'll probably be help because you know what it's.
Going to make me do an extra hour of work at the weekend,
right? Unless I quit, that's how it's
going to happen. Yeah.
And and and. I think just just to summarise
that that's, that's what Ofsted have done.
That is the, you know, outlook, that's the outlook we've got.
You know, I think I think the reason why I'm pushed towards
more of a negative feeling is because I just think they really
egged up how much they were going to listen, how much they
were going to change. We've got a new government in
who were really big enough, education's going to be top of
the list, blah, blah, blah. And I think it is really
demoralising to see that these huge changes that have been put
in place are making such a negligible difference as to what
the actual problems are. And I think that's driving the
reaction that we're seeing to this, which is just simply what
are you doing? What is wrong with you to
summarise? The only good parts from this
for me are getting rid of the one word judgements for the
overall school. I think that was a really stupid
thing and I'm glad I got rid of that.
And making safeguarding a kind of its own separate thing.
And it's just like you were doing it or not and keeping it
away from like it's not just banded together of everything
else. It's like it's no safeguarding
so important. It's his own thing.
But everything else that we've discussed I just think is even
more of the same or actually just worse.
It's going to add pressure to schools.
It's going to squeeze schools even further.
We'll be more squeezed than ever.
Teachers will leave more than ever.
I'm calling that right now. Come back to this episode when
in two years time, the data is even worse.
Teacher attention data is even worse.
Will you be one of them? Probably.
Honestly. Probably at this rate, Yeah.
Yeah. My God.
Right, let's finish up there. Thank you so much for listening
and we'll see you next time. It's not not much of an episode
next. Oh yeah, no.
I'll, I'll, I'll contain my excitement for episode What's 99
+ 1? I don't know.
I can't bridge past. No, no, you can't speak
properly. And you?
Can't bridge past. I think actually you need this
report card I think. I think causing concern.
See you next. Time yeah, for episode. 100 bye.