Ep 127: Answering Your Questions: Controversial Teacher Opinions, TA Roles & Pointless Assessment

0:00 Hello there everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Teach Stick Repeat. My name is Dylan and my name is Hayden. And you might be thinking, why did you say another like that? Well, it's because this is the second episode of the week. Can you believe it? Hayden I can but not believe it, actually. Why are we doing this? Why am I? I'm forcing you. I am the host of the podcast, You're my Co host. You listen to what I say. And I just thought it'd be nice to do a little bonus episode every little extra 1, but maybe it'll turn into more of a kind of recurring thing where we answer what the listeners want to hear. Hayden. Oh, I love that. Oh, not not just talk about the things that we want to. Talk about and ignore everybody else. Is that what you're saying? Exactly that. Yeah, I guess we'll listen to other people's point of view, but I'm hoping this can turn into something where we kind of cover loads in one episode because we we we focus on one thing a week, which is great. We're going to a deep dive. I love that.

0:40 I don't want to stop doing that, but I'm hoping this with the input of you guys listening. So do go to our Instagram or TikTok at teachers repeat podcast, find us messages, send us some questions in because we want to hear them and you might get mentioned in one of these episodes. So I've got one straight away, a little bit controversial. It's going to hopefully get people's backs up and that's what we want. I'm sure nothing less from this podcast. It's podcast in this episode. OK. Are you ready? Yeah. What is your controversial? That's how I knew it'd be controversial. What is your controversial teacher opinion? The kind of thing that will annoy other teachers if they hear you saying it. Well done and you'll be pleased to know I have a couple but a. 100 episodes in, so yeah, you think? That the the long term listeners might have picked up a couple on the way.

1:21 I do have one that I always feel a little bit like scared to say. I feel like is this the place to? Say, yeah, this is the place, this is the safe space where thousands of people here, just me and you. Yeah, yeah. 1000 people being you and. I'll clip it so that you just say the really controversial thing and there's no context. Of the whole comments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Safe, safe space. I think any formal assessment for the foundation subjects at primary school because they're primary school teachers, any foundation subject assessment pointless. Just don't do it. It is just pointless. Go on. OK, let's let's expand on this. I'm going to push you here. I want you to push me when it comes to mine. What? What do you? How can it possibly be pointless to know where children are in their learning? That's that. No, that's, that's different. That's not pointless in general. MMM Particularly for the core subjects that we are like super harsh.

2:03 On that, let's let's let's focus on foundation. But foundation Why? Is. Why should we not then record and know where children are in those, you know, drug free lessons, the tissue lessons? Because we just don't need to know. Why? You just don't need to know. Because it's irrelevant. 99% of the time it's just irrelevant. OK, it doesn't matter. Can you talk me through an example of then of what you mean by being irrelevant? So you're in an Anglo-Saxon topic. I can imagine you've just maybe learned about the different types of people who have come over to Britain. Yeah. And why they've done that, perhaps. Why is it pointless then as a teacher to kind of record where your children? Are because it's just, it's just a sequence of learning and then the next lessons normally on something completely irrelevant to the last one. Not completely in terms of it's in the same topic, but yeah. It's usually chronological and it's usually the next thing that comes along.

2:44 Yeah, but I'm going to teach anyway. I'm going to teach anyway. Like with history and geography, it's just sequences of learning that I'm not going to change and not based on formal assessments. So let me make this really clear. I'm not saying that in a lesson you should just be like blah, blah, blah, fingers in your ears, ignoring everything the kids do and pick up and say and contribute. That's called assessment for learning. You're gonna use that. And I will tweak my next lesson a little bit if I need to, if I need to go, if I think to myself. Oh, they really? They really just couldn't remember this name of this thing. Last episode. Last episode. You're really deep in the podcast and all. Teaching in episodes. Now kids, welcome back to episode number 654 of Maths This day, this lesson really please not to search. We are symmetry.

3:26 Now, who's heard of symmetry? I don't know, he didn't form in this. Session. He's got one of our listeners we've written in. Actually, they're gonna ask us how can you find all the symmetrical lines in a square? Yeah. So, yeah, all more of my, all of my lessons. Sorry, I can't remember what I'm saying now, but I was, yeah. So the sequence of lessons, I'll adapt it slightly. I might just make a little silly thing in the next lesson of like, oh, who remembers that thing from last week? Who remembers that thing of that name? What was it we were struggling to remember? I'll do a little bit of assessment for learning, but I don't need any written, tracked formal assessment in geography. I don't need it in history. Like history is the best one because quite often it's topic to topic as well. Yeah, I don't really need to know genuinely if they struggle with something in the Romans topic when I go on and do Greece, you know, I mean, I can. It depends.

4:08 It depends how much of a link you've got between them, because good history teaching does a link between things. And it would be helpful to obviously understand if someone was struggling maybe with a concept in a different era when you're then making links with the new area you're teaching. They didn't quite understand that that link would fall on deaf ears. Yeah, I agree. So let me just get this straight because it sounds as if what you're saying is obviously still assess, obviously still understand where your children are. But. But I feel like there's two arguments almost going on simultaneously here, which is an argument against knowing it because it's pointless, and an argument which is against formal recording of it, because I would push back heavily on it being pointless at all. But I would probably agree with you that the formal kind of recording of this is pointless. Well, just think about your career and I agree. That's, that is what I'm saying, by the way, I'm not saying it's pointless to know ever in any aspect. I'm saying I don't want to sit there at the end of a week, end of a term, end of a unit, whatever your school's policy is on tracking and writing down formal assessments for history and and art and DT and stuff.

5:01 Sat there with a bunch of objectives because let's be honest, that's what it is. It's not real. Sometimes it is, but it's not always sat there going really thinking carefully about the like the the skills of like was this child able to really think about the chronology? Of this, I think, I think good assessment does that. I think lots of assessment does do that. A lot of assessment doesn't know, I think. I think my whole career and think your whole career of multiple different schools, it's generally, generally just looking at objectives. Have they understood the knowledge of this thing? Yes or no, Who cares? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if, if do you know what? I'm still going to teach the next lesson in this sequence regardless. I don't need to sit there and write down which kids got that in the last lesson and which kids didn't get it. As a good teacher, I'll be picking up on the children in general who are struggling with certain concepts of like being a historian or being a geographer. Do you know what I mean?

5:46 Like about the world. I'll be picking up on those things in general because I'm a teacher, of course, know which children struggle more in general. I'll, I'll be putting in the support for them ongoing, regardless of whether I sat down and put a little tick or a green box or a list of names of all children. Yeah. Really understood this lesson on the Romans. Who cares? It's a waste of, it's a waste of my time. In 10 years of teaching, I never once used it. It was never useful. I never utilised it in any capacity ever. And you know what? Nobody else did either. And if they said they were, they're just just making it up. OK, so why the point here then? Because this is really interesting to me. I do kind of feel like I fall on your side a bit of a lot of the formal assessment we do seems to be because we should do it rather than how actually useful it becomes.

6:26 Where then in your, you know, ideal way of doing things as a teacher does formal assessment sit full stop. So you kind of made this distinction between the foundation and the core subjects. Why is it more important to have formal written assessment for core subjects but not for foundation subjects? Does that feel like you're putting a wedge between them straight away? Putting one on the pedestal? One's more important. Why? Why is not the same logic you have for why? It's points for history, geography etcetera not applied then to English and maths. I just think they're very different subject types. I think the reason you can even distinguish between core subjects and foundation subjects because they're just intrinsically really different. Foundation subjects to me are history, art, geography, those kind of things that are grounded in enjoying a subject and a line of thinking, inquiry. Whereas maths and English to me are core sets of objectives that you revisit time and time and time again and you build on, build on, build on, build on all the time. And there's loads of them.

7:21 You think of arithmetic in maths, you're constantly revisiting and then introducing new strands of arithmetic that build on the previous ones. You need to keep track of it. You actually have to know that, but that that logic just does doesn't apply to the foundation subjects, in my opinion. So I just think we do it because we're like, oh, we do it in maths English, It's important. We can't be seen to not thinking. These are important as well. So what? And everyone with new policy now everyone for art and DT, you have to now a hexagon, fill out a hexagon. You have to now you have to green or pink or blue or orange. This statement now in in design and technology after every unit so that we know. So what do you mean so that we know what so that would you think you really think any teacher seriously is looking at that and then really seriously completely replanning their next DT topic which is completely decided not no primary over.

8:04 Anyway, as a. Primary school student. No, they're going to teach the next one. And now remember last time? Oh yeah, those kids weren't very good with scissors. I'll help them. Like, come on, I don't need to write this stuff down. It's just a waste of my time. No, I think that's a hot take. I think, yeah. I mean, I like your reasoning behind it. I mean, in a world where we often like to pretend we care about teacher well-being, etc, and stuff like that, I think we have to look at some of the stuff we do as teachers and just say how effective is this and actually having an impact on the children. And I think whether or not in a utopia, right, In a utopia, clearly it is better to have individualised, written a formal assessment for every single child and everything they've ever. Of course it is.

8:44 But does that time spent doing that remotely way up with the impact I can have from the information and then replanning stuff on top of that as well? Honestly, 99% of the time, no, no. Anyway, so that's my rant. What's your 1? Minds, I feel like I'm going to get a lot of hate from my fellow colleagues. So I love you. I love you all, OK, And maybe you this is, this is a big one because we're in the summer holidays right now and there's a huge debate. We've done a whole episode on should the summer holidays be shortened or not? Why it's vital that teachers get this time off and most importantly, to be honest with you, why children get that time off as well. And one massive pushback, which I I completely get and, and I understand is when people will say that school and teachers is not childcare. My hot take is that it kind of is OK it but it, but it kind of is OK.

9:34 Like like school, of course it's childcare. That's why when children go to school, you no longer need childcare. It's not because you suddenly have lost the need for your children to be looked after during the day whilst you go to work and your children to be cared for. You don't lose that need. Suddenly they are getting childcare. In school, do you not think people know that already, though? And then and we're we're all me say childcare. People are like it's like rage bait almost. People are genuinely saying we're not literal childcare as in like what we think of when we think of childcare, which is where you just you just need help having your children looked after for the. Day, sure. Do people get really angry when and say nurseries aren't childcare because they're learning at nursery? Of course they don't because we can have that nuance and understanding that nurseries still childcare. Of course it is.

10:20 But whilst, whilst I'm getting the childcare, I get an unbelievable provision as well from a nursery. And do you know what I'm not saying by the way? The primary role of school is childcare. Of course I'm not saying that. That is absolutely something that might be spun against what I've said here. The primary role of school is education. The primary role of school is to keep children safe as well. Well, OK, we're going to look at how important safeguarding is and how it's vital that as a school we build a community where we can keep our most vulnerable children as safe as possible. How, how can we not define that as childcare? Of course, part of it is childcare. Why do people get annoyed then? Because that seems, it seems obviously true. The way you're pitching it is. That's clearly true. Because here, here's the issue and, and I'd push back on this as well, is people simplify school as childcare.

11:05 Yeah, OK, when I say school is childcare, I'm not saying school is only childcare. And that's the issue. And that's why people will rightly get annoyed and that's why people will probably get annoyed at me for saying that because some of them will go, no, no, you're just emboldening those idiots who think school is just childcare. When you sit there as a teacher and say school is childcare, you'll be put on a pedestal by these idiots who think that that's all that school is, which is true. Maybe, but but what I'm saying is it, I'm not going to lie though, like I can't, I can't say it's not childcare because that's how society works. If you have a 7 year old child and you need to go to work, you have to find childcare. And do you know what the ultimate the, the ultimate way of me just proving to someone that is of course, of course it's childcare, is that you need childcare when school's off and you don't need childcare when school's on because school is childcare. Such a good, that's such a good point. Like we might not like it and I'm not saying let's frame it as school's primary reason of existing is to look after your children and that's that because that then goes down the route of, well, therefore, yeah, just shorten the school holidays, have teachers come in and just run clubs. No, no, no, no.

12:08 I'm not saying that teachers aren't expected to run breakfast clubs at school. Teachers aren't expected to run after school club when we get wrap around provision and care. I'm not saying teachers should be expected to be childcare all year round. I'm saying school as an entity acts as childcare and saying it doesn't. I think it's just wrong, OK? I think that's a fairpoint. I think there's a potential. There's two ways of looking at. I think it's really interesting. We like you made me think about how when school started, you know, I can't, but I can pinpoint, oh, this is when school started because I'm aware that it was over a long period of time and it became more popular than schooling in general. But like, was it? Was it genuinely the primary reason is that it's childcare so that people can go out and work in the community. I don't think so because again, if you look back in, you look back in history when school started, it was for the privileged, It was a way of educating the privileged and enrich people's children to get the more education to have the last life.

12:59 So again, I'm not saying the primary role of school is childcare. What I am saying is though it does obviously act that way and is childcare like, like it just is. And I'm not, I'm not trying to belittle anyone. I'm always on the side of teachers in school. I'm literally have lived and briefed it for my whole career. OK, I get it. And I know it's so simple to say school. School is childcare. It's not just childcare, but it's one string to the bow of what school is obviously. Yeah. So you're kind of fighting back to people that are doing the opposite and saying school is not childcare. Well, it kind of is a bit. Yeah, exactly that because because you asked me that this question here was what's my controversial teacher opinion? And I think that me saying that will get people's backs up. Yeah, but I'm willing to have a discussion about it and I just think I've just explained it. Yeah. Nice. Essentially. Well, it's a good start because now that everyone hates us, we can. We can and talk about some of the other Q&A's lovely ones. Perhaps this is a?

13:44 Good thing, because we can look back over hundreds of surgery, you can see that we're at least consistent, right? I'm not. We do consistently. Hate it. Oh, I don't. I really. Maybe maybe that was a bad one to stop. Yeah. That's a good one. But I'd be interested to see what people think. This next question very interesting. What is genuinely expected of a teaching assistant in your classroom? And, and this was born of when we spoke about the role of TA and how Tasmania can be taken advantage of and have lots of cover, for example, and be asked to, you know, be in charge of this class. And can you do some planning by the way, because we, we needed to do some planning, just do a bit of marking at the end, but not necessarily being paid to do that. And there was this whole kind of discussion again on lots of our posts of I'm ATA and I'm expected to do this. I'm ATA and I'm expected to do that because our point of view what is genuinely expected or should be expected of ATA in your classroom haven I.

14:37 Think that's a really good question because it's so easy to just say, oh, they're there to support the teacher, but let's actually just break that down. But what what does support the teacher mean for me? Well, I'm going to go be really personal. I don't know if this is the right way to do it. But for me, if there's ATA in my class and the first thing I want them doing to support me as a teacher is behaviour control. I actually really like it when Tasmania are actively in the classroom. They're just another body there. If if I'm in the teaching part of the lesson where you're heavily just you're talking and they're listening before you're on like a task or whatever. I really like Tasmania who can just be another pair of eyes and ears in the room, go around and they can quietly help in the, in the, in the room, like someone's being a bit silly over in the corner. It's so much more efficient for ATA to go over and say, yeah, put that down, come here, give me that pen. Now you can have it back at break time. You know, do those things that we all do as a teacher constantly managing behaviour than it is for me, the teacher to stop talking midway through because that happens a lot. Let's be honest, when you haven't got ATA, you're constantly stopping.

15:30 OK, I'll just wait. No, just waiting. Just one person just needs to put their pen away, then we'll carry on. You know, doing that rubbish all the time. It just constantly disrupts your lesson. Having ATA that can support that element of teaching to me is like pucker, but obviously you're not doing that all the time. So other things for me, like this is where it gets tricky because it, some people I think view Tasmania as their role as like a hierarchy of like they should be doing this all the time. First they're not doing this, then they should be doing this, they should be doing this. I just think there's a few things kind of at the top there. If I genuinely didn't need my TA doing that for any any reason, I wouldn't therefore then be like cool, do nothing. Doing what? Then what? What would you want them to do? If you walked into tears in your classroom, what would they be doing? What do you expect of? Them So what during a task? Yeah, anything if it's. During a task I want to work with kids. Yeah. What's your opinion on when teaching assistants tend to be used as a kind of oh, brilliant. You can work with this set of kids all of the time, ever because they need support more often. Yeah.

16:19 And you can provide them with that support, but you're going to be of those children. Maybe they're behaviour issues, of course. Yeah, I know you're not a one to one, but yeah, can you kind of be a one to one for me, please? And just you go there, that's where you gravitate to all of the time. Because I know I've been guilty of doing that. Yeah. I don't necessarily think it's best. Practise. No, I don't think, I don't think it's best practise at all all the time. I don't think it's a problem for obviously for the TA to work with the children. Sometimes I think it can be insulting sometimes because what normally people say is no, we should. The rhetoric I think the last few years has been no, you're the teacher, you're the, you're the teacher of the classroom. You should be working with the children that need you the most and the TA should be working with other children. I do. I think that is true a lot of the time, but I do also think it does. It can become a bit insulting sometimes to suggest that ATA couldn't possibly support a few 8 year olds that were struggling.

17:00 I get it, as a teacher you're perhaps more qualified to do so, but I just think there's a balance. I think generally a teacher should be working with the children that are struggling the most, but I don't think there's a problem that ATA is occasionally working with the group. I do think there's a problem when it's always the case, when it's just his all year. You have these four kids as a teacher, I'm just going to kind of ignore them. You're just working with them all the time, so they are right. I'm going to focus on everybody else. I think that's when it becomes a problem. A big thing where that I think about working with teaching assistants is I've, I've always tend to get the best out of us as a team. When I look at it that way, that we are a team and I, I, I really dislike the, the kind of the, the roles in terms of I'm in charge of this room and you're at my best and I want you to do this and this, please and do that.

17:44 There's obviously a role for that because at the end of the day, as a teacher, it's your classroom and you know what you have going on, you've planned the lessons, etcetera. But that dialogue between you is really important, I think. And having that conversation and understanding beforehand means that it becomes way less of as we go, me micromanaging. Because if you, if you create that environment in the 1st place where you kind of know your goals and your aims, and like you said, maybe this tool kit of different things that a teaching assistant would do in the classroom, then that can kind of happen as you go. Yeah, you have worked in a school before where you would have been ostracised, punished perhaps for having your TA if your TA was caught mid lesson, I don't know, trimming some sheets or putting up a display or doing something a bit more clerical. Admini, what's your, what's your views on that? Because obviously those jobs exist. Do you think TA should be doing them? Yeah, I don't listen.

18:35 I don't think TA, I'm not that person. It's like, yeah, it's a TA job to do a display. I'm not doing one of them. This, this jobs I don't like doing necessarily or can't have time to do. And if in a lesson, there comes an opportunity where my teaching assistant will say to me, oh, do you want me to go and prep those sheets for you for this afternoon? And actually at that point for 5 minutes, it's probably an overall good if they go and do that in terms of it frees me up later on to do something else that is important. But also at this moment in time, I don't need those hands for these 5 minutes because they're cracking on doing something. I think it has to be down to the whim of the teacher and the teaching assistant. They could have been, they could have been. Of course they could have. They could have been doing lots of things, but they also could have been doing a display for me.

19:17 And they also could have been doing this shopping and trimming for me. Not because I want to go home 5 minutes earlier, but because it frees me up to do something else. I feel like this was all born from, I don't even have this culture ever even really existed. Maybe it did enough for this to happen where Tas were kind of exclusively doing that. They were sort of always outside the class and all sat in the shared area, just extreme resources prepping things. I don't know. That's why I feel like it seems a bit stupid, but I feel like that's where it was born from. This idea of no, we have to stop that. Tasmania are there to be with the kids all the time and a lot of schools in the last, particularly 10 years ago with the new curriculum, I, I felt like it was a really big push with a lot of like outstanding schools where it was like Nope, Rtas 100% of the time are always working with children, they're always supporting children. So do you think it is just a balance? Do you think it's OK either end of the spectrum? Do you think it's fine if ATA isn't in the classroom for the whole lesson and they're outside? They're just prepping some stuff because it's need needs to get done?

20:07 I think you cannot judge the role of ATA in a classroom or how the team is getting on for a 2 minute snapshot walking through the room. So if you if you drop into a room and you see a member of staff doing a display while the teachers sat at the front maybe working with one child and the rest of the class are cracking on, that isn't automatically oh awful use of everyone's time, which I think it used to kind of get into that mode of this is awful. I can't see something every single second happening. I think you have to take it as a, as a macro view and as leadership see it from time and time and time again, again, again, if it's constantly happening that the children aren't getting that support from that adult that you've got in the room, then that does become a problem. Of course it does. But ultimately, when I think of the role of ATA and going back to the question, what is genuinely expected of ATA in your classroom, I think you have to, it's asking what is expected of the team of adults in your classroom. That's what you need to ask.

20:55 Because when you say, I'm not saying this question is bad at all, because I get, I really struggle with managing my TA for my whole career, to be honest with you, I don't think it was ever something I was really, really good at. But I kind of, I know. And when I see successful teams, it's when they're acting as a team. And the question to ask myself more is there's two adults in this room right now. What, what jobs in the classroom fit our respective skills skill set best? Yeah. What's going to have the best impact overall, not only for the children, but also for the adults in general of what they can spend their time doing? Yeah, sure. It has to be that question. And there isn't going to be 1 answer per teaching assistant. You have. I, I've had teaching assistants before who are newer who are learning the ropes and part of my job is to help them learn the ropes.

21:37 And they won't necessarily do all these things automatic that we talked about earlier. I've had teaching assistants who've been doing it three times as long as me. And if anything, I'm learning from them. And when someone comes in, they, they should absolutely be looking at me as the teacher more than the TA because the TA is just cracking on doing something. So it has to be as a team. Are you getting the most out of the skills? It could be that your TA is a qualified teacher. That happens a lot. Oh my God, they can take the class, then whilst you're working with a group you can have that dynamic, but if the teacher doesn't have that, then they're going to have a different skill set they can work from. So it has to be individual to each team of adults in the classroom. I like that. So for me that that if I was taking that away as a teacher, I'd be thinking, do does my TA, does my team, do we all have a shared vision? Do we all know what we're trying to achieve? And does everyone know that, that, that that vision is flexible, We are working together. I like that.

22:23 Yeah, a lot. Nice. So we're coming towards the end of summer, and you know what that means, don't you? We start going back to school, going back to work, going back to work, and that means INSET days. So a very simple question for you, Adam. Why is INSET unbearably boring? Already dreading it. I don't. Know it's probably because teaching is intrinsically like the opposite thing, isn't it? Teaching is so dynamic and fun and engaging. Every moment's different. You've got loads of interactive things, your brain is constantly stimulated to 100%. The time goes like that. How many, how many lessons have you taught where you think, Oh my God I just needed another 10 minutes and you're begging for more time? Insets are kind of the opposite of that and they are generally there's no kids there who are generally sat around just doing some training. If you're lucky, you might get some time to like prep your room or something like that. It's just a bit more boring, isn't it? I found I always find these comments really funny because it's so true that we never ever seem to apply any of our pedagogy and our teaching techniques and the ways of making things engaging, which we do for our children when it comes to giving some kind of training to the adults. How many times have you sat in an insect looking at the clock and it's it feels like half an hour has gone past and four minutes have gone by and you're just like, and you've. Got another two hours.

23:30 Yeah, yeah, of having to sit there and why is instant unbearably boring. I think a lot of the time number one is because it just isn't delivered by people who are, you know, trained in training. It's just often not delivered by people who have the time or the career to become really good at delivering training to adults. It's a different skill set. So when you say to someone on the INSET day, oh you're head of maths, can you deliver some maths training for the whole school please? Yeah, OK, sure you can, but it's obviously not going to be as amazingly dynamic and interesting as if you got someone in who is maybe a professional doing something like that. And it is, it's it's a give and take because I know of teachers as well. If someone external comes in who isn't walking the walk and doing it right there and then in the minute in the classroom immediately can be like, what do they know? So yeah, yeah, it's not, I guess my, my point here is inset is not easy to get right.

24:18 No, it's it's, it can be boring, but I think there's lots of amazing inset out there as well. Yeah, sure. But ultimately no one going to teaching for that. Yeah. So obviously you're you're naturally going to find something like that a bit more boring because you've got into teaching to teach. And that is, it's the bit that's not teaching. So yeah. How much, how much of the the kind of boredom and the resentment and the growing frustration of insect do you think is based on the fact that you have so much to do and it feels like you're fitting insect for the sake of fitting insect and you're doing some training you did three years ago and it's just been recycled and I know how to teach maths. I've been doing it for this long. How much of that boredom do you think stems from also knowing that your time could be spent so much more effectively doing something else? The resentment entirely. It's exactly the same as weekly staff meetings. The majority of people I speak to, the majority of schools I've seen and heard of and worked in myself, weekly staff meetings and INSET days, I just filled the present because everyone in the room knows that you've got to do a bunch of work in your free time for free to get the job done. But instead you're doing this and you just think, can I just go and do the stuff?

25:18 No, no, no, we're getting out the A2 paper and the coloured markers and some post it notes and you're going to write down why you love teaching maths. Oh my God. I don't want to do this again as well. I know especially the weekly thing, it's like sometimes it's forced. I'm sorry but it has to be forced sometimes, isn't it? What are the chances that every school in the country just happens to perfectly have one hour of CPDA week that they need to deliver essentially to teachers? Well, do you not think the pushback of that is, well, there's more than an hour we could do every week. We're just cramming in what we can. Well, probably that's made potentially true, but a lot of schools, I know just from experience, I just like we have to do a meeting next week. We've not planned ahead. Maybe it's just the fault of planning. There probably is loads of good CPD out there but they just haven't had time. Equally all the money to buy in all. The money to buy in, you know, so they just have to force something. We've got a drug for the lead up today. We told him yesterday to deliver some CPD on on this. You're thinking, oh, OK, all right, I'll sit here for an hour even though I've got tonnes of marketing. I've got a really hypothetical question here. What percentage of staff CPD so hour after school every week do you think has been genuinely positively impactful on your practise?

26:19 5%. Wow. That's straight. I know what question is gonna be think about the whole time. Yeah, I was thinking 10% like now it's not, not 10%. There's no way. One in one in 21, in 21, in 20. In school year. Couple two, Yeah, a couple of year. And it's normally when someone else comes in. Yeah, a couple of year. Well, like a, like a. Like an actual professional delivering. We've paid money to deliver CPD well. Thank you everyone who's ever given the CPD in the past. Yeah, yeah, sorry mate. Including me. I've done CPD as well and I'm sure people start there thinking the exact same. Thing. Yeah, now I'm joking, you know? But seriously, yeah, probably like 5%. You think that's a fundamental problem then do you think that's something we should look at like, because I guess what winds me up is people do it because they're like, oh, we've got a fill directed time. Do we? Do we, Because I, I don't think you're counting my planning or marking in that directed time actually. So do we actually have to fill that? You're not.

27:04 You're not counting the time that you've directed me to do implicitly outside of this label of directed time, which is I have to mark and deep plan lessons. Oh, we've not hit 1265, so we're gonna have to do a staff meeting on what colour pen is more useful to marking. And did you get that new unit of planning down for history in that time, which is not remotely accounted for? No. Oh, we better do that then. Well, not now though. Come here. We've got to talk about the benefits of marking in purple. Yeah. Honestly, yeah, back to your question, I do think there was a problem. I do think it's a massive problem. I think everything, most problems boil down to funding at the end of the day. I think if there was enough funding, firstly you'd have enough bodies in the school to actually have a bit of time to organise these things. Secondly, you'd have enough money to actually buy in the good CPD, you know what I mean? I do.

27:44 I do think INSET is much better opportunity to get quality training than an hour after school. Yeah, definitely. So like INSET I think can be great and there's lots of people who do really good training. I've got one last question that we're going to do in this part here. What are your top three tips for moving up with your class to the next year group? Oh, that's really interesting. So when you take up the same class. Have you ever done it? I'm just, I was literally just thinking to myself, have I ever been in that situation? I don't think I have. Yeah, I've known people have done it and I've taken, I've gone from year three to year 4 and I've taught a lot of the same children, but things got mixed up a little bit. Yeah, so I've kind of done. It I've had a class in year 4 that I then had again in year 6. That's the closest thing I've had to, but I didn't take that very much literally to the class. So someone doing that?

28:28 Yeah. So someone taking up their literal class when it goes to the next year group. I guess I can only draw on my experience of having done that kind of with the year group. But my first thing, my top tip immediately is you and your SLT have to be so, so clear from the end of that year to the start of the next, exactly what issues or problems you may have had with parents, etcetera. Because I think sometimes the, the really good thing about a fresh start every year is that inevitably there might have been something that happened throughout the year where actually a child's ready for a new fresh start. Most, most of the class might be absolutely willing to go. And it'd be a really amazing thing. And we'll come onto those maybe in a minute. But I just think everyone has to be really, really happy with the fact that it's going to be OK in terms of that relationship with parents as well and the children in your class.

29:16 And even if it is OK, just have a knowledge of that because although that can be a useful thing, I think unless everyone's on the same page and understands it, you want it to come back to bite you in October. Yeah. We could have just avoided this by just having a different teacher, which would have been so easy for us to do. Yeah, definitely. I think my one is mainly from conversations I've had with people I I know I've worked with someone in the last sort of four or five years who has done this loads of times. They actually make it like, I think it's almost like on purpose. They quite often go Tier 5 and then take them up Tier 6. Just go back to your five, take them up to your six. And my advice, but based on what they've said, is take advantage of it. Take advantage of the of the privilege of having a class again because you know the children intricately better than anyone else in the school who's got a fresh class. So take advantage of that.

30:00 Like use that to your advantage. You know, you from speaking to this particular person, I have in mind that they said, yeah, they won. I know exactly what interventions to get going on because it's just a follow on from year 5I. I know exactly what they were struggling with at the end of year five. I can just crack on, just keep going. My assessment for learning is there. I know the more I know their behaviours in class, I know immediately where to sit them. How many times have you started a new year within two years, two weeks, you've got a new seating? Within two years? In two years. You finally thought of a new seating plan. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Can you get to know them? Absolutely. And you just you're just fast forwarding that all of the formal it's an assessment that you've got from the last year you couldn't, you don't need to use that. It's fine. Like everybody else. You know how everybody else ignores all of the formal assessments from the previous teacher and you all just start from fresh from your class because you want to get to know them.

30:41 You know how everyone does that? You don't have to do that because you actually just know them anyway. That's. Brilliant. Yeah, I think you asked for top three tips, so I guess my last one there would be. Yeah, sure, take advantage of it. I think everyone needs to be on the same page, but my number one thing is, Oh my goodness me, the hardest part about teaching, I think is inspiring your class is getting them on the same page as you. And you can do that way more quickly. It's like a, it's like a narrowed down version of what you just said is sure you're going to know everything about them, know their behaviour, etcetera. But most importantly, you're going to know what makes them tick. And you know, you know from the start what you have to do to get the most out of your children when you're taking them up. So I would say taking them up, I think it's a really good thing. And I think if you think about what makes you as a teacher, you, you're going to be able to get there way more quickly, you as a professional to get the most out of the children and all of the things last year that you said I was going to skip over that.

31:39 I'm just going to skip over that. That might not necessarily, like we said there be picked up on when it goes to a new class. You know for a fact, your class really didn't do very well on time. You didn't spend much time on teaching time. So you know that you can catch up with it this time. And I just think, yeah, it's it's a Fast forward. It's very much similar to what you were just. Saying, you know, when you taught them Romans and they struggled that you're never going to teach it again. So you can, you can just look at those formal assessments. You can look at them for another year and just go. So glad I know this now even though I'm never going to teach them Romans ever again because that's how topic works. Last point then, on this, on this moving, moving up with your class, Yeah. Do you think the pros outweigh the cons so much that everyone should just do it all the time? Sorry, I just got a laugh because I've just seen your iPad. Yeah. How big, big that you got? It was just like because.

32:22 You couldn't read that there. I hope this person doesn't mind me showing them what their Instagram is. Jack. Thank you, Jack for the question. Really expecting them to be like small. On your screen filling up the iPad here, it's absolutely massive. I don't know what my question was like. Cracked me up, I wasn't even listening, I was too really laughing. I don't be able to not see the question I. Would ignore whatever your question wasn't coming with something asking this anyway, if that's all right. Which is like a bonus stick because I think there's one thing and I reckon the the person that wrote this was made me. Thinking you really are ignoring my question, I really. Am because I know what you said. I was too busy laughing at the size of that font. Size 412 please. I have my granddad reading his phone so. But a little bonus tip is about behaviour. I. I think there's a weird thing. When you take a a class of, you don't get that fresh class of behaviour. You know, don't.

33:06 Smile till Christmas. You don't even do that. But yeah, but you know how generally we get a fresh class. They are normally better behaved because they just don't know you yet. And obviously these kids know you really well. Maybe if you're like me, expectations in that that last term sometimes just slip a little bit where things get a bit more fun. They know it's coming to an end and you've been with them for a year. So yeah, whatever. I think from the kids perspective, you should really try to just restart the year. I know from your perspective, I'm saying do the opposite. Take advantage of the fact that you know them so well. But for the kids, give a fresh start. If you got that that child that's been that got in trouble 67 times in the last year. Do you know what give them a fresh start as best as you can. This is a new year group now normally have a new teacher like think about what they get if they had a new teacher. Try to allow them that same privilege of this is fresh.

33:47 It's a new beginning. We can look at the past and reflect on it, but it's done now that chapter's over and still give them that feeling of it's a brand new year group, it's a brand new teacher even though it's not. So, OK, I'm going to kind of go back to my question that you ignored completely because it does link to what you're saying. You kind of just explored there the pros and cons of both in terms of, yeah, the pros of having a new teacher is it's a fresh start and some children might relish in that fresh start. But the pros of carrying on is that as the teacher's point of view, you know where your children are, etcetera. Which one do you think outweighs the other? Do you think it's more of a pro to take them up or more cons to take them up And and therefore 4, do you think that we should move to a model where we kind of stick with our classes longer than just the year that we've decided is how long? Because I know in lots of Scandinavian countries, etc. It's quite normal as the teacher to kind of grow with your class and taking through many.

34:33 Years. Yeah, Yeah, I think there are. Without getting too into it, I think there are so many more pros and cons we've not even talked about before. I spoke to this person I've got in my head, I speak to at school who has done it loads of. Times your imaginary friend my. Imaginary friend? Any friends other than you? Not my friend. You hate me before. Sorry, host. That's fine. Did I interrupt you? Sorry, I should have interrupted. You can you just answer my question. I'm so sorry. Thank you. I've asked you it twice now I. Think you know your role as Mr. Host question you bloody well answered. I am here as a guest on this pod. Come on. I am here as a guest. You're the last person I love as a guest, pal, right? Come on. I think. But in general, yeah, keep stalling. This is like Jimmy Carr when he gets heckled. It's because I'm fine.

35:14 It's so hard and. Then he repeats the question really slowly. So in time, people listen to this podcast are just like, oh, honestly, come on. Yeah, they're dying to turn it off, right? It's just a bonus episode. We're already 40 minutes in. Here's my You ready for my answer? Yeah, yeah. Before recently, I would always have said I'd think children should get new teachers. But having seen the benefits, the advantages of having a class for multiple years, it did really make me question like, you know, God, those kids really did make phenomenal progress because they had someone who who knew them inside out from day one in the second year. So that really changed my challenged my my thoughts on that. I think it is probably ever so slightly better to have kids for multiple years. I just, there's obviously risks to that. If you, if you don't gaol with your teacher and you've got them for two years now, that always sits my mind of, oh, I do I want to risk playing that game.

36:02 Yeah, yeah. What do you think? Good answer. I agree completely. I think where possible, you should do as much as you can because we, we always say how important it is to really quickly build those bonds with your children, to understand your children as quickly as possible. We're saying that's important because it impacts your teaching and makes you a better teacher. If we can skip all of that, it's obviously good. So I, I think that like we, we always put on a pedestal how important it is at the start of the year to start off right, because it means we can more quickly get into our learning and get into the groove of things. If I can do that immediately through taking the class up, that's obviously a good thing. And I think it tends to outweigh the cons. And I think, like we, like I said initially, I think SLT leadership, this, this, the teacher themselves, the class, the parents all need to kind of be on the same page for that.

36:43 Because what you don't want is just a leadership team deciding. Well, that's good because on paper it's better. Like what I just heard on the teach team with P pod class, that's great, But then actually the teacher doesn't want to do it. Half the class don't want to do it. They need a fresh start. It's not automatically the answer, but I think you should should definitely look into it as this is good. So let's see. Oh, this will work. Yes, let's at least explore whether it will work, yeah? Definitely, definitely, absolutely right, guys. That's that's going to be the end of that. That was going to be a nice little short episode then where we ended up. So it could be, I don't know, an hour, an hour and two hours. It felt like it felt like the answer to that question was about 7 hours from you. So I don't know how. Luckily we would have got more questions out, but Dylan can put them on the screen so so maybe we'll come back to them another. Time, right guys? Get in touch with us and ask us any questions you might have because they might get featured in the podcast in the future.

37:26 And we'll catch you again next time for another episode. See you then.