Ep 148: Attendance Awards, Smartphones & Absence Fines: Our Strongest Teacher Opinions!

0:00 Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Teach Sleep Repeat. My name is Dylan. And my name is Hayden. And this week? We're going to be going through some of our most strongly held teacher beliefs. That includes our opinions on smartphones in schools, attendance, awards, curriculum cramming, and so many more things. We might ruffle some feathers, you might agree with everything. Let us know and let's get cracking. So for context, Dylan, for our listeners, where has this list come from? My noggin, my head, the precipice of my mind. I don't know. I was just thinking, I just get into these zones sometimes it's just thinking like, oh, there's so much stuff I want to talk about all the time on social media and we do bits and bobs, obviously say we very liberally. I on social media post bits.

0:40 And I just thought, you know what, I'm going to do a super list. I'm going to go into Facebook and just type up all of my most strongly held opinions. And I went into my mind palace and I thought, I'm just going to say everything I can think of. And I put it into a post online and it has done the rounds. Like it's been very popular. It's a really good reaction from people. And I thought to myself, do you know what? This is clearly something people want to hear about and I'd love everyone listening to. Let us know what you think, if there's anything you add to this list, if you really disagree with especially. Or do you think it's pretty much spot on? So I was thinking I could literally just go through my list and then I'll say what my opinion is. And then you can come back and say whether you agree or we can even chat about why maybe you disagree. I can correct it exactly. Yeah. Like, like we always do.

1:21 So I simply started off some of my strongly held views on education, having taught in primary schools for 10 years. My first one, fines for children being absent from school don't work. I couldn't agree more that, you know, this is such a black and white one to me. And I feel like even looking from the comments from when you post that people, everyone agrees with this. It doesn't work. There are more fines than ever right now. It hasn't changed anything. All all it does is it means that people are now poorer. They just have, they have to, well, they just have to pay this money now. Like, it's not it's not deterring. It's not doing, I guess, what it's supposed to do. Yeah. I just don't. I don't know. What are your thoughts on it? Because you clearly put it as your first ones. Yeah, it it came to my mind. This is what I thought straight away. Because it doesn't. The reason it doesn't work is twofold, but you can literally just look at the stats.

2:05 There are genuinely more fines going out now than ever before. So clearly it doesn't deter people. It's not stopped people. We had a really push, a really big push on fines for a few years now. If it was working, we'd have fewer fines and fewer absences, right? So I don't think it's working because of that. But also my point here is when you're booking a holiday and if it's in term time, and let's say you save £1000 by going in term time, which is very reasonable, genuinely for like a family of four, it could be £1000 cheaper and you take the fine for £80, right? That's it doesn't take a genius to work out that's 920 lbs you've saved. So even when families accept the fine and say, yeah, whatever, that's fine, we'll take the fine, we'll pay. It's £80.

2:45 They've saved nearly a grand still. Like it's still so much cheaper. And there are so many reasons why we have an absence issue. We've done a whole episodes on this. Go back and listen to them. But having just OK, so we'll find people for it doesn't remotely address the reasons why in the 1st place children might be absent. And I just think we've gone down this road of demonising all absence ever. And whilst I agree attendance is important, I don't not think that. I just don't think that this is the way to go back trying to fix it. What do you think would happen if we just got rid of that system? We just said cool fines don't exist anymore. Do you think that do you think there'll be a major change in in absence? Do you feel like it would get a lot worse and mine made like a tiny bit worse? There's there's probably some people out there who might be in school more because their parents are worried about fines. I'm not saying those people don't exist. OK, So you might move the dial slightly by having these fines. That is, that's probably true, right? Because for some people it will be a deterrent. My point here is, though, that simply just putting that down as a sticking plaster and saying, well, it's OK, we'll find people.

3:46 And they were thinking about increasing the amount that people get fined because yeah, yeah. As if that's going to make a difference. Honestly. Like, I just think it's insane. And when you end up, what ends up happening is the poorest people who have poor, who have bad attendance aren't often the children aren't doing it maliciously. That's for a start. The parents are very often in situations where a fine must stop them being a drug addict. A fine want to stop them being an alcoholic that doesn't get up in time for their kids to come to school. Do you know what a fine will do? Just means they're 80 LB poorer. Just means there's less money for the children to have food on the table. It'll just make the lives of those children even worse and not solve the issue of their absence in school. So when I see that happening, I very, very passionately think that it doesn't work.

4:28 And even if we say, oh, for some families it might work as a bit of a deterrent, great. But as a whole, I just think it's missing the picture massively. No, I think that's fair enough. I can, I think I can really appreciate the fact that it's not worth the, if it does anything good, like it is a slight deterrent, it's not worth it for that exact example you just gave there of a child, like literally not having food on the table that week because the fight is is not solving the problem. Yeah, I think that's a good point. Definitely right next one. Taking a child out of school for a holiday, a family event or a big occasion once in a while is absolutely fine and we should not be demonising these people. As a teacher, yeah, I feel like we're supposed to not be allowed to agree with that. You know what I mean?

5:08 So when I saw you write that down, I was like, yeah, go on, Dylan, because I agree. And there's a really important phrase there once in a while. Exactly. I do. I do think there is a line somewhere. I actually don't know what that line is. And I don't think we'd even be able to like objectively say this is the exact line where it's no longer OK. But we know that 62 week holidays in a year is too much. Exactly. Yeah, It was like, I can point to the extremities and be like, that's too much. I can also point to the family who otherwise wouldn't be able to go on holiday, right? Because because going in school holidays is unbelievably, stupidly expensive. And, and point to that example, they and they go for a week once a year in term time. And I can go, well, that's OK. Yeah. So clearly there's a line somewhere. But the problem is the line's very much been put down to it's just not OK at all, right? That's what it feels like.

5:51 And it and it's like, it's just so annoying because I, I feel like it's it's not, it wasn't our choice. A bunch of head teachers and teachers didn't sit down one day and go that bloody line. Let's move it down. I'm sick of I'm sick of kids having a good time every now and then sometimes. Let's put the line. No one to do it. That wasn't our choice. This this government policies from top down. It was in 2013 it was implemented. Yeah, it's, I was going to say it's been over 10 years now, isn't it? Because before that, schools had the, the, the ability to have a bit of discretion, right, In terms of they could, they could, a head teacher could approve or authorise like a certain absence or. Whatever. Yeah, they could do like a longer holiday and the teacher could head teacher could just say, yeah, sure, that's fine, but the head teachers literally can't do that anymore because then they'll be in trouble. They just can't do it. Yeah, but it just looks bad on us. It's like, then there is, there is the head teacher getting screamed out of the gate on the gate because they've had to. They've had to.

6:37 The head teacher gives out a finance. OK, OK, yeah, talk to a head teacher. My goodness me, I don't know anyone who wants to take money off a family. I don't know anyone who wants that genuinely. Yeah, It, it winds me up and I think I I put in there specifically more than just holiday because there again, there are people who are like, well, a week away in Tenerife in a, in a holiday park isn't enriching culturally. Firstly, I think that's quite snobby, honestly. Like that's my first thought there because I come from a less affluent background when I was younger. And for me, going away to a caravan park in Rhyl, OK, compared to someone maybe going to the Amazon for an ice expedition down the down the river, right. Oh, well, though Amazon's much more culture enriching. Of course, that's fine. Great. I'm never going to be able to do that. So for me, going to real to a caravan park, doesn't matter if you think it's not culture enriching or not, get off your high horse and let me go and have a holiday with my family. Get over yourself.

7:26 So I don't like that anyway. But even just like down to saying things like just like a family event every now and then a wedding. Oh, my uncle's getting married in Spain. Well, you can't go. Course you can. Oh my God, of course you can fly out on Wednesday, come back on Sunday. You missed 3 days of school. You went to your uncle's wedding. Let's be real for a second. I can catch you up on improper fractions. Yeah. Honestly, it's fine. Yeah, you could have been. You could have been ill as well for that. I know. Yeah. There's also a child who is off Wednesday to Friday because they're chicken box was a child who was off Wednesday to Friday. They went to Spain for uncle holiday. Yeah, don't care either. Monday I'll help you both can. We just pretend, let's just pretend the other one was also ill and then we don't care about it. Didn't bother us. The one that didn't bother us. But that's rubbish.

8:07 Hope you're right. Just pretend. Yeah, there are some people who are bothered by people being. Yeah, I suppose so. Funny enough, I was at a wedding the other day and the father of the bride gave a speech and it was a really, really lovely speech. And he was talking about his daughter when she was younger. And there was a part in it that made me think of like very much this conversation, right? Because he said he was reading out some like quote an embarrassing letter that he that she wrote to him when she was like 9 or something like that. It was really, really sweet. And it was about I think it was busted where it were local at the time and they were, they were just down in their area for like 1 day and they were doing like signing of CDs and stuff like that. And she was obsessed with them. I think it was busted and and she wrote this letter to her dad like a like a persuasive letter. But here's 10 reasons why I think that I should have the day of school and you should take me to this thing.

8:49 And when, when he was sort of reading this through, I was like thinking, reflecting on teaching and how everything we've just said, like, surely that's OK. Surely that is a no brainer. I was like, as a as a parent, as a teacher, I'm thinking, yeah, go and do that. That enrich this thing that means so much to you, this one day, please go and do it. And the fact that I, the part of my head was like, oh, no, that's really, really bad. That is the worst thing anyone could ever do because I've been indoctrinated into this mindset as I know it's not. No, no, it's not. That's what they like. This is so important to that kid. Yeah. 100 percent, 100% You'd never regret it, would you? No, you would never regret. It He finished his speech by saying, safe to say, we did go, yeah. Yeah, damn straight.

9:29 Yeah. And I'm, I'm, you know, you went to that wedding. A lot of like the groom's family stuff. There were teachers as well, right? They were teaching. The groom was. I can't imagine the grooms that they're going well, I've made the wrong decision. I've married into the wrong family. You need to be there all the time, no? One cares. Hope you've got a fine, Sir. Father-in-law. Yeah. Having having our children now, Right. Don't you just think to yourself, if there was something Rory was obsessed with and they were in town for one day and it was a Wednesday and he was supposed to be in school, I would not hesitate to let him have the day off and go and take him. Yeah, No brainer. Wouldn't hesitate. No brainer. And there's so many people that listen to this right now that would absolutely think, oh, that would get that cackles up. Yeah, that's fine. That's bad. We can disagree, honestly. Yeah, I don't care. Like this is the thing, I don't necessarily think people who would not do that, I don't think you're automatically a bad person whatsoever. It's just different people have different outlooks on education and stuff.

10:17 And it's like for them it's so important that you shouldn't miss a day. I just, I just disagree. I just think it's fine to not do that and then to then like for it to be like put on my desk after you got £80 fine for that day. Like, OK, I'll just lie and say what's I'll. OK, what now? What about if this thing that he loves is downtown, but it's one day and you and it's like 12 weeks in a row at that point? Does that make you think I asked for too? Much, Yeah. But then then I'd be saying to him, look, you can't, you can't have a once in a lifetime opportunity 12 times in three months, you know, like it'd be very easy. Like, yeah, yeah, there isn't, There's a, there's a false comparison there. It's every. Friday they're only here one time this week until next week. Is that right? OK son, we'll go once like, but you do need to go to school as well. You're not diminishing school.

10:57 I just think like, you know, I just think it's quite snobby sometimes. I really do. And I always cast my mind back to recently in school where the flow the family owns, an officer came into my classroom and said, this child won't be in today. They're going to Chessington. I know for a fact that child and his family never have the opportunity to do anything like this whatsoever. So my immediate thought in that situation was, oh, do you want me to be annoyed by this? Are you coming to tell me this? As if like, oh, they're going to Chessington? Because my gut instinct was, I'm so happy for him to be able to do that, right? And then the flow straight after said, isn't that great? And I was like, so glad I'm working with people like this who where it's just like, mate, you these kids, they, you know, it's a good thing.

11:38 And the snobbery, right? The snobbery thing, it runs really deep as well. I can think of another example of like a bit of the sort of dual system here of the snobbery, right. Imagine you've got that, that situation there and you've got this one kid who's out and there'll be some people like, for God's sake, should be in school. Why they do this in this draw a ridiculous. Oh, also, sorry, I've just come back to Steven. This child's also got to go. And they're not, they're not going to be in for the rest of the day because they've got a piano recital and they've actually got an exam. And in this private board, it's. Oh, fantastic. Get out of the bloody classroom. Don't do that. Yeah, well, they're both missing. They are both not in your class. And if you're saying that one's OK and this one's not OK, it does. It does kind of start to become, it's not brief. It's just this one day thing. Like yeah, there's lots of examples. If it's the one off and that was compare if overall it's good to attendance as well. Like if you're clearly not taking the Mickey, it's fine. And again, this the first three, you can tell what my train of thought was.

12:24 That's my next one. Attendance awards mean children are rewarded for coming into school when they're ill and can spread illness, and those with chronic conditions will always miss out. It's true, we've talked about this before. I feel like I can summarise my thoughts here on a bit like the fines. The attendance award isn't solving the problem right? It doesn't. It's not really doing anything like it. All it does is make the kids who usually it's out of their control. If we're talking like young primary school children, it's not really in their control as to whether they get to school on all times a 7 year old, right? Realistically is it? I'm sure, OK, some kids start walking to school at some point, whatever. But generally it's not. And all we're doing is being like, no, no, just in your face. You don't get this tree, you don't get this reward now everyone else does. Because your mum didn't get you up. Yeah.

13:08 So what? Yeah, Sorry. Is that, is that what that's, that's how we're going to treat this. Is it? We're going to make the kid feel bad about that. It doesn't make it just to me, it just screams like it's insane. Yeah. It's just not right. I just don't like it because it again, it does fast. You know, we had a comment on this. You have so many comments. It was so good to read through the comments. But we had a comment on there basically saying along the lines of my son was running a fever. He was really ill, genuinely really sick and and should not be in school, shouldn't be in school. And the school after the first day this child was off two or three days was ringing constantly saying well, your child's missed this, this and this today. It's really bad for them to miss this. How's he doing? Can he coming to school leave me alone? Like, are we suggesting there are no situations where children should not be in school? Because it seems to me that's what we're doing. It's not like an award for amazing writing. It's not the same.

13:59 It's not like an award for being really good at football. It's not the same. It's a false equivalence because there are literally points. Where you can point to not being in school was the best thing you should do. Yeah, for sure. And it's right for. And they don't then get the reward. Exactly. Oh, everyone stand except you, Mr Chronic Illness. Exactly that you can't control. And it's just complete potluck whether you had this condition or not. Yeah, you sit down. Everyone else 100% attendance. Well done. Yeah, it's horrendous. I don't want to make that good feel like that. Yeah, it's awful. And it comes down to that. It's like, I know why people do these things. Yeah, I really do. And again, there's lots of pressure on head teachers to run things like this from local councils, from big trusts, from the top down saying we need to drive up attendance because the government top down is saying we need to drive up attendance.

14:42 I just think this is the classic case. And I see there's so much in education where there's an easy option that's easy to implement and easy to do that costs nothing, that is detrimental as a whole. But it looks like we're doing something for me, attendance awards comes into this finding for absence comes into this very easy things to implement right, that don't really cost anything, but don't get to the root cause of can we solve this problem? Well, the way we should actually be solving these attendance problems and these this absence crisis is fundamental, deep rooted into our systems and, and years and years of cutting funding and just not getting the right things in place, that's much harder to do. So we just tend to ignore that and do this other thing. It's like, well, no, that doesn't work either. Yeah, and with attendance awards, a bit like the finding thing, there are still obviously fringe cases where it does work. You know, here I said, yeah, OK.

15:30 I'm sure the fines are a deterrent for some people. I'm sure the attendance awards genuinely do make a difference to some children in some situations. You need the end of the term. And as a kid, that maybe, yeah, maybe you're just, you're just being a bit annoying and you're and you're. Kind of. Bothered you don't want to go in, but you're thinking, you know what, actually, I'm only one. I'm only one day away from getting that perfect attendance and then I get this award thing for it. Fine, I'll just I'll, I'll suck it up and I'll go in. It might make it, it might do that. I'm sure it does to some impact, but everything else we've said overrides it. So I don't people to think we only have this like 1 closed mind. This is the only reality that exists and we we know that these things can maybe have a positive impact to some people in some way. It's just not worth it. In my opinion, absolutely. Yeah, I completely agree.

16:11 And imagine the kid next door to that kid who has horrendous anxiety about getting into school and knows that they are really anxious about going into school, but they're also now really anxious about not because they're going to miss their chance to win an iPad in the raffle. Why are we doing that to our kids? That kid doesn't need that. That's not helping their anxiety or their needs. That's not helping them get better. It's just adding another layer of anxiety. And the kid next to that literally just got the flu, right? You said like it's not even, it's not even a thing. It's just they were literally just ill and shouldn't even be in school. And they also now don't get it. And did the right thing by not going yeah and are technically being punished in my yeah exactly it's just insane all right next one primary school children do not need hours and hours of homework every single week I'll.

16:52 Throw this one back to you. What made you write that? What? What are your thoughts here? My thoughts on this one are excessive homework, and the reason I said don't need hours and hours is because I don't necessarily think that any school that has homework is is automatically bad. Of course, what I'm saying here is that especially with primary school children, it should be one of two things. If you have homework that's compulsory, it should be the fundamental basics to the point where some people don't even class reading as homework. I've had people before, I've had people before say our school don't do homework at all. The children are just expected to read. It's like it's not even labelled as homework. It's like this just comes as like par, this is just existing. You have to read. So I'm just going to label it as homework still, because I'm going to say homework is anything we want people to do as a school outside that's academic.

17:38 That's fair enough. So for me, I'd say reading and the fundamentals of maths. Like that's all I would say. Like if a school has homework, it should stop there. And that can be a total of half an hour to an hour a week maximum, like as that. That's like, expected, right? And I do think the other side of that. So that's my compulsory side. The other side is I don't think it's necessarily wrong either to suggest projects, to suggest optional ideas, optional extras where if you want to do something enriching with your child, like make a Roman shield because they're learning about Romans. Yeah. Or write a poem because you're learning about poems in English. Give them options where they can do it or they can't. It doesn't matter. No one is punished whatsoever. I personally don't think anyone should be punished at all, no matter whether you say it's compulsory or not. The homework, I don't like that, but it just comes from the from the idea of, you know, giving, giving a 7 year old 10 spellings they've got to learn every week.

18:28 Half an hour of times table practise, another half an hour of problem solving questions that I've given you loads of reading to do. Here are some spag questions to do at home as well. Adds up, adds up, adds up. And you've got to do the topic stuff as well. You've got to make your own issue. And that's that's also compulsory as well, right, to do that. Exactly that. So what I'm saying is there's a certain level that I think does benefit children and it's the basics being done really well. All I'm saying with this is I don't think you need lots to be a well-rounded person. I'd rather my primary school aged children outside of school at the weekend, go to the local museum, go for a walk in the woods, go and bake a cake with a nan. Do do do everything like that. That's how you get a well-rounded. Person, I'm glad you said that at the end because I was about to say why though. Why does it really matter?

19:10 Like what's what? Why is it bad that a kid might spend an hour a day doing? Not, but if you want to choose to do that, it's fine. I'm talking about compulsory stuff and stuff where parents who might want to try and do the right thing are like cool, well we've got to do this because the school have said this, we've got to do this. So we can't now do that. We can't now go to elevate and practise jumping that you want to do with your mates. We can't now go to Nan's and and watch that film you wanted to watch with your nan. We can't go to the cinema and watch that film because we've got to get this done. Oh my God, go and do the thing. Life is so short. Life is way too short. And I know for a fact when Rory's older, I'll be putting the basics at the forefront of my mind. But if it's an option between, you know, he wants to go and watch a football game or I'll be like hobby, we could stay home and learn what front step fabulous. It's not even close.

19:57 So when it comes to homework, I just think if, if we're doing, if we're doing 30 hours a week with 7 year olds. What's 35? Does your opinion change at all if like depending on, let's say Rory was really behind? Yeah, let's say he was really struggling academically. Would you then be thinking, oh actually I need to do more? Let me be really clear, I do not think it's bad to do extra and more outside of school. I I really want OK this is a really good point because I maybe I haven't been clear enough yet. I'm talking about compulsory school settings. OK, if you want to do extra, I think it could be my job to say cool, If you want to do extra, do this, this and this. If you want booster groups because you really want to help you a bit behind, do this, this and this. If you want to prepare for your external exams going into secondary school and you want to get a better score, here's all the stuff you can do.

20:40 I am not saying it's automatically bad. What I am saying is that as a school, we have a responsibility not to enforce hours and hours of extra work for everyone all of the time. It won't work for everyone. We have a tutoring business. We literally have a tutoring business where children might do one or two hours extra a week with us. Yep. It's not hours and hours and hours, but it is a boost and it's optional. And how many times have we said to someone it's they are enjoying themselves, this is great. Come along. They're they're finding it fine, but they're getting so much out of it. It's great for them. Nice one. And how many times have we said it's not working for them? Maybe this isn't something you should. Yeah, all the time. We have the real conversations. But even think about our homework, we have homework built into our choosing and it's fully 100% optional. Yeah, we have absolutely no.

21:23 Because people say, where do I hand it in? And we go, no, no, no, no, no. Look, this is just for you. Some people want it, some people don't. But we're never gonna make it out like you did all your homework. Here's a certificate. You're worse for not doing it. You're worse for, yeah, not doing it. You're better for doing homework. But it's optional. But it's optional. Yeah, we're just. You can't be hypocrite. What? You do it. Exactly that. Exactly. No, it's interesting. So yeah, yeah, no, it was just that sits with me and I'm, I'm glad I got the chance to really explain that because I'm not someone to say homework always, always bad. Terrible. Would you go as far as saying rather than drawing a line at like excessive, would you go as far as saying schools should, just shouldn't be saying homework? No, I wouldn't say school shouldn't be doing it. As in making it compulsory. Sorry, school shouldn't be saying anything compulsory after school. So it depends what you say by compulsory, because by definition, I'm basically saying there shouldn't be a thing that's compulsory because I'm saying you shouldn't be punished for not doing it.

22:13 Yeah. So like when we say compulsory, what we mean is, well, I can't come home and make you do it, but I'm going to maybe punish you for not doing it. Right. Exactly. I wouldn't want to do that. So I guess by definition you could say it's not. Compulsory, but I. Wouldn't be saying here's best practise of minimum, here's why, please do it. I'm never going to keep a kid in our lunchtime to catch up there. I'm just not going to do that. I don't agree with that. I don't think break times and lunchtime should be used for catch up for that kind of thing. I think the older you get, the more you can say we've got to start school for half an hour just to catch up on this because we need to get through this content. I think it becomes less obvious to me that it's always bad. But I do think for young children, I'm just like, what we doing? Yeah. You don't get enough play. Play is essential.

22:54 Yeah. And we're talking about unstructured play here. Like, never mind. I think play should have more of a room in the classroom. I'm not going to. Even when it doesn't. And it's your free time play. I'm not going to take that away from you. It's like gold dust. Yeah, I agree. I've always felt weird about that. I've always felt weird about taking away a kids lunchtime. And it meant I literally take away my lunchtime. Yeah, yeah, my lunchtime and their lunchtime, but mostly for them I'm like, yeah, because that's the like, that's ridiculous. Now they've then they've got what they've been learning all morning, take their lunchtime and then they got all afternoon as well and then going to be annoyed at them when they're not performing in the afternoon because I have had a break, right? Yeah. Doesn't make sense. It's just never ending cycle isn't. Yeah, right. Next one. Branded uniforms are unnecessarily expensive, especially for poor households with multiple children. They're just unnecessary.

23:35 Yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm really quite. I have quite a strong opinion on that. So what? What would you make a distinction between branded uniforms and uniforms in general? Because that was the only pushback some people had. I think they misunderstood maybe what I was saying. So where would you stand with branded uniform and just having a uniform? Yeah, I think uniform, I'm all, I'm all in for uniforms. I think there's lots of positives to just uniform in general, just children being uniformed and not having the choice that's come in with their Prada bag and Gucci slippers. You are, I obviously would be, which is what kind of, you know, we have a uniform policy like that obvious thing where it's like you just, you're just exacerbating class differences inside your classroom. Obviously uniform is good, make everyone equal. It's not about clothing. You're here to learn, right, But like the branded thing to me, I'm just like, it's just like it's unnecessary and it's unnecessary because it is so expensive.

24:17 It's so expensive to put that logo on to buy the to buy the uniform that the schools that you have to buy from one of these two places and it's got the it's got the logo on it. Oh, it's seven times more expensive than if you'd just gone to Asda George and bought it for 2 lbs. It's just nonsense to me. It's like, no, that's just it's ridiculous in in this day and age, like with the amount of people that are struggling with money, like what are we doing making them wear brand new uniforms? It's ridiculous. We've had a whole episode on this. Go back and listen to it. I'm sure we got to some sort of agreement that it was, it's mad to have branded uniforms, but at least is it Labour that's bringing it down to it's a minimum of three maximum, sorry, maximum 3 minimum. Yeah, we're. Gonna be in a minimum guys we're gonna help I. Don't have minimum one in my head. I don't know what I'm thinking, but yeah, like even, but even that I'm like, it's a good step, but honestly, just get.

24:59 Rid of it. Yeah, the the issue I have with branded uniform, it's really interesting because I don't know where about to go of it because I land on just not having branded uniform at all. But having branded uniform, like, it is nice, but people say, like, I felt so much pride with my secondary school when I wore my blazer with my school logo on it. I genuinely felt pride. And the tie was branded, like it was exactly what we needed. And the PE kit was branded. And you did feel like part of a community. And I liked it a lot. It like it did bring us together almost instantly. And the issue I have is when branded uniform, yeah, you can say to everyone, everyone needs branded uniform. And what we're saying here is for the poorest families, it just means unnecessary expense, right. So then some people might say, OK, branded uniform is a choice. Yeah, but you can get these options that aren't branded.

25:41 Well, that comes back to the problem you said exactly the class problem of or the, the richer families have the nice branded uniform and the poorer families stand out then because they've got, like you said, the one from George, from Asda or whatever it might be from the supermarket. So then like I fall on, OK, so let's not have anything branded. And it's like, OK, you. Lose out on the thing you just. Said exactly that I. Think there's a way in the middle? I think I said it maybe said something similar in the app, so we'll be talked about it. But you can still standardise it, but you just don't have to do it in this stupid expensive way, right? You can still have brand newforn where you as a school take the cost. You just give everyone AA50P badge thing that they have to iron on. You really love the iron on thing. Maybe because it, because it's, to me, it's like such an unbelievably cheap alternative that basically basically looks the same. You can have that identity, that brand, that school identity without saying to parents, you have to spend 7 times as much as if you got it from the store.

26:26 You, you just can do that. And I don't know why it's not more of a thing. I know why it's not a thing. Make cash money baby making money. It just to me it puts like a a cash entry on what should be a free for all education, state education just be free for everyone. But you're putting a barrier up of like £500 per kid and it's like, OK, I don't really have £500 spare so for the next two months my kids won't be able to any clubs. Hope you've got it next year as well. Because they grow up, they get bigger. Right, exactly. It's it's, you know, This is why I went on my list, Hayden, because I do strongly believe it's just too expensive. Next one The curriculum is bloated and we try to teach our youngest children too much too quickly.

27:08 Very true. Very, very, very true. I think particularly think about those youngest. They should be playing and exploring. Well, my next one I'll put, I'll put both together here is because I also said we strip our children of learning through play much too quickly. Oh, there we go. I think they're very linked. I really, I really do. But here's the thing. I saw that and then I really challenged myself because why did I think that? Yeah, we should learn through play more and therefore children have less to learn because it's a less bloated curriculum. And I thought, no, I need to challenge myself here because learning through play doesn't mean that the children learn less. And therefore it's fixed the bloated curriculum. What it means is they learn in a different way. Yeah, because because that just goes into narrative of plays and learning. So if we have more play, we can have a less bloated curriculum.

27:49 Yeah, you know what, You're right. They are separate points. They're still both valid, but they are separate. You're absolutely right. The curriculum being too bloated is it's just standalone, isn't it? We're just saying there is just too much content regardless of your method of doing it. There was just too much stuff. We teach kids too much stuff. Too much stuff from secondary is dripped down into primary school over the however long and it's just unreasonable now. Kids are learning things they just don't need to know yet. Do you know what it's always yet? Exactly people. What do you mean they don't need to know this? I'm not saying they don't need to know this. I'm saying they don't need to know it at 7. They can know it at 9:00. They can know it at 15. Honestly like there's so many more years they can pick up this thing. It doesn't need to be now. So my three things on that come down to the maths basics and I just think it's clear we rushed too far because talk to anyone, any child in year 4-5 and six, they'll be missing a chunk of like just fluency and just being good at manipulating number. They will because we would have spent too much time moving your mum.

28:40 Second one I think about is writing. Look at the state of writing when they get further onto the score because they have not nailed the basics. We too quickly moved them into getting in front of the verb in there, making sure this we're too concentrating on spag and and building like building ideas. We're just not spending enough time on it being coherent and making sense and writing for a perfect. Creative and fun and enjoyable. Exactly that. We're skipping all that, and then we wonder why it's clunky and and methodical at the top and doesn't read very well. Well, that's why. Because saying it. Exactly because we've, as we've done that. And then I think about the afternoon curriculum and I think about how much of primary school should be finding things out. Amazing stories, love of learning, wanting to find out more, teaching children how to research properly, how to find things out, how to look at stuff, save it for secondary school, all that other stuff, all the academic stuff of like building up. If you just have foster a real love for learning and get children interested in things, they will by definition grow into people who want to know more as they get older. I agree.

29:42 I do think that sometimes there's an irony and I feel like we're our own worst enemy sometimes because we can be like, yeah, the curriculum's so bloated. Look at this history curriculum as one page. Yeah, Is it is that bloated? Yeah, that to me looks extremely short. That's like, I always find that really funny to think of. I sort of check myself. I'm like, yeah, what's bloated is the scheme we brought into the history on top of the actually bloated maths and English curriculum, which is really. I think when people are talking about bloated curriculums, they actually do generally really mean maths and English. I think we even mean really mean maths and. English. I do. I do because I'd love to spend more time on, at a historical point, period of time. I'd love to do it in the morning, have a whole morning of doing it. And then, you know, literacy is built in, maths can be built into it. It's just, yeah, a more wholesome approach to learning would be so much beneficial for our children. I really do think that next one PPA for a teacher should be completely flexible and taken from home if desired if the work gets done.

30:36 I'm glad you that last bit was what I was about to say. So go on you, you jump in. Give me your thoughts on this. One, well, this again, this received a little bit of pushback from people who, you know, a couple of the things I read were very legitimate and a couple of things I thought maybe misunderstood what I said because my point here is not teachers should work less. My point here is that if PPA is flexible and can be taken from home, which by the way, I understand, especially in secondary school was really hard to do because of just the way that free periods are. It's not in one block always. So I get that. But it's more you, you are more able to do it in primary school. And if you can, you should. And what I'm saying here is if you have PPA on a Tuesday and you're not sat doing work from exactly 105 to exactly 320 like you might have been in school, I'm saying it's not the end of the world because I trust teachers to have autonomy over, do you know what I'm going to do today? I'm actually going to go and pick up my kid. I'm going to pick up my kid from school once a week because I have this freedom now and I'll do the work. When they go to bed or there's a gym class I want to get in, want to get in on.

31:34 It runs in the afternoon. It's going to be really quiet. I get a bit anxious when it's busy and I kind of go during busy times. I'm going to go for a gym class from half one to half two. It's OK because I'll do my work on Saturday or I'll stay up late. My point here is just giving that little bit of flexibility to teachers if you can, and importantly, if you as a teacher want to, I think you should. We should be striving to give that to to teachers. Is it a legitimate counter argument for someone to say, yeah, but what if they just now don't do it? They had the time to do it in school, They chose to do something else because we've given them that autonomy and then they don't do it at the weekend. And yeah, I just think that that could be true if you had PPA in school, because PPA, you know, you don't got an SRT member sat over your shoulder anyway. So like if it starts affecting your work, I mean, it's a conversation you should have because again, if you look at the STPCD, it says that teachers can do it.

32:21 It doesn't mean they should. It's not like a right, like schools can very much be in their right to say, sorry, we we're not going to do that. And that is, that is fine. You have to take down the chin. So I do think, you know, it's still built in now. Like if it's not working, then it's fine for your boss to say, right, we're going to do it from from school now. Doesn't mean they can direct you still, but they might just say for whatever reason, we want you to be in school. I had people say I disagree with this because I personally would want to have it in school. And I'm like, OK, well, you don't disagree with it though, because I literally said if you want like it's just you can still, you can still stay in school. And like that person said, it's the only time I get to talk to my team. We do some planning in that time together and we share planning. I'm like, yeah, great. Definitely, definitely do that. It's just a desire thing.

33:01 And I think, yeah, it just, it's a little thing to give back. And I really do think that more trust for teachers in general, like everything we've said today, has a positive effect. Are there some people that might take advantage of it? Yeah, probably. But I think as a whole it's a good thing. I don't know what do. You think honestly almost none though my counter argument to that counter argument I gave you is this. I don't think that exists. I think it's always fun to make up hypotheticals and when we make up hypotheticals in general in life, what we, what we don't do is actually talk about how likely they are. It's always good fun. I've got the most insane hypothetical that's going to ruin your arguments here, but no one's no one ever do it with teachers. I'm like, you're inherent. You are just inherently already doing extra outside of school and in your own time and not in your contracted hours.

33:44 The chances of someone doing that and also thinking, LOL, I'm going to take my PPA from home and I'm not even going to mark the books and I'm not going to plan any lessons of next week because that is going to be, well, funny. They're not going to do that. As if you were only doing that because you're in school. Yeah, Like, come on. It's like you were going to, you're already planning a bit at the weekend, Now you can just do more at the weekend because you decided like it's just not happening. I'm sorry. Yeah, People aren't doing that. And if they are, it's so few that it's like it's not worth getting rid of the system because two teachers have for some reason now not planned lessons. And then they probably get fired because they've not done that basics of their job like. It's going to. Except if we come around, it just seems really silly. I completely agree. Right. Next couple I'm going to band together. School staff go above and beyond directed time every single week just delivering the basics of the job.

34:26 No one should be guilt tripped into weekend fun runs and residentials just because. And another one I'm going to lump in with this. You don't need an after school meeting every week just for the sake of it. 1265 hours of directed time is a limit, not a target. Yeah, interesting point. The limit not a target because there's no teacher anywhere literally ever who's not going above the 1265. So even saying that, I'm like, it's kind of cool to hear. But from your first point that you made, teachers are already doing 1265 hours a year, whether they like to think it or not. So I'm just going to be, let me, let me clarify this then, because I think you're absolutely right when I say it's a, it's a limit, not a target. I mean on leadership to direct staff what to do when sure, because of what you said. So the reason, the reason I think that is because of what you said, 1265 isn't what we're all doing, OK? We, we already know and and leaders already know that I'm getting way more than that out of my staff because they're going above and beyond even just doing that planning their marking, etcetera.

35:27 So my point is, therefore leaders shouldn't be scared to be below that for the right of time. They shouldn't think to themselves, oh gosh, we've got a blank week in week 3 for our CPD after school. We have an hour. I need to find. No, you don't. No, you don't. It's OK every now and then to say no meeting this week. Thank you. Not even no meeting this week. Do this instead. Yeah, not even no meeting this week, but we'll do double the week after. No, no, no, no, no. Sometimes you can just say to your staff, no meeting this week. End of. That's the end of the conversation because because I know you're not going to be having a jolly. I know that all that's going to happen is when normally you'd go home at half 5 because you had a meeting that day. You're going to go home at half four. I still getting the marking the planning everything out of you, but for the sake of having a meeting, I didn't think, oh, I've got to meet this.

36:14 No, you don't. Teachers do more. Go back to the initial point all of the time. Did you find that? Did you did you actually ever come across anyone who genuinely only did directed time? Because there are some people out there who say just do directed time and I just think. How? No, but I, I did, I have genuinely mentioned the people that got close, like some people that work in like really, really cool schools that have really refined policies already on things like marking right, where they were genuinely able to come in and leave not too far around directed time. I've never met anyone that could actually come in at like 8:30 and leave at 3:45, whatever their particular thing was. But yeah, certainly some people that were like, I don't have to do anything at the weekend. I was always like, how how do you do that? Then I realised most of it was policy in that school genuinely, which I was.

36:58 It was good. Do you think that's a good thing? Because it does explicitly say in our contract 1265 directed and you have to do reasonable extra hours. So do you think it's fair to say if someone only does directed time, is it fair to say to them that they're not actually fulfilling their teacher contract? I mean, I based on the way it's written right now, you could have that discussion. I think so. But I think that's more down to the semantics of the fact that the way it's written, that's it. I don't think. I don't necessarily think it's fair in actual reality. But it also says teachers may be required to work additional hours to meet the needs of the job. Sure. And it's like, that's fine. It's like, well, I'm meeting the needs of the job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't have to as long as they are. That's the thing. Yeah. The conversation is so it's so relevant.

37:39 Like it's up to what's happening in that situation. You know what I mean? Like if they're actually meeting the needs, then it's fine. It's not a conversation. It's because when people come out saying we need to, to work to rule, just go to directed time, I always feel, I genuinely always feel slightly uncomfortable with that. Only in that I do think it's fair enough that someone can say, well, you do have to do a bit more than this directed time because it literally is in your contract that you've signed. So I'm like a bit more. But the issue comes where, like you said, we're trying to find a line, aren't we, with things like this where what is reasoning? Exactly because this person I'm glorifying right now, right? Let's say they don't. Let's say they get to school 8 and that's enough time for them to just prep and get that stuff ready for the day. And between 3:30 and 4:15 or even 4, let's say 4 every day, they managed to get them any mark and they need to get done. And they've whipped up some planning for next week as well, right?

38:22 Let's just say they're doing 8 or 4 and that's still an hour a day, roughly nearly or even even 45 minutes extra. But to me, I'm like every single day, 45 minutes overtime for free. That's that sounds very much like it fulfils this reasonable extra time to me, but we are all gasoline into thinking that that's. That is not at lunch time. Yeah, I bet they marked a lunch right. Exactly just like that. That to me, I'm like that should be the norm. That's such and that's not the norm. That's like the minimum. That's like the best case scenario. People doing this sort of stuff. I don't think anyone's turning up rocking up at 8:30 and leaving it at 3:45 every single day and doing absolutely zero in their breaks, their lunch and their weekends and their school holidays. It's not happening. It's actually. I genuinely would go as far as saying that is impossible to meet the absolute the basics of the job. You can't do it in direct.

39:04 Time. And that's essentially what I meant when I said the go above and beyond just doing the. Basics of the job. It's impossible. It's impossible. Yeah, I agree, written marking is mostly a complete waste of time. Direct verbal feedback and instant intervention work best. Yeah, mostly. It was a really important 1 then. I made sure I put. Mostly, if you didn't put mostly I would have. I would have actually had a bit of a disagreement because I think sometimes written marking is so. Do you think mostly? I think mostly, yeah. I do think mostly. I think most of the time the verbal option is just more effective and typically more instant as well. By definition, written feedback, there is a delay between the child doing the work and getting that feedback, by definition, because you've got to have time to write it down. Verbal feedback can be instant, and it typically is because it'd be kind of weird to give verbal feedback the three days later. By the way.

39:46 Yeah, yeah. You know, you said about this sense when we did that, but Aura scene class really good that. And, and if you think about like especially foundation subjects, sometimes you might get like a week between lessons. Yeah. And like it, it just is a bit odd to have that written feedback that that much later where it's so detached. And I think that's where it's important to do recapping and stuff and having discussions with the with with your class when you start the next lesson. But how much more powerful is it in the lesson to go? A few misconceptions here, guys. Right now, whilst we're in this lesson, let's look at them. Yeah, yeah. I agree. I saw a really interesting TikTok a few weeks ago from a an educator and they were just sharing what they do and in their job, they're a primary school teacher and they were saying their particular workflow is that on a like a Friday or something like that or the weekend they take home all of their books to mark and they do like what a massive mark a week. And I thought it was really, really interesting because my gut, my gut reaction to that was this is like the worst of both worlds completely.

40:40 Because I was like written marking is in most situations, as we're agreeing, it's not even the best form of feedback anyway. And it's definitely not the best form of feedback when it's been left for six days and you're, and you're doing 6 lessons at once. 5 lessons. Imagine you're marking 5 maths lessons. Honestly, after you've done it, I. Love how you went for six days. Yeah, I know. Literally. What I'm thinking 6 maths lessons in a week somehow. But like after the first of these five maths lessons. But you need to be back instantly before you do the whole point is this like this progression is the next one. Honestly after 5 maths lessons, going back and marking the first one is irrelevant. You might as well just not do it. Yeah, I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that. Maybe they've got a reason, but I can't imagine. I just can't imagine that because maths is especially maths is so intricately laid out most of the time and you have to know this before you know that. Yeah.

41:23 And like, what is the point of taking or crossing that then? Genuinely, that's fascinating. It's. Mad. This is probably my probably one of my most strongly held views. The role of a SENCO in a school should be a full time role and not balanced amongst 214 other jobs. That's interesting. Tell me why. I couldn't believe more strongly that the role of a SENCO in the modern education world, in school is by far the hardest role that there is because there's a rising need clearly in our next generation and there's less funding than ever before, external services and help for these Sencos. It's been decimated.

42:04 And what's even more insane, as you look at this happening, right? And you think this is crazy? God, I don't know how these Sencos are doing it. What, you've got a math set that you teach every morning and an English set, What? You only get 3 afternoons to do your Senco role? What are we doing? It's insane. How on earth can we think that we are providing children with what they need with special educational needs when the person coordinating it in the school is not even committing their full time role to it? It's outrageous and I've seen it before. Trust with three, 4-5 schools will have one SENCO. Yeah, so that does become their full time role, but they've got 5 schools. The it's so rare now to see I'm in, I'm in this school, you know, with all these children, and this person is the special educational needs coordinator.

42:57 And that is what they do. That is what they do, it's their specialism and they coordinate everything that's needed for these children. And there are points where as a Senco also, I need to get these external people in, I need to get these people in, I need to help with diagnosis and stuff. You can't do everything #1 Sencos are expected to do everything with less time in the role than ever before and less external help than ever before, and what they're end up getting is in the neck when they can't provide something. My child needs a one to one. Yeah, they do, they really do. That costs the school 26 grand. We've got 10 grand of funding. I can't find that 16,000 lbs. Yeah. Also, I've got to go and plan my maths for tomorrow. You should not be thinking about anything else.

43:39 Also, you're one of six parents in the same position right now. Yeah. So actually, it's a school we've got to find, you know, near 100 grand. Exactly. And what? Yeah. It's insane. I really, really strongly believe that we are just pretending that everything's OK. Yeah, we're just pretending. And people in the role know it's not OK Everyone in the system knows it's not OK. But still, for some reason it feels like we're just like, Nah. Yeah. And what do you mean? And so much just trickles down onto schools in terms of responsibility as well. I feel like the current the government at the moment are like, Oh yeah, yeah, we'll just we'll just get teachers diagnosing it. They. Can assess kids. They can assess it. They can just do that basically doing it anyway. They can just do it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

44:19 It's already unmanageable. So what? I don't even I already don't even have a Sango full time to even support me on this. And and they're better trained than me and even they are struggling with the amount of differing need. Like there are so many complexities to human beings. Yeah. I agree it's OK to say that you should be focusing your attention on one thing and be a specialist, especially when it comes to this role, which is vital for so many kids. It's not Willy nilly, it's not a thing that's nice to have. It's a thing every every single school should have. I really think that. Do you think the Senko can share any role? Do you think they could be like the family liaison officer as well? For sure. I think, I think there's, there's maybe some situations where that can happen. Yeah, right. But I just think that's where how we ended up where we are now.

44:59 Oh, well, the CENCO can do that as well, can't they? Or they can do that, Sure. They just take groups. Yeah. They can just do an intervention like, you know, half an hour and assembly every day. Oh yeah. What's that going to do? I think it needs to be ring fenced and I think that's why. And I think it just needs to be OK. Look for X amount of pupils and X amount of need that you might have. This person needs X amount of time and it should be way lower in terms of when that becomes a full time job because currently hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of children are getting a part time senco. And I don't know how you do this job guys, if you're listening to this and you're a senco, I could not have more respect for you and admire you and just think that you're doing an amazing job for A next generation with everything you can. I think you're amazing and I think you need more help and I hope you know I'm not trying to be patronising at all.

45:44 Give these people what they need because it means the kids get what they need. I agree. Couldn't I agree? Very passionate there, Dylan. Very passionate, right? Let's do a few more. Primary schools should be smartphone free places for children. Worst case, hand them into the office and pick them up at the end of the day. Could not agree more. That's like. That's my version of like you. No one convinced me that's not true. It is impossible like I've seen it first hand. Can I give you the only push back where I thought go on, that's true. Go on. The only one, go on. Smartphones are sometimes used to things like children with diabetes to track where they're on. They've got a smartphone in the school and I'll start. That to me is just different. Not what I'm saying. It's just not always saying if anyone that you're clutching at straws. If that's going OK, OK, that child can have their life saving device that happens to be called a smartphone as well. We're talking clearly about children using smartphones to go on social media.

46:41 That is what we are talking about. That is all realistically smartphones are used for. Someone else says oh but I need to ring my child. Give them a Nokia, give them a give them not a smart, give them a phone. Ring in the school. Don't give them a smartphone. Yeah. But even that I I respect parents that like, I'm just really anxious and my kids anxious and they've just started walking home. They're in Year 5 now. But they can pick up their smartphone at the end of the. Day that's fine yes that's true. That's absolutely there's loads of options right, but even if they're down to like they don't do any of these things. I just want my kids to have a phone and I want it to be in their bag. I don't trust anyone or anything. It has to be with them at all times. OK, don't give them a smartphone then, Just give them a phone. Go to Tesco, get a 10 LB Nokia brick and give them that and plum it in. Make sure there's loads a credit on it and that then it serves the purpose.

47:23 If you're arguing that's the purpose, you cannot come back to me of anything with that one. Anything else is like, no, you're just, you just want them to have a smartphone. Want an 800 LB iPhone? Actually, yeah. No, Yeah, I want to make a TikTok on the way out of school. Yeah, I want them to sneak off to the toilet because they can get their phone in their bag or they can get their phone from somewhere else in the school and they can make a video and breach every safeguarding policy ever. I I just think it's so objectively absolutely terrible and there are so many solutions. I cannot get my head around why it's not just solved. I cannot fathom why it wasn't just like someone said years ago, oh we just drop off smartphones in the school, we have these lockers for them all but something where these kids absolutely have 0 access all day and everyone didn't just go Oh yeah cool yeah let's do that then. No, they need them. No, they don't. Sometimes they use them in secondary school.

48:04 OK, no. No, but no, But no. The answer to children needing a smart device to access the curriculum is not. Well, if you have an iPhone, you get to do it. And if you don't? If you don't have an iPhone, you don't get to do it. Yeah. What? What planet are we living on? It doesn't matter that you sometimes use them. Everything you do in the school should be based on the fact of assumption that they don't have a smartphone. I agree on them. It's standardised, it's standard. Yeah. And then if we want to do anything that's on technology, the school has a technology. Exactly. We give it out, it's vetted, there's only stuff in there we want them to use and it's supervised. And if you don't have it, it is tough. Genuinely, it is at that point where it's like, oh, well, we haven't got the tech as a school, I'm sorry. Then it's not a solution. The solution isn't let the kids have their smartphones. Let's let 30 kids have it and that one kid doesn't have their smartphone because their family can't afford it.

48:47 Yeah. No, no, you can't take part. And they have the branded uniform and they've been off because I'm on think I'm in in the morning and they're not going to get the attendance award at the end. Imagine being that kid. Oh, it winds me up so much. I feel like so many of the decisions that are in school come from a place of people who aren't like seeing these children who just, I think sometimes they genuinely think they're helping. And I can't shake them enough to just say, Can you imagine that one child where the five things we talked about today all compound on them? Why would he want to come to school? It's just, it's just outrageous. And primary school back to primary school, it's just even worse. There is a difference that that it is just the worst thing that ever happened to kids that having having access to social media, genuinely, genuinely like having access to messenger messenger devices and social media on like on instant access in their pocket. It's honestly the worst thing that ever happened to 10 year olds and below.

49:36 It's just so bad in every way. And I think even here, I stopped short of saying, like, kids shouldn't have them because I was like, I stopped. I'm to my education in school and what we can control. Yeah. I can't control if a parent buys an iPhone or not. No, my goodness me, I'd add to this list. Don't get your kind of smartphone. Yeah, I can definitely say until secondary school, I can definitely say that I'd probably say 1314 thousand. You've had a choice. It's just insane and what it does to them. What it does to all of us. I know. Not completely. Thing was just adults with 44 brains, a kid developing. Yeah. It's just getting dopamine hits from scrolling and seeing stuff they shouldn't and being impressionable. It's scary, man. I really, I really don't like it. Well, I'm going to try and wish for the last couple.

50:17 OK, so let's try and do them nice and quickly. Excessive screen time alongside unsupervised free time on devices is bad, but blanketly calling for no screen time at all when it can have amazing benefits for children is a huge leap straight to you now. Yep, we've just spent a long time saying how it's disgusting and awful and social media and the algorithm on smartphones shouldn't happen. OK, Defend screen time then. Cool, because because algorithms and and social media does not equal screen, it's not the same you you might use as a device it. Happens on the screen. But it happens on a screen, but you can also use screens for really good things, which is why in schools, when it when they're saying it should also be standardised, the school should have have iPads or whatever it is with standardised technology where everyone gets access to this technology. They're not inherently bad.

51:01 In fact, they're not bad at all. They're actually really. Really. They're actually really good. Yeah. It's not even really neutral. Yeah. So when someone comes up to you, if a parent comes up to you and says, listen, my kids in this school, I don't need any screen time, though. Yeah. What genuinely would you say to them? I'd say to them, can we clarify what you mean by screen time? And they say I literally just don't want the state funded school that I have to send my child to to provide any learning that has to be done by a screen. I want there to be an option where there's no screens. Tough. Honestly, I don't know at that, but there's got to be a point where I'm like, but you're just wrong. We're educators for a reason. We went to university for three years to learn about this for a reason. You didn't. I'm sorry. Yeah, but do you think we really went to school and learnt about the benefits of screen time or not? No. Of course. I wouldn't be able to say that. Fine, but what I'm trying what I'd say is we know how education works better. I'm sorry and that sounds and we're. Not talking about glue to screens or. Yeah, I can.

51:45 I'll explain to them that we don't, they don't have any access to social media apps. They can't message other, they can't break any of our safeguarding policies or or breach. Literally anything they're doing maths or reading. Yeah, rather than picking up a pencil and a bit of paper, they're picking up a stylus and a thing. And they're using this app for for 10, for 10 minutes, like, and, and I'll happily walk you through all of them if you want to. You can see how these apps work. You can see what they do, but they're learning software. Here's all the proven data that shows they have a really, really positive impact on children. That's why we're using it. If you if, you know, we can't really opt out. It's like saying I don't want my kid to do geography. Sorry but this is part of the they're in the school so. Yeah, just cool. Creative subjects are being squeezed far too much in school in favour of cramming more traditional subjects, and this is bad for everyone. Easy 1 to do, really quick.

52:28 It goes back to the bloated argument of maths and English are too bloated, therefore creative subjects being squashed out. I think that's bad squash. I've been squashed all right. What made that? No, I don't. Know we we picked up on it, but yeah, I mean, I think that's just self-explanatory. I think if you're not doing any music anymore, or any drama or any art because you think you've got to do some cramming for some maths and English, check yourself. Children get the most out of school when parents and staff are on the same page. Back each other up and work together to provide solutions. Pretty separate I. Think that's really. Yeah, that's obviously true because it is a team. Let's push. Because we talked about this last week, let's just not towards it. This idea of I said if I had a disagreement with the school and it was me, my son's teacher and my son, in that moment, I would not undermine the school or the teacher. I think it just comes down to that. That's what I mean there.

53:13 Even if as a as a parent you have a problem and you don't agree with something, undermining the relationship between your child and the school they go to is the worst thing you can do. I agree because they are literally spending six hours a day potentially with this person who is teaching them how to be a human being. Like we really shouldn't be teaching our kids to undermine them. Exactly. So me and the teacher, we can work together to try and do something. Even if you disagree, you can professionally disagree. I can professionally disagree with you. We don't have to then like undermine each other. In front of the I do undermine you. That you do all the time and it is embarrassing. Yeah, that's what I'll continue to do. So last two, they're big ones, but let's just mention them quickly. I'm going to wrap it up. When school staff go on strike, it's because we care about the kids, not the opposite as some media outlets will have you think.

53:54 Literally I start this podcast. Yeah, Episode 1. What? I teach is going on strike what I. Teach is going on strike. Go back and listen to it and tell us how. Over why? Hello, I'm doing my podcast voice from the start of the podcast. Why do you think? Strike. Oh no, stop. We need to edit everything. Go on, explain what you mean really quick, because that's. When even, even if it comes down to teachers getting paid more, which is the ultimate version, people say, well, that's selfish. You just want more pay. Yeah, I do want more pay because otherwise we'll leave in droves. And if we leave in droves, I'm really qualified. More inexperienced staff will come in without qualified teachers who are not getting paid enough. Children will miss out on the long term because of that. So even down to the most selfish thing you can think about is what? I just want more pay that is all rooted in because I want retention to be better, because I want better teachers in front of the children, because I want a more balanced school where it's not just loaded with inexperienced staff who are pushing into this broken system that cheaper and therefore because I want the best for the kids. So you can, you know, ignore everything that's obviously about the kids in terms of literal funding for schools to help children the most, you know, egregious example of how horrible teachers are and selfish does feedback to though it's because we want the best.

55:00 Course it does. I think it's so obvious as well. Any example ever, It's like you pay more money for better skill work. That's it. It's just how it works. You pay more money for better skilled workers. That's it. So if you, if you are by definition, if you're saying let's keep defunding teachers and making the pay lower and lower and lower, you are just by definition saying the average skilled worker will just go down. That's just how it works. Just just on just to finish that off potentially is just to say I think we're not remotely focusing on retention enough and we're still focusing on recruitment. We get that, you know, 30 grand minimum as a starting thing, cool. But we're bleeding our most experienced and in and often best educators who need to be in the school to make the new teachers better. You have to have that mix.

55:41 It's just insane. Last one big one, but let's see what you think. Systemic cutting and underfunding of the education system and it's external services are at fault for almost everything bad we see in schools, and the managed decline is frightening when you look at how much more schools are expected to do now with less and less. What a lovely one to end on. Listen to any episode that we've ever done on this podcast and you'll know that generally the conclusion of to why something is not the way it should be or why it's wrong is because there's not enough money and money fixes everything. Oh baby. Just as though it starts from there. You can't pay people to do their jobs properly. Your jobs don't get done properly. Yeah, there's only so long you can get away with cutting, cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting before the the chickens come home to roost.

56:25 And ultimately lovely. And ultimately, who does it impact? Me, You. But ultimately, ultimately the kids. The kids lose out. Exactly. And that is, I hope you really get this. I really care about the next generation. I really care about the next generation. It's why I loved being a teacher and I loved helping them out. And it makes me annoyed to see that so many people saw that post and so many amazing teachers went, yeah, God, that's right. Absolutely true. Give it six months. Nothing change. Nothing will change. Of course it won't. How can we make it change? And this way, you're so negative. No, I'm realistic. And we need a voice together to say, what on earth are you doing, guys? Let's push back common sense I'm. Looking forward to in a week's time when you've thought of another 15 things and you do another post 50 more things and we'll do in our episode we'll talk about those well. Very quickly.

57:14 You mentioned at the top because I know you wanted to talk about class sizes. Yeah, It's just another thing, isn't it? Yeah. Class. Why do we think 32 children in the room is going to be a good thing? I know. That I've asked, go on your next list and you give me some credit. I never won really quick Tasmania, just we didn't talk about Tasmania at all, just the fact that diminishing role of TA in the classroom despite them being essential. Yeah, it used to be that. Used to be the TA in every single classroom. Do you know we'll get to that Part 2, aren't we? We have to see a Part 2 of this. More than at the start, yeah. Yeah. For this little cheeky hook for the next one. Cheeky, cheeky outro. It's all hooks here, that's what we do. Do you know what they can do if they love this episode though? It'll really help us go on Eve's a review where we get your podcast, Share it with someone. Sharing is the big one that helps us massively. So please, please, please do that. Join our WhatsApp community down below for priority access to asking us questions. I enjoyed that.

57:55 I like having that talk. I hope you'll agree, Hayden. Anything safe? We're going just. Adding to what you said, sharing is caring. Spread the love and we'll see you next time when we talk about more stuff like this. Bye. What sign off?