Ep 117: We Are Quitting Teaching - Here's Why

0:00 Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Teach Sleep. Repeat. My name is. Dylan and my name's Hayden. And it is extra. I don't know where you are in the country right now, but where we are, it is extremely hot. I am struggling to function as a human being. I am thirsty at the best of times. I'm actually really regretting the fact that I don't have a drink right now in front of me because I don't think I'm going to last the whole time. So whenever there's a Jingle coming up, I'll be off to get a drink because it is so hot in general. And I feel like the most British thing in the world is to talk about the weather and also moan about the weather because all of the year saying how cold and miserable they are. I wish we were just somewhere where it was nice. It's finally nice. And I don't like you, Hayden, but I'm struggling to function as a human being. Yeah, the the thing that on top of this, right on top of all this, because obviously very British, very British must know about this as well, is I can't believe how many of us, including me, are allergic to the Earth. Like, I don't, I don't understand why I can, why I wake up in the summer.

0:50 Yeah, I've lived like, yes, come on, 8 months of it's being cold. It's been so great. Finally got some heat. Oh, I'm allergic to the air. Like what? Why? Hay fever? Hay fever? Yeah, Like, why? Why? My eyes itching? Come on. We've evolved to this. What's happening? It's a joke. It's so true. I don't, I don't get hay fever luckily, but for the first time in what I feel like is my life, because I don't know, I was sneezy and had a tickly nose and I felt like I felt like it was what hay fever was last week when I was in school and I thought don't start now. I don't want to be allergic to the. Grass. One of us, one of us. It's just this happened though, because I definitely what I definitely did not have hay fever for a huge portion of my life. That was not a thing I experienced and I got older insane.

1:35 And yeah, anyway, other than, you know, so yeah, heat and hay fever have a little moan. Well, it like, but like swerving this round as we always do. It's like I made this to do at schools because this is a school bucket. Of course, is just the heat and teaching, right? Because I feel like we kind of got we got to the end of the week before the heat kind of kicked in really. And I'm dreading if it stays until next week as we released this podcast because teaching in a classroom of 32 children where there is barely enough room to actually move, never mind actually, you know, have our own space around us during what is essentially a heat wave, is probably one of the worst experiences that you can have in a profession. Yeah, yeah. And I tell you what, Dylan, you've actually missed out on just a little bit of icing on this cake, right? Because you've not actually taught you since, and I don't think I need to explain why.

2:24 The older you get, the more likely it is to be worth when you're in the room in the heated room. After playing football for an hour. On the playground, yeah, yeah, there's, there is something about you see you get hardened to it. Teachers do come up when at the end of the year, a day in Year 6 and a hot day and they go, whoa, they walk in, they have to get acclimatised. They normally sort of wear some sort of special equipment for 10 minutes just to get used to it. You know, I've got a theory about this. Well, my theory is that's why you're in year 6. It's so that you don't feel embarrassed that it's actually you that's causing that it is you. Really. You're saying that Mister Sweat is saying that? What what I love is at school, Hayden and I tend to on a Tuesday, I think it's a Tuesday for whatever reason, we're PP as and stuff. We tend to have lunch together in my room because we don't see each other really in school and we don't get all the time.

3:10 And every Tuesday, one of our my lovely colleagues who's a HRDA who is teaching that afternoon will come around towards the end of lunch just to like, you know, get the books out ready to do that their lessons in the afternoon. And every single time she comes in and she says, oh, it's the meat club. Yeah, I knew you were going to say that because literally this week we didn't do it. She came in and she said, oh, and you know what? You know what? I was there, but you weren't. And she went, oh, it doesn't smell of meat this week, so it's me. It's the meat, man. Can we just clarify because this could sound right. The reason that it's called meat club is because we eat. Our lunch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not just a sandwich sacks. Of meat and saying what's weird is I was eating my normal lunch and she didn't. She said it in the smell of the packet meat club.

3:51 Clearly I get packeting meaty, stinky meat for lunch. Oh, gosh. But you were saying how Teacher Tat was mentioning. Yeah, it was AC or something. Yeah, I think, I think it was maybe yesterday when we were recording this. It was a question it was basically clearly geared towards like, what does your school do about the heat? Because one of the questions was about air conditioning, something to do with air conditioning. And I literally remember thinking about. Oh yeah, this is clearly to do with the fact that schools don't have air conditioning and it's horrendous in the proper heat. Is is awful. Like I can I can only say you need to experience being in that room. And do you know what? Everyone was at school at some point in their life. I remember being in secondary school especially and Oh my goodness me, if it was a hot day, everyone like ran around and played at break time and stuff.

4:32 And you're in that perfect age of just like that room must have been a hot like horrendous. There's no way. How come my teachers have taught a good lesson like that? Can't be enjoyable. And they'd still say you cannot take your blazer off. No, insane. Oh my God, yeah. I did a whole thing about that on social media. And and I'm, I'm, I'm amazed at how many people still have that view of no, it's it's right. It's the right thing to do because it's smart. Even when it's like 5% of people. I just can't fathom even that amount of people thinking that it's OK to make a child really, really hot because you have to make a jumper. Because otherwise how will I have the Latin phrase on your chest that will make you feel part? Of the big group what on? Earth are you? Talking about the, the problem is in schools with like going back to just it being horribly hot and why, why it's just, it has seemingly always been like this. It's because air conditioning is so expensive and because I remember speaking to a head teacher once I I worked at a school years and years ago, I only worked there for one year. And in terms of like heat, it was the worst experience I've ever had in my life.

5:26 I I cannot. Wasn't that a brand new? Build it was a brand new. This is what like blows my mind. It was a brand new school. And I'm not saying that. Oh yeah, I went in there a couple of days. I'm talking like literally the the year it was built like brand, brand new. I was the first person ever in that classroom facing the sun on the side of the building. And it was like to the point where I'm like, I actually, I, maybe I'm exaggerating here. I reckon it was like over the like levels where you would ethically be allowed to have human beings in there. Wow. But I honestly thought that I was like you. Were like a dog in the supermarket who's been left in the car. Yeah, literally that was me and all of the kids in my class. I was like, this can't be allowed. Like you can't. How can this be? There must be a a cap where at some point it's like, Oh no, that's like legally not allowed. You can't have kids in a room that's just hot.

6:07 Yeah, that's what it felt like. And I said, what to the head teachers? Why don't we have? Because what they didn't do on purpose, they're not like, yeah, got ya. Of course. I was like, why don't we have air conditioning? And they sort of looked at me and they were like, do you really need to answer that question? Like what? We don't even have necessities. In school, we don't have a chair in the classroom. Yeah, I don't have a chair. Like, why do you think I was like, Oh yeah, it's money, isn't it? It's like, yeah, it costs way too much. We just cannot. Afford to and how many days of the year realistically? That's what he followed it up with. He was like and realistically like we'll have what 10 heat WAVY kind of days in this year? We'll have a bunch of like fairly hot days that are manageable. I was like, Oh yeah, but it's rubbish though, isn't it? Can I, can I ask you a question linked to this? Because you get children when you have days like this and they've been in the field and it's hot and they come down and they're sweating and they've been enjoying themselves on the field.

6:50 And they're 789 years old, OK. And they don't really have the forward thinking, not maliciously, but they're just enjoying themselves to think, oh, this is the time when I can go to the toilet and fill up my drink and things like that. And break time finishes or lunchtime finishes. They come into your classroom and 15 of them want to go to the toilet and 25 of them want to drink. Yeah. What's what's your gut instincts on that in general when that happens? I I let it go a long time ago, this, this whole thing like I used to, I used to think I had to care about that. I used to be like, Oh, the powers that be. If I if I am not teaching, if they if they catch me not teaching for three minutes of this 2 1/2 hour afternoon for some reason that we do have kids now, they'll be they won't like it. And now I'm, I'm just the opinion of their, their kids, they are, they've had a, they've had their lunch break their hearts.

7:35 Like you said, they're thirsty. Just let them go to the toilet and have a drink and then just start the afternoon. Just let it go. You can actually just not get annoyed at it at all. I realise it's a decision. I just don't get annoyed about it. Now I'm like, yeah, OK. They say, yeah, go, just go now. Just go slowly out. I don't care. We'll just die in a couple of minutes. It's literally fine. And what do you actually gain from being annoyed by it anyway? Like. And again, you're absolutely right. The only reason I've ever, ever, ever, ever been annoyed at that is because I feel like I've been indoctrinated to be told I need to have every single minute on learning. And actually, whenever I just actually think about what my inside thoughts are about a child saying, can I go to the toilet? And by the way, I'm not going to lie, I don't know. This will get me into trouble with other people who say this is right or wrong. If a kid in a lesson says can I go to the toilet, I just say yes, because they just need to go to the toilet.

8:18 I'm not, I'm not there to train their bladder. Like, yeah, I know what? Oh, the teacher can't go to the toilet. Yeah, I'm an adult. There's, there's a different set of rules for me. There's that doesn't automatically means you can't. And I just think there's, I've started to teach my children and I've said to them, and I really trust them because we've built this up over the whole year now where I'm saying to them, if you're desperate to go to the toilet, of course you can. If you can wait until you've done a few more questions because you don't really need to go right now and there's a difference, then maybe could you get these questions done for me? And I tell you what, 90% of the time the children say, oh, yeah, I'll do these questions because they've, they've learned that they know they're allowed to go eventually. It's not a kind of strict, Oh my gosh, if I can go, I'm going to go right now. It's just if they're desperate, they can, they know they can go. And if they're not, and if there's one person who takes the mic a little bit about the fact that, oh, they're allowed to go to the loo for a bit, do you know what? I'd rather that one person take liberties. But the six other kids who need the toilet, who aren't sat there desperate, not being able to do good work because they really need to go to the loo.

9:11 That's a good point. I was about to come back at you and say there'll be the people online and say oh, wokey teacher doesn't have any discipline and won't, won't let's the kids roll the roof. Discipline, by the way, for wanting a we. I know. Yeah, yeah. And, and I actually think that what you said is a really good point. And we should definitely like, let's just let's make that a bigger point. Like we've spoke about it so many times as a podcast with so many different contexts. We shouldn't take away liberties because a small percentage of people are abusing them like we we'd like. There's so many elements of life. I won't go into too much detail where that is true. And that's absolutely true with the toilet. Just let me go to the toilet. And there's another aspect of this where it's like, oh, that kids taking advantage, they just want to get out of the classroom. OK, well, clearly they need to get out of the classroom. Let them have a what do you mean?

9:51 Like, if you go on the one-size-fits-all model, you do tend to, like, shoehorn yourself into this way of thinking of there is only there is one rule, and it's for everyone, and it can't possibly be broken. And then you remember that we're all actually quite different. Yeah. And do you know what? There might just be a kid who genuinely needs 3 minutes out of your lesson every time, and the other kids don't need it, and that's fine. You can't then say, oh, you're now naughty for it. Yeah. Like, I'm not. I'm not going to pretend that there's absolutely 0% chance that someone actually genuinely, for no good reason takes like takes advantage of it. I'm sure that happens. But like you said, if you actually have a good system in your classroom, it is genuinely very, very, very rare. So rare that it's not even a worry that enters my head.

10:32 And I, yeah, it just, it, it does make me sad inside a little bit because again, different, different children will come to you and have different experiences from different teachers, whether it's in the same year group, previous year groups, previous schools, even at the being in where a child will say, oh, I'm not allowed to go to the toilet in this situation or in that situation. I was told no for this or that. And whatever situation previously that's been in, even sometimes outside of school. Yeah, I just think to myself, do you know what I what I can control in my classroom here is that I'm OK with you going to the toilet. And if you need a drink, I'm OK if you're having a drink because it's just water at the end of the day. And then if, if it's the fifth time in a row in a 30 minute period, do you know what I'm going to do as professional, start to wonder what's going on and go and have a chat with you and see if I can get to the bottom of it.

11:15 But it's a blanket rule so often, although maybe nice and easy to kind of put out there, it's easy to say no to everyone all the time, isn't it? Is it, is it realistic? Is it helpful? Is it nice for your kids or wokey? Wokey. Please let them go to the loot. If that's woke. I'm woke. Yeah, Christ call me woke like people go to. The toilet. Because you know what? I think you are. If you don't, I won't say it. You're filling that back. Filling that back. You could be that. No, I won't say. Because this podcast will get cancelled. Do you know what, Dylan? You might be surprised to know that there is one exception to this rule for me. There is one time where I where I genuinely quite often say no. And that is when they ask to go to the toilet 5 seconds before I'm about to dismiss them from a time lunchtime. And I'm like, guys, if you let me finish my sentence, I'm about to say you can go.

11:56 Like there's honestly, you're, you're taking longer to ask me to go toilet and I would have just finished the lesson and it happens a lot. And I finally worked out why. I don't know why it took me so long 'cause it's quite simple. I finally worked out why there was such a phenomenon of people asked me to go to the toilet in the last two minutes of the lesson. And I was like, what's going? Why did this always seem to happen is because they don't waste their break time. They want to go to the toilet so they can do that bit not in their break time because you know what just a reminder of everyone, even though we say why didn't you go on your break time? You just had break. Kids don't want to waste their break time going for a wee. They want to have fun. Break time for them is playing football or running around or playing and. They don't get on whatever. And I do think this conversation, by the way, I do think it's a very different conversation. As they move up to secondary school, there'll be lots of secondary school teachers listening to this guy.

12:38 Well, yeah, my kids go to the toilet for a vape break. Do you know what I mean? Like very, very, very, very, very different. We're talking about 8 year olds. We come from the angle of an 8 year old where 99% of the time they just want to go to the loo and it's fine. And so, yeah, I think that's a completely different conversation, like you're saying. But again, you're right. You use your break. I'm an adult and I use my break to go to the toilet. And you know, we should be saying to the children, if you can wait until break time. That's how we function in society. Usually is if you're watching a film, you went into the intermission, you might need the toilet for a bit. It's OK to need to go to the toilet and not immediately be gratified. Yeah. But what I'm saying is just in general, if they can, why? Why am I inventing the rule that they can't? It's not like it's a show where the show is carrying on. We can't miss much. I'm in a classroom where you can go. So do you know what? Can you hold it?

13:19 No, I'm desperate. Off you go. Yeah, and is that naughty? No. God, just get over it. Exactly. Anyway, that ended up but crazy chat there. The other thing we're gonna catch up about? Is this is the time of the year we're past the May 31st deadline where you put your letters of resignation in. And I'm pretty sure by now if someone had decided that they were going to stop teaching, I mean, we're a few weeks in by now. You've heard about it so well, We. Literally had didn't we at our school, the like the teacher sheet come around this week the teacher did. So everyone gets to find out our school, I don't know if it's the same for you guys. Everyone's found out this week. Maybe your teacher leaves it a bit longer because they're still trying to figure out. But we found out where all the teachers and Tas are going to be next year, and it's big, isn't it? People saying I'm officially in this year group or that year group, yeah. And I know a lot of people will be listening to this and think, I wonder what guys there, 'cause you're in Year 6, obviously. Yeah, been in year 6 for five years now. You've been in year 4 for probably quite a long time. For a long.

14:10 Time. And I know you like to tell me that you're in six and I'm in four. Yeah, superior dichotomy there. So where are you next year? Funnily enough, I wasn't on Nasheet. And you? Me. Neither, and you weren't. Either. And I did notice that and I did think what on earth has happened? So what's happening, Aiden? Well guys, we've got quite a big announcement to make and we're making it very casually in the middle of this episode. But didn't I have quit teaching? We have quit. Teaching, I mean, I think my heart's going wrong. No, no, it's a, it's a big thing, isn't it? Because we've talked about it a lot. We've talked about quitting teaching a lot. We talked about the pros and cons and I don't know, I've not done the title to this episode yet, but you may won't have clicked it thinking, oh, I kind of already got a hint of what's going on. Yeah, maybe. So less of a less of a Cliff hanger for you maybe than for us. But yeah, listen, we are not going to be a an official weekly classroom teacher anymore from next year. We've put our notice in, and I think we're going to dive into now a little chat about it.

15:06 So there'll be a lot of people out there. And we've got a lot of messages from people in general saying, guys, keep fighting the good fight. You know, what you're saying is really important for teachers. You're doing the right thing. We need more teachers like you. Well, you haven't. Yeah. Because I'll tell you what, I finally came to that message with the guy with the Nigel Farage picture on his his profile picture that said quit then I was like, well, all right then. So. So let's, let's be real, let's just rewind for a second because we've done a lot of a lot of episodes on weekly episodes now for nearly like a year, but missed anything. Yeah, we're not Mr. Not Mr B and. Obviously we put our resignation letter in before the deadline, so a few weeks ago now, but we've known for quite a few months I think that we were 99% going to do it again. We had conversations with our head teacher.

15:46 Nothing was a shock. It's a long term decision. So what? Hey there. I want you to explain because I think there's going to be a lot of overlap between us why we have decided to quit teaching. It's a big. Question Bill, it's a big question and I, and I don't want to do it a disservice with, with one answer. There's going to be lots of prongs to this. OK, But do you know what? If I'm going like properly, just right at the core of this, I just, I just feel like I, I'm wasting too much time. I, I, I just, I waste so much of my time doing things that I just don't think. And to the point where I'm so arrogant about it. I know it's just not impacting the kids. It's not impacting me as a teacher. I'm just wasting my time constantly. I'm sick of it.

16:30 We've talked. A lot about this exact thing and we've done what I think and I hope and I know from messages we've got is it's helped people a lot to kind of get to the bottom of what they can cut out of the job, right. And I know you and I have cut out a lot of things from the job which may rub people up the wrong way, may make certain people think that we're not in it properly, etcetera. But we back ourselves to know we're doing the right thing for the kids all the time. We've cut all that back and you're and it sounds like you still think we do too much rubbish. It is a bit rubbish. Or is it that you personally just don't want to do it anymore and that you think it's acceptable? Like, you know, is it, is it just part of the job and you've just got to the point where you don't want to do it anymore? Or is there still things in this system now it's teaching that you just think that is completely pointless and I'm still doing it a bit of everything.

17:13 So let me break that down. I think I'd like to think I follow my own advice in terms of cutting back on you do on gunk. We really don't need to do this job. There's a lot of superficial stuff that we convince ourselves we have to do and we really just don't have to do it. And we talk about it a lot in this podcast, But then there is just stuff that is baked into the job, right? That I also just hate doing, like marking. And that sounds silly. It's like you're a teacher. Of course you're marking. Get over it. Marking. It's like, yeah, OK, do you know what? 10 years ago, five years ago, even I could get over it. I was like, it's not that unenjoyable. But I'm at the point now where with marking and even down to like planning, like I think because I because I've always planned at home. And maybe this is this is the fault of my own, right? Because I really struggled to plan at schools. I have to just be in my own space. And I find I'm easier if I'm at home just planning my lessons.

17:56 I just don't want to do it anymore. I don't enjoy it. I love being with the kids, but I just don't want to do the stuff around it. And a lot of that stuff is actually reasonable, which has made me think, am I? Have I just been in this game too long? I don't know did that. That kind of ticked over for us, didn't it? I can talk from from my own experience here that I think I was good 234 years ago, probably around COVID time to be fair, of realising what was really impactful for the children and cutting back what I didn't want to do anymore. But this, there is certain parts of this job now where I can't sit here on this podcast and say, oh, don't do that. It's just a nonsense because it's probably helpful and there's probably parts of the job that are good in terms of that, you know, looking obviously looking at books and knowing children's gaps and things.

18:36 Yeah, that is helpful, isn't it? Like, that is the extra mile you want to go to replanning things to be more in line with new curriculums and stuff. That is obviously a good thing that we need to do. And I, I can't sit here and say we shouldn't do that. But what I can sit here and say is I don't want to spend my time doing it. Yeah. I don't want to do. It and if it was just a case of turning up to teach the children and and almost having that freedom of 20-30 years ago, you know, pre curriculum, even that people talk about that freedom people used to have, I think it would be a 10 out of 10 job. But there's just too much stuff that I'm not even now at this point saying is completely pointless. What I'm saying is I simply don't want to spend my time doing it. Mind the compounding of stuff that I should reasonably just be doing that I don't really enjoy doing anymore. Like the stuff that goes around the actual, you know, the good bit with the kids.

19:21 Plus genuinely all of the pressure of all of that extra stuff that we're constantly trying to help you guys like get rid of that you can actually justifiably get rid of. There still exists though. There's a pressure. It's not like you get to say no and then no one ever talks about it again. All of that stuff still exists and you still get people looking down their noses at you because you're not doing these things. They're going so above and beyond and staying till 6:00 every night and do it's like, OK, look, you're still like, it still makes me feel a certain way even when I choose not to do them. And I think the kind of combination of that, whatever that line is in my head, something's changed over the last year or so where I was like, I just don't think, I don't think the the pros outweigh the cons anymore to me, despite there still being the thing inside of it, which is like the thing I literally love doing the most in the world, which is teaching kids. Which is why this whole conversation feels so hard because I feel like a hypocrite.

20:07 I genuinely feel like a bit of a hypocrite. Like sitting here saying all this, but I'm trying to justify how I still love you all the kids, but I just can't justify as from the holistic view of my life. I just think now is the time for me to leave the classroom. Yeah. We've, we've had so many conversations about this. This has been a long time coming for us. We've we've probably spoken about when and how and if we can quit teaching. Like having long term plans, it is something to celebrate for us honestly, in terms of we were going to quit teaching when we got to the point where other things we wanted to do were at the point where it could sustain us. So it is a celebration in itself that we've managed to get to this point through other things. And we'll talk about that in more detail. But I, I want to just highlight what you said there about it is difficult as well, though, like my, my first thought here, you've, you've talked really nicely about why we've quit, why your main reason is, and we'll, we'll talk in more detail about other things.

20:54 But a big forefront of my mind for the big thing in the forefront of my mind for the last year or so even has been stopping me from confirming quitting is that I love teaching so much. I, I, I, I don't think ever I will replace that being a job that I love. And there's nothing better like being in front of the children, teaching them a maths lesson, which I think is really useful for them and will help them become more rounded. And then getting something And even for me, going in everyday and building these relationships with these really amazing young people and just getting to know them and helping them develop, whether it's maths, reading, English, science, finding their interest, knowing them really well, helping them, being a safe space for them, looking after them.

21:39 That is just the ultimate service job for me that I think hits every single box of what I want to do in my life. It and I find it so sad and I really, really wrestled with it that it's got to the point where this is baked into a system that I think is inherently broken and there are children falling through the gaps, whether it's the SEM register growing, not enough funding to actually give these kids what they need. Too much pressure being put on me as a as a teacher. And I don't mind saying that there's just too much pressure for me to deliver everything. It's really hard to do that. I've got to put in so much of my own extra time to get this job done. The pay is not kept up with inflation remotely. You're getting attacked from left, right and centre whenever you talk about these problems from stupid people online who've never been involved in education in their life. When everything is fundamentally rooted in me wanting to help the kids.

22:28 I really, really struggle. And I still struggle now, despite the fact we are quitting teaching with that decision. And that there's a part of me that feels a bit of guilt, I suppose, that I'm stepping away from that role where I can be that for the kids. Yeah. Because you know. What people are going to say, you know that, you know, the same people that do all the guilt tripping online and like try to convince teachers, gaslight teachers into thinking that they're only doing it for the kids and nothing else. They should be selfless martyrs and take whatever pay you're given and suck it up. You know, that kind of rhetoric. It's like you just know what's going to happen is, well, if you love that, if you love giving that to the kids so much, then you wouldn't quit. And you know, that's there. And I think that's where that guilt comes from because I get it as well. And on top of that, I, I don't know if you feel this, but I feel really anxious that I'm just wrong.

23:11 Like, because I do feel the same with you as you about how much I love being with the kids like it, it, it fulfils me. So like the the fullest amount is, is a strange feeling. And, and I do worry that even though I think the cons outweigh the pros from that being the pro, I do worry that come September or maybe even a year down the line, that if I didn't have any of that in my life, there is literally no like better alternative where, where it's kind of like, oh, you can have the best job in the world, but it's still just not as wholesome as those, those that bit of the job where you got to teach kids and it was even worth all of the rubbish on top. That's what I'm battling with in my head. I don't think I'm wrong because I want to give myself some credit. And I thought about, you know, we, we've both been thinking about this and toying with this idea for a long time. We nearly quit last year.

23:57 We nearly quit. I don't think we talked about this. We nearly quit three years ago. Yeah, three years ago before we went part time, we were either going to go part time and if that wasn't available, we were going to quit. We were going to take the plunge at that point. Going part time saved our career for a bit, I must say. But yeah, you're right. We've got to that point now where we just think, look, it's I think it's best for us. And what I don't want to do is get to 4550, look back and think that was the chance where we could have tried it and we're going to try it now. And OK, so coming back then to kind of almost a response to ourselves there talking if if we're that, you know, that engaged with the children, we love it so much, not even being these people who are getting annoyed at us now, but people who are in the education system saying, well, how can we keep you? One of the first questions, and I get asked this a lot now when we talk about potentially quitting in the past, Why don't you just stay and climb the ladder? Why don't you just, you know, why don't you stay in teaching then and, and move on to a different role, become a SENCO, become a head of year, become an assistant head, become a head teacher in the long term?

24:52 Is that viable? Like, why did you choose not to do that? It's it's. Just not desirable enough. It's simple as that, really. And I think it's the same for the stats speak for themselves. It's not desirable enough, you know, make that career desirable for me and, and I'd consider it. But at the end of the day, you know, you can't, you know, you can't offer me a, a tin of beans and a penny and say, oh, and we're going to double your workload. Do you want to come do this? No, of course I don't. But it's for the kids who will impact more kids. OK, well, I can go and impact, you know what? I can go and impact more kids honestly, out out of working out of school as well. Like, it's almost patronising to suggest the only possible way I could impact more my kids is becoming SLT at school. Oh, do you know what? No, that's not it. There's more ways to do that sort of thing, and that's one of the things I'd like to do when I leave teaching. But yeah, no, I don't want to work up a ladder.

25:32 Would you? Ever would you ever could you ever see yourself as being ahead of school? I. Consider this is going to sound really arrogant. That sounds like everything you say. I think I would probably enjoy being a head teacher. I don't think I'd enjoy any of the roles in between teaching and being a head teacher. I don't know people like who do you think you are? Go straight to the top. I think I would enjoy. I don't think maybe I don't think I can go straight to the top, but I think I'd enjoy the head teacher role. But but again, I see it as a burnout role. And you know what, Isn't that crazy that that is normal? That's normal conversation. If I talked to her, I spoke to someone recently, funnily enough, who said where I said, Oh, you know, maybe I would probably enjoy being a head teacher and they said, oh, no, don't do that. Do that when you're 50 and it's the last four years of your career. It's a burnout role.

26:15 Isn't that what do you mean? It's a burnout role? That shouldn't be a burnout role. That should be something where like, anyone who's got the skill set and passion to do that, we should be getting them people in that role and keep them there for a long time. Crazy. So, yeah, couldn't be a head teacher. I don't know about, I don't know about you. Like, what's your opinions on the whole thing, the whole scale, moving up the system, being a head teacher, all of it. I don't want to do it. We talked about it a million times. I don't want to do it. Is middle leadership worth it? No. You've got to be stuck in middle leadership for three, 4-5 years. I'm not going to do it. And I think this is the it's going to come back to, we're not even mentioning this yet. The thing that I'm most strongly passionate about is the my actual child. You know, we've got, I've got a child now. Rory is nearly two. He's only going to be in them preschool years for four years, right?

27:00 So we've got a couple years now where we can be more flexible. And this is a big part of it is this flexibility that we're going to have because teaching it sounds great. Oh, 13 weeks off a year, isn't it good? It's probably one of the least flexible jobs out there. You can't choose when your time off is. No, if we're always ill or something or, you know, you need to book something out or Rory's got a class that we're going to go to. There's there's no physical way I can book that time off. If it's in time time. It's not flexible at all. I some days and this, this was a kicker for me where I really kind of ticked over to be like I'm quitting Was there, there are some days in term time where I get up and get ready and leave before Rory's woken up and I get home and Rory's just had his bath and he's going down to bed.

27:40 And I, I just personally don't care. And you can come to me with your hustler mindset all you want or like getting out there and getting out pee and stuff. I, I don't even disagree. Like you do you, right? You do you. And there's a benefit to that, putting food on the table, etcetera. And that's a role of a person in a family that is really important. If there's a way for me to not have to do that and still support him and still, you know, be there for him financially. But I can also be there with him in person more whilst he's still not in school. And in those formative years that is worth more than anything to me. So even if it means that, OK, look, I've got rid of my, my teacher pension, everyone says so amazing. I don't have those 13 weeks off a year guaranteed anymore. I'm missing out on that part of the job, which I love, which is with the kids added onto that cons that we talked about the things we don't want to do in the job anymore, how much stress there is, how much burnout there is in term time, the cognitive load we can talk about.

28:29 The biggest thing for me is the time I lose with my son in term time. And do you know what I can do? I can just be more flexible with him. He's only little once that that was a big, big decider for me where I'm like, OK, I'm only ever going to be in that situation again ever again if I choose to be. And I'm not choosing at the minute and there's no flexibility there. So big thing for me is young family and I don't think, I don't think I'll ever look back and think wish I just wish I was in school longer. No, I'm going to look. Back and think I just wish I'd left and didn't do that part of marking which had no impact on 32 kids but meant I didn't get to have bath time with my son. Realistically I don't really care. Me personally, I'd rather go and have bath time with my son every day of the. Week it's real, it's raw and it's not something we probably would have been able to say a few years ago because we just we just you know even hearing about it you're just just not the same.

29:21 Is it you're in that situation now and it's real for you and you can't invalidate that like no one can say now you're wrong. What do you mean he's no that's just how you feel and that's completely acceptable and and I I feel the same. There's one more thing that I guess I want to mention as a as a as a reason for I just don't want to be in this job anymore and this one's a little bit not as much about me, I guess and my experience with it. It's just I, I just can't deal with the fact that the entire time I've worked in this job, it's just been underfunded constantly. I'm actually just like losing the will to live with how I just have to go to a workplace that's falling down and kids don't have any stuff. And like, and, and it's not, it's not for any fault of anyone in our school. It's because the powers that be don't fund it properly. And I'm just like, I can't, I can't do this anymore.

30:03 Like even down to, OK, let's bring it to a selfish level, even down to like, you know what your payback is? You start teaching, you know what your pay is going to be in six years because it's capped out. Well, it's done. It's like, OK, there's no, there's no money in it. It goes down every year, respectively. You speak to your teachers that you know on their way out when you start, and they're like, oh, yeah, I used to have a fantastic lifestyle in this profession, which is a profession, by the way, and which is essential for society, doesn't exist anymore, though. I can barely make ends meet now. Oh, OK. Right. So just that the lack of funding in schools and how it impacts me and how it impacts the kids and that therefore impacts just a wider profession and the experience of this job. I'm just not about it. And I'm, I'm bored of it. I'm sick of it. Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I, it's, it's another depressing fact where I live my life, my work life, having to ignore the fact that I can't cater to everyone. And it's so easy online.

30:51 And do you know what parents, parents of especially parents of children with Sen needs, I can't fathom what they have to go through to get to even get a slight modicum of what their child needs for supporting schools. But I can promise you, I can promise you right now that every single teacher or by the vast, vast majority of teachers want what's best for your children as well. And it is just so, so hard right now in school financially. And just like you're fighting for your child, and you should continue to fight for your child and you should continue to be the voice for that child, I promise you, teachers want the best for for your kids as well. We've got 32 of them. We've got 32 of people's worlds in front of us. And a bunch of them won't need any extra support.

31:33 And you know, you shouldn't need an EHCP to be meeting the needs of all the kids. No. OK, I know that. But an EHCP comes with funding, so it's really vital that kids who need that get that kind of support. And there are going to be then the children who aren't on the EHCP register in terms of getting that support, but are still on the special educational needs. There was news this week of it going up to 20% of children are special educational needs. We need to have inclusion 20 percent, 20%, one in five, which which sounds right and if anything low based on what I've seen in terms of being in a class of 30 children. That's six kids. I can. I can. Yeah, I think that's about, I suppose. When you put it like that, I wouldn't have, if you said guess the number, I would have probably would have got under 10%.

32:14 Yeah, yeah. But when you actually think about your class and maybe profile it in your head six hours, yes, it's about right. It's about right. I'd say for that kind of thing and, and those those that overlap there where they don't get the funding, but they need that extra support. Absolutely. Schools should be putting things in place for them them, but but how we don't have the adult support in classrooms anymore. Teaching assistants have been decimated. I'd I would love to know what percentage of teachers have the same teaching assistant all week. That used to be a thing when I was at school. It was a teacher and a teaching assistant and they were a team and they were together all week and they just taught everything together. It doesn't happen anymore. Have a teaching assistant X percent of the time and it just doesn't happen. These little tiny things that I've been eroded and picked away at and picked away at and picked away at. And I've been in this job for nearly a decade now. And I have seen how those small pickings away every single year have impacted now long the long term. And we are in a situation where we need radical change if we're going to keep up with the needs of our children. Yeah.

33:11 And it and it is just ultimately tips the job to a point where it's just undesirable for me now. That's it. You know, at the end of the day, I am a human being as well. We're not these selfless martyrs that everyone seems to want teachers to be. I am just a guy doing a job, in all honesty. And I've got my own life, I've got my own family, and I've got other aspirations that I want to achieve and things. And it's just a point where it's like it's tipped too far. If you know what, if they want to keep in education, they could honestly have made any more than 0% effort over the last 10 years because that's what's happened. That's what's happened in this country. It's not keeping teachers who love doing this job anymore. It's not keeping skilled teachers like I'm good at what I do. I've done it for 10 years. And again, very arrogant. I'm really running the theme of arrogance. I can think of the. Title now in the Daily Mail. Arrogant teacher leaves job and moans.

33:52 But I'm good at what I do, and you're good at what you do as well. We actually shouldn't be. You're good at what you do as well. Sorry, but we shouldn't be leaving this job like the system should be keeping us I think. A huge problem with the current, the way that education is structured and because of the erosion over time and because of what things have been put in place to try and solve the retention and recruitment crisis, etcetera, like the starting salaries being boosted up, the bursaries for training and things like that. It's, it's just a complete wrong approach. You're trying to funnel more people into a system that's completely broken. That's famously fixed his machines, doesn't it? If there's a machine in a factory that's broken, why don't we run more things into the front of it? More pressure on?

34:32 It of course. Not and, and I think I would say alongside, I mean, there's loads of jobs. I'm not going to sit here and say this is the one job on education which has been squeezed out because there were 15. But from my point of view and my experience of being a teacher, experienced classroom teachers are seen as completely dismissible because, you know, you go and look for a job. Now as a teacher, it used to say main pay raise to upper pay scale and maybe the school can make a decision based on how much experience they wanted. You look at jobs now, over half of them will just say M1 to M4 Ects needed because they're cheaper, because we can't afford. You basically we can't afford you can't afford experience to the point where like, yeah, it's not even valued anymore. So you get. To the point where you've been a teacher like ours for 10 years plus, that's where you get guilt tripped and thought, oh gosh, I need to be doing loads more jobs to make myself viable in this school now because I'm not going to be able to move anywhere else. And all of those are going to take me off UBS if I don't do all this extra stuff.

35:25 That's where academies and trusts and people from the top down can really exploit experienced stuff, overwork them, burn them out, squeeze them for as much as they can whilst they're selling in the school and then guess what, when they quit replacing with someone. Is 15 grand a month cheaper? Woohoo Yeah 15. Grand a month? Crikey, that's a lot of money to my 15. Grand a month? Hang on a minute, how much you been earning this job? I'm actually staying and teaching. Yeah, crikey. Do you know one thing I want to come back on as well? Because I think I can imagine it left thoughts of people's head is when you were talking about kind of like the the big why, right? Why you, why you're going to do it. And you were talking about your son and that flexibility. You want to have that time at home with him rather than being in this job. But there's no flexibility and you're going to miss out on stuff. It kind of gave the impression that you're going to quit teaching and just sit around at home and what are you like, live off the millions? Yeah, hang on a minute.

36:10 Because teaching is. So bloody lovely, so amazing. Yeah, you're. Going to just live off your your pension part 3231, however old you are. I don't know, but really let's just talk about then like what are we going to do? Like our plans, You know, first of all, like if you've been listening to this for a long time, you'll know, you'll know that we went part time because we have a tutoring company. So obviously we have another income stream there because that's the reason we went part time in the 1st place. So that is going to be helping keep us afloat massively. And we're going to continue to try and expand and grow that tutoring and and just put more of our thought and effort into that. But it's not anything we're going to do. Dylan, do you want to talk about some of our other? Yeah, yeah, I just. Want to clarify that tutoring thing as well, because I think a lot of people were listening, going well, I'm thinking of leaving teaching and I don't have anything to fall back on. And I wish I could.

36:50 And what I would say to you is this is not a Willy nilly quit that we we don't just thought on. Yeah, let's just quit. It's fine. We have meticulously over years put, you know, extra work into growing something to be able to be in this position. OK. And you might be in a position where you quit because you're going to find a different job. We're in a position where we've built something up. The tutoring from the numbers we've run and how we built it up should hopefully, you know, we can survive. Yeah. OK. So then it's a pay. Cut, but we can, of course. It's a pay cut because currently we're doing the tutoring and when we're teaching, but the time's going to be the pay off. But if we can cover our mortgages and survive, that's all good. So that's the first thing I say. If you're thinking of teaching, just think about what kind of side bits you can do just to boost yourself that you have control over because I think that's really, really powerful.

37:31 A huge thing for me, and this links back with the fact that I, I love teaching so much, is that I'm very passionate about this. I'm going to sign up to do some kind of supply. Now, we've talked about it a lot in terms of the benefits of signing up for a supply company when they take a certain percentage of the profits. I saw the stats again, it was, it was crazy. I'm going to say the stats from the average for secondary school, because this was the biggest gap was schools are on average paying about ��290.00 a day for for supply. But a teacher's average take as a supply teacher in a second in a secondary school was about 140 lbs. So it really was double. Yeah, it really was like a 50% cut. And there'll be lots of reasons why supply companies try and justify with it. I just think that's incredibly like for for the for the job of the person doing the day's teaching and the job of the person finding someone to do the day's teaching. They're not equal, are they?

38:20 There can't. Be there's got to be, there's got to be a better system there out there. So I don't. Know if I will sign up to a company, but what I will definitely do is get the enhanced DBS check get my name out there move schools and just say look, if you're looking for any kind of cover, maybe we could do it even together and just say a little bit hit hit one of us up or e-mail this and we'll have maybe we can do you know what I've been thinking about a lot and this is just ad Lib now on this podcast is thinking about just getting some other contacts for a list and instead of signing up and you know a company where they've got 1000 teachers and obviously they'll find someone if we can somehow find, you know a group of a group of 678 teachers who are quite local in our area and just say like what will come through US? I'm not going to take a cut. This is just a lot of us would.

39:01 If me and you. Can't do it. Would you just quickly send out a WhatsApp in the morning or something? But I, I think there's a way round where then I can actually get paid for my day's work that school is paying. I think cutting out that middleman, I get why that middleman exists at ease, mainly from the school's point of view. But, you know, I really want to do supply. Yeah, yeah. And. Ultimately, like I'm, I'm the same. Like we've obviously talked about doing supply before we ever agreed that was a good option because I just thought because I, I don't, I don't want to be out of the classroom. I will, I will miss the kids. I know it like I haven't done this job for 10 years and put up with some of the stuff that I hate for so long. We still will be. Teaching. Yeah, like. Realistically, and we said all this like, yeah, I'm going to try and be in the classroom still, but we are quitting. We are quitting classroom teaching and we are buying back that complete freedom of our time. Ultimately, if I don't want to do supply for a month, I'm not doing supply for a month. So that's the freedom I'm getting there to continue, you know, expanding our choosing company.

39:44 And do you know what, I'm not going to go into the details of it right now because even we, we don't really know exactly yet, but we are sticking around in education like we are not, we're not going to go off into a different industry here. Like that is not our plan. Our master plan here is very much to be working full time across our different ventures within education, whether it's Ed tech or curriculum stuff or supply or whatever it is like we're going to be staying in education. And of course, this podcast. That's a big one, you know. I think. I think. We should just take a minute to reflect on and people listening who've got this far. You know, I think probably the reason we're even in this position right now to be so confident we can quit teaching is because of this podcast is because of what we've built on social media is because of the, you know, the amazing people we've met throughout our whole journey of building this podcast up from literally nothing. And I know I say this a lot because, but it's because I'm really quite proud of it is you get a lot of people who do amazing work on social media, lots of kind of educational stuff that they post and they do unbelievable work and they build up a, a community around, you know, a day in the life of a teacher or these, these, you know, websites that are really cool to use, etcetera.

40:50 And then those people kind of get to that point and they think, well, what else can I do? And they'll start a podcast maybe, and, and they'll have a bunch of big followers maybe, and they'll, they'll just start their podcast up from there. That what I'm really proud of is that we started this podcast with nothing. We, we had nothing. We did, we did nothing and we just had this passion and desire and love of this job of teaching, which is still there, We still love this job so much. But this, this see people around us burnt out and completely ruined from this job. And I was just fed up with it. And I, I love how many people we have now reached through social media, through being passionate about education, through doing this podcast for 2 1/2 years at this point. And it is because of all of those people and the confidence we have and the love we get from you guys, which you know, you, you messaging us saying you helped me, you, you've made me have more time with my son.

41:38 You let me stand up to SLT when I knew they were wrong. You gave me the confidence to do something. And we know that we can continue to do that and, and expanding this podcast and continue because this podcast is going nowhere. Guys, we're going to carry on saying what we need to say for education. We're going to be in the classroom still. We're going to have your back. We're going to be the people who can speak out for teachers all the time and, and just be behind them and help them as much as possible. So we want to do more. I mean, again, like you said, Hayden, we haven't actually fully decided exactly, exactly the avenues we're going to go down. But there's going to be more series that we're going to do. There's going to be there's going to be extra things that we put in place to get content out there for you guys. I want to. Use my time to do realistically why I started this podcast with you.

42:18 And it was very much your passion. When we started this, you were the one that was like spearheading like, come on, let's do this podcast. And for me, I was like, OK, I need to find like a purpose for this as well. I'm not just going to do it winning the images for a laugh. Like it needs to be something to me as well. And to me, it was about being the voice. Like I was like, OK, I'll speak out then about things that maybe people feel awkward about. I'll speak out about the troubles and education that maybe people don't know about, and we'll try and reach as many people as possible. And I just want to be a voice for people in education, kind of like what you were saying. So for me, whatever we do with this podcast, any expansion that comes, it doesn't matter if I'm in the classroom one day a week, three days a week or five days a week or one day a month, honestly, because we're going to continue talking to teachers, continue talking to people working in education in general. And we're going to be that voice.

42:58 And with my free time that we're going to get from this, I'm going to be pushing that narrative out harder than ever before because I still, I'm not going away from education, neither are you. Like, we're still going to be here. We're just not going to be spending three days a week in the classroom. We'll be that voice and we'll and we'll make your voices very clear. So keep running to us. So to. To round this off, I guess just chat about why we're quitting, etcetera, because we'll have a little bit of something else in a second for the let's finish off this podcast. But basically what I want you to do now is people have listened to this, people have clicked on it. We're leaving teaching. Here's why, here's what we're doing. Someone out there now listening is thinking, wow, they've done it. They've quit teaching. I wonder if I should, what would you say to someone that they should be thinking and having a thought train of when coming to a conclusion whether they should continue teaching or stop?

43:48 What would you say to that person? Where's your line? I, I, I spoke earlier about my line. I, I, what I can't tell you is, is exactly the criteria at which point you have to say, Oh yes, now I'm quitting. It is totally subjective, completely up to you. Where's your line? There was a line for me where the cons outweigh the pros. My cons might be different to your cons. My pros might be different to your pros. But there was a point where that happened. Firstly, I also didn't do it immediately. I did spend a quite a lot of time I said and said, you know, we didn't talk about it much in this podcast because we kind of wanted to leave it until we've actually decided whether or not we're you're gonna do it and. We, we honestly basically did do all that discussion on the podcast pretty much just in a way where that's what a lot of people are talking about.

44:28 That is quite. Funny. Yeah, it moulded a lot. Of our opinions, didn't it? Our our minds have been like completely unfiltered out on this podcast. So you like, there's no fake in it. Everything we say is is on here. But yeah, find your line. That's my advice anyway. Find your line and really sit down and think about the pros and cons and the whole wider side of life as well Enough for Dylan. The huge part was one of the massive pros was he gets to spend time for his son who's only this age once. This could be a different conversation if it was in six years time and your son is just at school anyway. Like that might not be a bigger a bigger factor for you and it might change your whole opinion. So think about that for yourself. That'd be me. Did you want to add anything to that? I think. I think if I'm talking to someone who's thinking about quitting, what I would say to what I'd say to you is run the numbers. This is so important and a lot of people, again, kind of they don't live life blase because we're a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, etcetera like that. But what I'm saying run the numbers really carefully and and really think about what your minimum level you can drop to is really, really look at what your rent monthly payments or your remortgage.

45:27 Your remortgage is coming up. What's it going to go to? Look at how much money you need to live and survive and then add, I would say 30% on top of that and just say, OK, that is my bare minimum in my household. How can I reach that bare minimum? If I can't reach that bare minimum through quitting teaching, I need to be working on that as I'm still teaching. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And if. My aim is to quit teaching. There's your goal. Have a goal. What you can't do is just think, oh, well, I can't get there. I'll just hope one day I can, because I tell you now, you won't. The way teaching is funded and the way our pay has been squeezed over and over again and the way inflation is going and interest rates, etcetera, you will not end up leaving teaching. You have to have an actionable plan. So go away, run your numbers, see what your baseline is. I think it's called pit Pony method if you want to search that.

46:19 It basically works out what your absolute minimum actually is because for a lot of people, you can earn less than you think and still stay afloat and still be OK. There might be some sacrifices you make and do you know what? You might look at it and go, well, I can quit teaching, but I have to sacrifice this part of my life. I won't be able to go out as much. Do you know what the pros of teaching outweigh the cons At that point? I'm going to stay in teaching. You have to do what Hayden has said. Find your line. But I think you can only find your line when you look at the black and white money you can actually afford to do. And if you can't afford to do it and you really want to quit, start doing that side hustle idea. Start doing a bit of tutoring on the side and start getting your CV up on jobs, online, on Indeed, go on LinkedIn. Put yourself out there because you won't regret it. If you want to quit teaching, don't think that it will just happen.

47:05 You have to just do it. And when people look at us and the things we've achieved and the things we've done, and if ever anyone tries to belittle it by saying, Oh yeah, well, anyone, anyone could have done that, my response is always, yeah, but I did and you didn't. And that is it. Just lucky. You've got to try. You're just lucky. Do you know what? I am lucky. I want to talk. This kind of winds me up a little bit because I am lucky and I'm never, ever going to turn into that person. Like you see millionaires who say how did you get that hard work? No, no, you were lucky as well. You were very, very lucky. Almost always. You, you're lucky for a reason. And you seem to be a bit self respected there and say, yeah, I was lucky. But you know, but I worked hard. I gave myself the opportunity to be lucky. Give yourself the opportunity to be lucky. I applied to a gun who wants to be a millionaire 7 times. I got rejected 6 times, finally got on it, want some money. Very, very, very lucky.

47:51 But I could have stopped after 12345. I could have stopped and said, oh, it's not for me, I can't do it. Yeah, no doing it. Yeah, I mean. Similar to our children company, it's seven years old now. Sometimes I forget to mention how long last. We started our children company 7 years ago, two years into teaching. Yeah, exactly 2 years for teaching. So it's taking every year for me. So it's taking a long time to build the position it's in and it's still not done. Like I said, it's still going to be like a risk, risk as sacrifice to our salaries to to drop to drop down to that amount. But yeah, I like how I kind of went down the emotional route there. Find your line. You went down a very logical path there and it was good. I think a bit of a bit of all of that. It's probably how we've come to good conclusions together because we've kind of done that thought process between us. I think you've got to do. Both you've got to do both and I think you can only do the emotional one if you have your black and white. If you go down the emotional route too early, you might just be like, right, I'm quitting.

48:34 Put my hand noticing I oh gosh, I'm done my numbers. This isn't going to work. I can't do it. You have to do your numbers. And then you can be emotional and let that kind of lead yourself, definitely, but do it in the parameters of your current situation. Hayden's right. We can't tell you. You have to work that out yourself. All right, Dylan, just before we finish up this episode, I want to ask you one question. You might think it's quite funny, given the context of the last 50 minutes of this episode. Do I want air? Conditioning in this room? Yes, I'm like please. I'll tell you what, that classroom I worked in I told you about was hotter than this. Really. So much. OK, Well, yeah, that's just just saying because I. Feel like I've lost 7 litres of water. Yeah, you're. Going to be very thirsty but here we go. Someone asked me recently, would you recommend teaching to a friend?

49:16 And for full context, this person is close to me, knew I was, knew I was quitting. So they were kind of asking me with that, with that in mind, which is why I'm going to now pass it over to you. With that in mind, would you recommend teaching to a friend? This is a really hard question. We've touched on this before. Would I recommend teaching to a friend? Blanket friend? I don't know blanket answers in I don't they don't have a prep. They don't want to. They're just thinking. Would you recommend it? Yeah, no. OK friend who I think has the profile that matches the best things about the job. Even though I'm quitting and I feel like I profile the best things about the job, what I like, so I know that I'm ending up quitting, I would still recommend it to that person. So I hope that makes sense.

50:05 If I think that person has the right profile to enjoy the amazing bits about teaching, I think it's worth doing to a certain degree, yeah, to a certain level, for a few years at least. But if I was just saying blanket to someone, one of my mates who is just random thinking, Oh well, I don't want career to go down, I wouldn't go to it immediately. It's like, well, you have to do this. Yeah, yeah. Someone who's thinking I've got these five options, I might consider that one. And you can see the other options. You probably just say like, no, don't do that. Go and do one of these other things you're interested in. Yeah, I guess an interesting way to explore the idea that you can say that whilst also just spending 50 minutes saying you're quitting teaching, right? Because I can see that the the irony there is you're in a different position to right now to where you were nine years ago and you started. So if you could go back in time and you're your own friend, your only friend, which is real, if you could go back in time and speak to Dylan nine years ago as you now, Dylan, who was passionate, like about to go into teaching, he loves the idea of teaching.

51:00 Would you try and steer him away from it or would you still recommend that older Dylan? Yeah, you should go into teaching. I'd probably. Say, mate, ditch the tie. Makes no difference to your teaching. Don't worry about wearing that. Yeah, don't. Don't wear a full suit. Don't buddy up. With this guy I. I see, OK, this is a great, this is a great question now and I love people's thoughts about being hypocritical. I don't think I would change my career path because do you know what? And then another reason why I'm so excited by moving on to different things is it's still in education. And I don't think I'd be in a situation right now where I feel like I can still have a massive impact on the education world if I hadn't done teaching for that long. So do you know what, if anything, maybe do you know what maybe I would say to myself is when COVID came around, quit. Do your four or five years, maybe I would say to myself, you could have quit sooner.

51:48 Maybe I could have said it to myself and maybe I could have quit before I had my my son because I think my partner falling pregnant and knowing that Rory was on the way. Definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely at that point made me think, oh, OK, look, I'll just stay for a year or two then because I've got a son on the way and this is the security that I need. So maybe a couple of years beforehand, maybe leave this, leave a bit earlier maybe. Potentially, I don't know. I reckon you give yourself more credit, I think. I think you did the right thing at the time your line moved because you were having a child. That's a huge, that's a huge thing. And your line just moved. And it's OK to say that, like we're saying to other people, consider everything. No, I considered everything. Yeah, I suppose. I'm saying I think I did the right thing at the minute, but leave two years before that, Right. So like, you know when, when it was 2-3 years? Yeah, right before we even thinking about having children.

52:29 Yeah. At that point, I could have quit and tried something. But you know what? If I look back, look at the situation I'm in now, we've built this podcast. This podcast took 2 1/2 years for us to get this point that I think everything, you know, has led to this point where I, I can't really look back and say, oh, well, I could have done that differently because I don't know what have happened. Yeah. You wouldn't be here right now. I might have a different job in education, not even in education. And I might have hated that job. And I might have gone back to teaching and not slowly built up everything else and been in a situation where I'm stuck as a classroom teacher or having to move up and do year group leader and taking all my time away. So do you know what? I'd go back to myself and I'd say no, Keep it the same. Keep it the same. Same. Yeah. I don't regret any of my like career moves and decisions in all honesty. Like I don't regret having ten years in in this career. I've loved this career.

53:12 I've loved so much about this job. I hope, I hope that's come across quite clear in this because it could maybe see been seen as quite negative, but I've loved it and I wouldn't change a thing. I just think the right move for me now, it's like a chess game. It's just the right move for me now is to come out of the castle for lots of different reasons. The castle, but do it wrong. Can't use it as a Knight Queen's Gambit. Yeah, Rook to 85 could show that. Yeah. Never was it, but would you? So would you? What would you say to a friend? Because I would have reservations. OK, here. OK, here's the big question. Would you, would you be disappointed, happy, neutral? What would your reaction be if River, as she grew up River got to 1516 doing her options, she said. Do you know what that I think? I think I'm going to go into teaching. I don't think my opinion really changes if it's River or not, in all honesty.

53:57 I think I'm quite objective with this, which is fairly similar to yours, which is if I looked at River when she was 15 and knowing what teaching was like, maybe it's changed then probably not worse. Yeah, worse. And I looked at her and I thought, yeah, you're absolutely suited for that. You know, you remind me of a young me and I was super passionate. And I tell you what, I absolutely loved those first years of my career in terms of there were some drawbacks in terms of, you know, toxicity in schools I worked in. But I loved the the I loved my job like I massively loved and lived and breathed it. If I looked at her and she and I thought, yeah, she's got the right sort of skill set. She's in the right idea there. Like she's definitely built for this kind of job. I'd be like, yeah, go for it. But if I looked at her and I and I and I thought, I was worried thinking she's being naive and this is totally not the kind of skill set. Like she's been building up this other skill set, which is perfect for these other things.

54:40 And teaching is not going to be it. And she can have a horrible time. I might, I'm disappointed, but I might just try and would you be? Wise. I'd be wise and just try to put all the facts out there and be like this is you might experience this, this is this and I probably in my head be worried that she's gonna do something that could be really bad. But you know, I mean, that's my answer to that one. But going back to just a friend in general, yes, same as you. I think if if it looks like a career they'll enjoy, I'd absolutely recommend it. So I guess I want to make it really clear that our answers aren't no, yeah, we're not just blanketing. We're not allowed now. Like taking the high horses. No, I'm now quitting teaching. So I think everyone is a stupid career choice. Not amazing. Absolutely not. It's a fantastic career choice to make. It still is a fantastic career choice to make, just not for me. Yeah. And if you've got that profile, like you said there, I see so many and I love that we have so many Ects who listen to this podcast and seem to get so much out of it because I just, that doesn't change in me, you know, like I, I love being with the children and teaching them because I love helping them and moulding them. I love the idea of people listening to this right now who are earlier on in their career who want some help navigating teaching.

55:41 And I want to be that voice for them. I want to help them stay in a bit longer, even if it's an extra 234 years, even if they stay nine years instead of six years, even if they stay five years instead of two years, whatever it might be. And they still enjoy themselves and they still get the amazing parts of this job, which are the best things in the world because they've listened to what we've said or other people people have said about bending this off because it doesn't matter or standing up for themselves. That is such a win, not only for them, but for the children who they get to teach as well. That's why I'm so passionate because I want to help people. I fundamentally. So I read, I got a book about Stoicism. OK, so I'm a bit going from my Stoic phase right now. So anyone who doesn't know what Stoicism is, look it up. It's like a old philosophy. It's this idea of you're in, you're in charge of yourself and external factors are hard to control. And if you chase trying to change things, you can't change. You just lead into a life cycle of just anger and, and, and bad habits and disresentment, right?

56:34 So, and, and, and you know, listen to the podcast. You know that we need that sometimes. We're talking about a machine here. It's like it's hard to actually influence when it, when it comes to that kind of idea of being in control of what you can do that I think, I think there's so much we can take from teachers in that respect of that helped me get another 2-3, four years out of my career knowing what I'm in control over and being able to say, OK, look, I'm not in control of that, but I'm going to enjoy and do what I can do. And a big thing of stoicism, a huge question. And I'd love everyone who's listening to ask themselves this question. And I want you to think about this as well. Maybe we'll come back to it in the future because it's not something you can answer easily. It sounds like a basic question, but the question is, who are you?

57:19 Who are you? You know, don't, don't just say I'm a, you know, I'm a dog mum, I'm a teacher. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a job. I'm a, you know, caps dysfunction in this gear of society. Who are you? Essentially? What do you want to be defined by? What are your goals? What do you want to do and achieve in life? What do you want to be known for? Who are you? And I've really been thinking about this question and I've a look at the things that I get the most joy out of and what I can control role it is helping other people. It it it comes down to that. And like this, and like we always said, this act of service and doing things for someone else and this idea of it's always feels better to do and give than it should be to receive.

58:02 And I'm guilty of wanting to receive things and seeing value in stuff that doesn't have value. Ultimately, who are you? Like, what do you want to be known for? And I think the reason why you and I and other people who I see this kind of profile in and why I'd say to them going to teaching is if you have that ultimate desire to give to other people and to help them and to improve them through what you can control. Teaching's the best job in the world. And if you can have that stoic attitude of I can control what I can control, and I'm OK with the fact that I can't control other things. And if you can get over the fact that that can be heart wrenching to see kids not getting what they need. And it is true that is not nice. And you don't have to think it's nice, but you just have to realise you can't control that. So control what you can give to the right people in our society to help them and ignore the noise. It it can be the best job in the world. I've just got to the point now where I've done that enough. I need to remove myself because I'm finding it tricky to do. Yeah, that's.

58:56 Brilliant. I think at the point of the podcast now where we can say we're transitioning into a philosophy no longer, I didn't want to interrupt you at all because I had a few think I was going to take the mic at one point. I thought, you know, actually you're making a genuinely really, really, really good point. And I think, yeah, I want to reflect on that. I'm going to go and think about that. Like who? Who am I at that deepest level? You're right. It's so easy to be superficial and answer, but who are you? Maybe. Who are you? Who am I? Who want to be and I think yeah, that drives me it drives you as well. We have these conversations a lot, you know in within the parameters of that question, I think, but we're not going anywhere. I think that's really, I just want to finish up by saying and making it extremely clear that yeah, we we run a podcast called Teach sleep, repeat and I'll still be sleeping. I I'll be repeating that.

59:41 Actually. We want a really conscious and we are going. To teach them and I and I. Get exactly we're still going to be in classes and we're still going to be in education. I want to make that really clear. Like this isn't the end. If anything, honestly, we are going to it's just going to get, we're going to go harder. And you know what? I. Generally I I want and maybe need is. If listeners have got this far, can you just send us a message? Can you just let us have we achieved some of the things we've sought to achieve? Do you feel heard? Do you enjoy what you hear? What do you want to hear more of? What can we do to help? Because we've got a lot of. Time to kill. We've got a serious amount of time to fill up, so if you could just give us some ideas. I'll tell you what mate. Well, do you know? What? We've got some holidays coming up and I keep saying, oh, in the summer we'll have time to fit this in. And then I suddenly remember, no, no, that's it though. Yeah, we don't, we don't go back in September. Yeah, that carries.

1:00:27 On we also teach you how you know. Time for us and we want to make a change we want to serve people. We want to help you help us help you get in touch give us prompts, give us ideas because we've got a whole bunch in my notes right now that we didn't get a chance to do today but I keep everything guys. I really do even if we don't do it straight away we might do it at some point and I appreciate it yeah. Hayden, where can they find us? They can I. Don't do this to me. I've. Never done this. Where can we find us on? Instagram but teach the repeat POD. No cast. Yep. Teacher repeat podcast. It's got the Gmail. Is that without the pod? TikTok at teach sleep repeat podcast. Correct. Same thing. E-mail and e-mail teachsleeprepeatpod@gmail.com. Absolutely, I think. We might need to spend some of our time, Yeah, aligning those.

1:01:08 Yeah, it's quite. Running meme that isn't it. And do you know what's? Gonna really, really help us, especially because we won't have a job soon, is if you just give us a review. Wherever you are, guys, you're gonna ask for money. Then I was like, we can't be snooping to this level already, surely? No, just a review. It's free massively, guys. That was big for us. Let us know what you think and we will see you next time. So yeah.