Ep 25: Mr P on Ofsted, AI & Growing His Online Brand

0:00 Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Tech Step Repeat. My name is Dylan. And my name is Hayden. And we are so excited because you know, you've seen it. You've seen the thumbnail. We're not going to waffle Waffle as we do all the time before we get into the guest. Hayden Wiffle Waffle. There's there's no time for Wiffle waffling, whatever that is because we have a super guest. We're so excited. We want to play it for you as soon as possible. Hayden Aren't we all ready for? This ridiculous, excited. We had this guest lined up for a while. We spoke to him earlier in the week. So you're listening to a recording and I will just say now. I don't normally say before, but I just absolutely loved it. He was so down to earth, the wonderful ICT with Mr P of course, and and yeah, I think you'll enjoy the chat. We certainly did loads and loads of words of wisdom, some funny bits and anecdotes. Just a really good chat to those of you. So enjoy.

0:51 Today we are joined by one of the best known faces in primary teaching ICT with Mr P, AKA Mr. Lee Parkinson Lee, It is great to have you on today. How you doing? I'm good, mate, yeah, we're at the start of the summer holidays. I've been dreading these summer holidays. To be honest though, because my heart. I'm halfway through an extension at my house, so I've got the next six weeks with one room of the house and my 3:00. Children who were an age where their whole life seems to be about bickering and fighting and arguing, and I'm currently having solo as well. I'm the only pair in in my wifes away for a few days, so yeah, like to be on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:34 I'm just staying in here all day. This is going to be the 1/5 hour interview. We can make this drag out as long as you want. I did hear on your on your last podcast episode you said about how you've not had a kitchen for however long and you just living off the air fryer. Mate, what an invention. Unbelievable. I've got one. I've got a kitchen. I still don't use it. I've just used the air right now. Yeah, it's like it's perfect. I love the fact that it has all these settings, but you just literally throw anything in 20 minutes. Done. And it's always 20 minutes, isn't it? No matter what I look up, I'm like, OK, what about this? Ohh, 20 minutes? OK, cool. Just 20 minutes. You did? It's the best thing. Then it's up there. Top 3 for me. Inventions of my lifetime, I reckon. Yeah, right. Over the course of this episode, we're going to fill in that over 2 slots in that top three. Yeah, you just feel it.

2:18 I can feel it right now. Anyway, Lee, I'm going to jump in because as always when we have a guest on, I do this quick fire round. I just say a word and you just say your first reaction. Basically. They're all linked to school. And Hayden's made making me stop this game now because apparently it's gone on for too long and I'm really too long just eking it out. So you're the last one, you know it's gonna be the the best one as well, I'm sure. So you all good if we crack? On Yeah. Yeah. So it's one word or just a couple of words, if you can do one word, but you know, couple of words. We're not too far. We're not too fast. OK, OK, ready? Yeah, let's go, AI. Time saver, Ofsted. Criminals I can't wait to I love this because we dive into it after TA's.

3:05 Underpaid iPads. Amazing memes. Hilarious. Yeah, this very government. Ohh, that's enough that sound. In that in that okay strikes. Necessary. Hmm. Teacher gifts valued. Hmm, definitely. And we just kind of talked about it some holidays. Gaslighting. Ohh, Can we dive straight into that one? Yeah, go.

3:46 Can we dive straight into that one? What do you what do you mean? I mean it for two reasons, right? So I don't get me wrong, I have a sort of love hate relationship with summer holidays or just any of the teacher holidays we get. But what really frustrates me is obviously with the past year and the strikes and I've been quite outspoken about the strikes and why we're striking the the amount of people who aren't in education who use that ohh, well you get 30 weeks off paid that trope to just deny us. A voice and sort of talking about why we are straight. It's just so. Bloody frustrating as a as an it's just a pointless argue. I just you know it's always been that way but all of a sudden now it's sort of because of the society we've as a society we've accepted this thing of like as a work you don't have any rights and you know zero hour contracts all that sort of stuff. So you know you sort of manipulated into believing now you can only be a successful parent if you're working every hour under the sun.

4:43 And I don't know the official statistics, but I think if we were to look into it as a generation of parents, we probably spend the least amount of time with our kids than. We ever have done, yeah. And then it's like, well, it's always been up, but now that you get 12 weeks off and I don't that, I'm gonna use that to just bash you as much as possible. Plus, I also think that for teachers, it can be quite gaslight and it can almost excuse a lot of the bad things that we have to put up with during term time. So you've got, you're in this never ending cycle of crawling to the break, normally being ill for the first few days as your body just recovers from it right now, by the way, right. Yeah, yeah. And then you have a few more days where you sort of recover and you start to relax and switch off and you're like, actually this is pretty good.

5:30 You know, teaching. Teaching isn't as bad. And then? And then you start again and you're into that cycle where during term time you have to sacrifice. And it shouldn't be that way, but the current system has it where you sacrifice and you sort of. Health well-being and social life and all that sort of stuff. Just to crawl to next holiday, it's that sort of thing. So yes, that's why I've I've said that for for school holidays. I feel like there's a kind of like a linear, very predictable conversation that I've had over the last eight years with people that have that sort of opinion of the summer holidays, like negative opinion of teachers, ohh you get all this holiday. What normally happens is then someone that isn't teaching says yeah but we work in the holidays and we do this, this and that and then the next bit is them then going ohh teachers what I do is moan. Unless they get over it, snowflakes come up and it's like there's no winning.

6:17 Like where? What is the point of this conversation? What the what? The thing is, what people don't realise is until you get in education, until you're working education, because you know, teaching should be the best job in the world, but the system is so. Crap that when we're moaning, we're not moaning about working hard, cause teachers are hard working people. You know it. You're not gonna find another profession that sort of puts the graft in as much as teachers do. But I think the frustrating thing for us is so much of our time at the minute is spent on stuff that doesn't have an impact. That is just a load of rubbish that we could easily stop doing it and have no impact. But we carry on and it's like why are we doing this? Why am I having to work double my contracted hours a week on stuff that?

7:02 Has absolutely no impact on teaching learning, but it's that sort of blanket. Or yeah, old teachers do his moment. It's like, no, no, come and work a week, come and work a week, see how ridiculous the system is and then you sort of get it. For me on that point is I just think we wouldn't have a retention and recruitment crisis right now if it was this lovey, dovey job that everyone comes makes out. That is it. It doesn't. It doesn't add up, does it? It's like, OK, in one respect, you're saying it's the easiest job in the world. You get 13 weeks off a year, but then in the next breath we're talking about how we have consistently, for the last 10 years, not recruited enough teachers. It it just doesn't add. Up and and and and with the holidays if there were this be all and end all that everyone says. Why have we got the biggest retention crisis we've ever seen in education if they are this wonderful sort of And don't get me wrong they are a perk. I'm not for one second suggesting we scrap him. Please.

7:55 I don't know. What would you take? Would you take a sort of generic what? What's the normal set holidays someone will get joining normally 5? Weeks. 5-6, right? So let's say it's 5-6 weeks but. On on the other week she just work your contracted hours. No homework, no weekend work. Just standard like you're in school contract that if if it was teaching that we were doing in that job right I would pick the probably the latter option because I love. I love teaching. I think the thing never ever do. I begrudge going in and teaching the kids some maths and some reading and some English and science like that's the part of the job we love doing. So if that's all we were doing I'd happily do more of it. I think you're right.

8:35 But the the point now we are being gassed aren't we? Because we're being although you said it's the best job in the world, but you just, you know, and you get all this time off. It's just that we're gonna make this imaginary job and put a clause in your contract which says you've got to do as much time as you need to to get this job done that we've made-up. And it's just so frustrating. So funnily enough, I don't know about you, Hayden. I actually think I would pick the second option there with fewer holidays, but with just pure teaching. Yeah, I think so. I think so, because at the end of the day, all we'd be cutting out is the stuff we don't like doing. So it's like, yeah, I'll I'll work more weeks, but do all of the stuff I like doing and have a slightly. Less and and it's not even stuff we don't like doing. It's stuff that we don't need to do most of the time. It's. You know what I mean? It's, you know, which sort of links to.

9:17 Like Ofsted being the main reason for that, it was. You know criminals. What? What made you say that? Well, just I'm not not all of them, you know. I know, I know there's some brilliant inspectors out there. But yeah, there's some really bad ones and really bad eggs who you know I get my since the news about Ruth Perry and it really did affect me that and and you know I made, I made a couple of videos about it and the first video I made where I sort of talked about it, I had at least. Fixed half a dozen sort of messages from the school leaders who said they were in the exact same mindset and had one head teacher who said at the end of the first first day of an inspection, he left school at gone midnight and he knew he wasn't going to make it home. Like he'd accept he wasn't going to make and you just think. How can you be so tone deaf to not realise the sort of detrimental impact you're having on the profession should be supporting and again I'm not, I don't you know say every inspectors like that because some are, some are amazing and you know for every well I'd say pre Roof Perry for every 10 schools who say the inspection was really negative you'd get one or two.

10:32 Who said it was a positive experience? I think obviously the Ruth Perry has changed that and actually. On all the sort of training I've done since and speaking schools who have been inspected, it seems all of a sudden it's a much more positive experience, which again is very telling and. But I get message from teachers all the time. Like in the last week I must have got about 5 messages about getting the call. Like we've had the call. Any advice? And I can't give any advice. All I can ever say is good luck. And that's the problem. It's all about luck. It's all about luck as far as whether you get the right inspector on the right day, who's going to give you a fair crack at the wit to sort of show and and and and give a a decent account of what you're doing at your school. And what then really annoys me is we all know this. As teachers, we all know the systems flawed. We all know that Austin in its current form is not a force for good in education.

11:26 I'm not against having it. We need that level of accountability. But in its current form, you will never convince me it's a force for good. We all know it's a luck of the draw. So if we get an inspector who comes in, gives us a fair crack at it, we then do all right and they say right you could outstanding. What do we then do as a school? By a massive banner. By a massive banner, Yeah, stick it outside the school. Get the local news in and make this big force about a person who's not been in a school for I don't know how long, Telling us that we're good or outstanding yet. We know full well on a different day with a different inspector, it have been a completely different outcome and you've got livelihoods on the line. You've got everyone's mental health all over.

12:09 It just doesn't make sense why we're we're sort of our own worst enemies with it. And it's frustrating because on that point I think teachers go even further sometimes because I did and I know Hayden did that when we were in that environment previously when we were younger teachers and we were observed a lot, we were observed a lot in in our school and we were given a grade. So as a teacher which is not best practise now at all, doesn't happen a lot now. But it used to happen a lot more. And we were told, oh, you know, that was that was an outstanding lesson. And I remember it took about 6 observations. And it would kind of like a way to kind of dangle a carrot from SLT as if to say, ohh, you know, you're good, you're you're becoming outstanding, you're there. You know these these like prompts in between and they all fed into this idea of Ofsted of you need to get to outstanding. When we got to outstanding, if SLT said that was outstanding lesson, I remember I I'd go, I'd go and find Hayden. I'd go and find my other teaching partner, like God standing.

13:00 And then I'd call myself an out takeaway. Tonight. Yeah, I know it would. It would be like that. Like, wow, we're going out on the town tonight guys. This random person SLT has said that my maths lesson on rounding was outstanding. So what? All the other staff aren't coming because they got told they were not and they're all crying and because they were really hard. In this lesson exactly. What it says someone else system. It's that grading. I mean that's the easiest thing Ofsted could have done off the back of it. He's got rid of the grading now, I don't know if you're aware. So over in Wales, the inspectorate in Wales is called testing, right? Which I always laugh at because it always sounds like somebody got off a lads holiday in Magaluf than it was the holiday. Yeah, it was good. But let's get some antibiotics.

13:40 Got a bit of an? And and they they've got rid of the grades this year. So they they all do a report. So they'll come in and do an inspection, they'll write a report and it will highlight your sort of strengths and areas for development, but they won't. Sort of take a complex machine like a school and give it a one word grading. Now that's not had any negative impact on schools in Wales at all. So why Ousted can't do that is because that those gradings give Ofsted all the power. And it means that their, their opinion is is valued because there's so much money in it. You get us, you get an area where all of a sudden there's a couple of outstanding schools, Every house is value can go up 10 grand.

14:22 Could you see it on right move or Zoopla? Outstanding school checker area. Exactly. It it's this is, this is the problem that we kind of perpetuate exactly what you're saying. Like we fall into that trap of thinking. It's important. And I think what a lot of parents do, which I say all the time, when I get parents ask me, my friends who aren't in teaching, they'll say to me, oh, this school's outstanding, isn't it? And I'll say on paper, sure. But I know three people who work there and I wouldn't send my child to this school. Or I might you might see a school where she's good and I'd be like, send your child to that school to teach. So Unreal support staff and couldn't do enough for you, but Ofsted said they were good in 2014 and it's like, what's that got to do anything, the amount of change that can happen. Ohh and and yeah, I mean I've been to so many school.

15:03 I mean I've travelled here, there and everywhere. So I see it all the time. There are some outstanding outstanding schools that you couldn't pay me the world to teach in because it's toxic. There's turnovers ridiculous. Whereas this other schools are going where it's requires improvement or whatever and and doing some amazing things for the kids, you know, it's just that. Sort of. That sort of league table comparing you know a funny one was I was in a school just before Christmas and the the part of a small Academy sort of group and there's only like 3 schools in the Academy in the local area and this school I was at is the lead school so there RE teacher there has developed this RE curriculum.

15:46 Sort of. Implemented it in her school. Implemented it in the two other schools when they got ousted. It got pulled as a deep dive and she was like pulled apart. It was pulled apart, it was not good enough, blah blah blah. Yet the school down the road a month later with a different inspection team. What was the highlight of their report? Yeah, yeah, alright, where's the consistency? What? What? The owners in the same trust. Same, same trust, same schema work. But the original school who rolled it out first, it's not good enough yet. The school down the road, it's pretty. I mean it's just. Me and Dylan had a chat recently with with someone just kind of local school, who was Ofsted, loads of our schools around here in Ofsted recently. So yeah, everyone was like, oh, we're gonna be Ofsted. And we were just chatting with someone who we knew from a different school about their Ofsted experience and it was really interesting.

16:36 Because they were deep dived in maths and if anyone is listening, we have some listeners that aren't in the teaching world. Ofsted will pick a couple of areas of your school and they're really, really just literally dive deep into that area and unpick it. So they had a deep dive in maths and the guy said that the inspector that came didn't really have any knowledge or experience in maths at all. Would like to the point where they had no idea really what to look for other than what was kind of on their script. And he said he had, unless he if he wasn't confident, she would have ripped them apart. On stuff that she had no idea what she was talking about and he had to very much be like, Nope, you're wrong because this. Yeah. And you're looking at the wrong thing. You're not. She was she was saying things like, oh, you know, there's there's no evidence of problem solving.

17:17 And he was like, OK, you know, we're looking at, so this is problem solving. All of this that you're looking at right now, this is all problem solving and This is why it's problem solving. And he had to guide this inspector who was deep diving in maths and didn't know anything about maths. And he said it was a weird experience. That's why I love being computing subject leader because the likelihood of Ofsted choosing that as a deep dive and. Even if they do they they clueless mate. In fact, I know of 1 teacher who sat there and did like a deep dive chat with and just made stuff up. Just was like, I'm gonna see if this inspector knows what they're talking about. And so it's Ohh. Yeah. In year five we do algorithmic dance sequences. There's no such thing. Has made and and they're nodding like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of trying to type it up on the little tablet or whatever they use now.

18:03 Yeah, Couldn't turn the tablet on, Didn't even have to do that. Never mind what I see dances. But it is. I mean, I mean the thing with the grading is is the parent side of things And and and I I remember once I was away with my wife we've gone to York for the weekend and we were sitting in a cafe and I could overhear this couple and they only had like they had like a toddler and they were talking about schools and they were sort of woman and about which school they want to put the kid into. And then they were talking about the Ofsted inspection. My wife looking at me like don't lie, don't. And I sort of leaned over and I said, listen, I'm a teacher. If I was you, I'd take, I'd take it with a pinch of salt. Nice. Go and go and see the school, speak to the parents, get a feel for the school from the parents. I mean it's like the the school, my kids, the secondary school, my kids.

18:43 Go to that. How the dreadful Ofsted, which they tried to challenge but couldn't end up carrying it on because you had to use your school budget if you're going to take them to court or something. But they've they've managed to not let that grade in impact the reputation of the school and they're actually the most oversubscribed they've ever been now. And we were saying the other day how happy we were that we made the decision to send them there because the kids absolutely loving it, absolutely loving it. And yet they were pulled up over some of you know. And I just think you gotta take it all with a pinch of salt, because it is. It's a flawed inconsistent system and the the biggest problem there is not only is it detrimental to teachers like you're saying in terms of the pressure of the one word judgement, it's not even helpful like if it was helpful for parents as well maybe maybe you could argue you know ohh well yeah OK I know it's bad for teacher well-being but hey ho where the government and we want to help the public because it's public versus wherever you know it's it's not helpful for anyone I don't think.

19:41 Yeah, I mean the biggest lie in education, I think. Is Ofsted's motto. Ofsted's motto is Ofsted. Raising standards, improving lives. Yeah. And I think that's the biggest lie in education, because what else to do is the check standards, right? And I'm not against that. We need that. Safeguarding, obviously is incredibly important. You need that level of accountability and and that sort of thing. So, you know, but don't make it out like you improve stuff like you're coming into a school, you're you're inspecting and all of a sudden teachers are getting better off the back of that inspection. That's not the case. Cheques done. So you know, if we're being honest, it'd be Ofsted. Checking standards ruining lives? Yeah, not even, not even always doing that. Like I'd I'd argue that that that, you know the analogy I gave earlier about the the lady coming in and inspecting about maths and not knowing anything about maths. If that maths lead wasn't particularly confident, they might have taken on that feedback and not challenged it at all.

20:37 And then gone and changed things in their school because they said, Oh no, they're not seeing any problem solving. So we've got to do this now. We have to do this now to make it visible and and done things that didn't we've actually decreased. Wanted to say what what's your thoughts on this? Right. So I have a bit of a pet peeve about how I feel like the inspection framework and a lot of things in education is sort of geared towards secondary, right. So the current inspection framework I think is creating a lot more workload for primary schools because they've gone down this route of, you know, subject specific deep dives and all this and you know which, which is what secondary sort of built for. And I had this real annoyance because obviously what I do when I go into schools and I do training, I very rarely do anything with a secondary school. And I make it very clear that I've never worked a day in secondary in my life.

21:31 Now if a school wants to book me in a second risk, I will go in. But it's very much like all I know is the primary curriculum, how I use technology for that, hopefully some of its transferable. But look I'm not. I'm not an, you know, when my hat goes off to secondary schools, I don't know how some of them do it. Teenagers intimidate me. I can deal with the younger one, you know. And I'm sure there's lots of secondary school teachers said the same. But there's so many people who do what I do, where they go into schools who have never worked today in primary, yet they'll come in and do a full day's training about summer, having never dealt with younger. You know what I mean? And I got that. Why are you doing that when you've never what you know? And I feel like when it comes to developing inspection frameworks, curriculums, all that sort of stuff, they don't value primary school teachers as a voice with these. Do you ever feel like, like it says, you know, small schools, for example, a small primary schools, the ones who are getting absolutely shafted with this current inspection framework?

22:27 Because if you're a school with like 150 kids and so that's what, I don't know, six members of staff, how many curriculum subjects are they 11:50. So the likelihood is you're doing 2. So that's workload if you get. Inspection. I think that is insane. I think it's absolutely insane. And I think the pressure that comes with it is completely unreasonable and unacceptable, especially when, and I think this is just like a kick in the teeth. This really grinds me and it annoys me. So much that only some subjects, some subject leads come with like actual pay. I heard that firstly it just perpetuates this myth that some subjects are really important and others just aren't. And secondly, it doesn't make a difference to workload.

23:08 It doesn't value the workload. We're saying ohh, you only get paid because that subject is important. Your workload is irrelevant. Like what's that the the the the the person that's doing PE and geography. Now you don't get paid anything. English lead yet here you go, Here's extra payment. They did more work. They got deep dived in well, but English, yeah. Really. And you know it used it used to be you'd get a TLR for leading a subject exactly, whereas now you're just expected to lead a subject. Yeah, you know what? I'll do that. They'll take the TLR off the other two and say, well, it's fair now, no one gets paid. It's like it's not what we meant. That's not what we meant. It's all fair now. It's equal, right? And we're like, Jesus, OK, this is my worry if we accept the offer. And I'm not saying whether we do or not, but whether it's the right to do or not, but it's just, I just feel it's gonna incentivise the government to say right, we've paged him more, so you need to do more, you know. That's what I'm worried about and I'm going to out myself as a bit of a hypocrite now because I spent, I've spent the last two months saying Rishi, come on, it's been on the desk, the STR report, it's been on the desk, 6.5%. You need to fund it.

24:13 You need to do this, You need to do that. We can get into the debate of whether it's funded or not. I still don't really understand how it's funded. The most confusing thing. Yeah, I. Can't set it for every person who said yeah it is funded, someone's going but it but it's not it's. Not and that that's vital right As as his teacher that's why we outright denied the 4.5%. I think we care more about the future of our schools. I mean their own pay packet which says something about the kind of people we are. So yeah, you know the 6.5% call we know it. We know technically it's still a pay cut. I'm willing to take that pay cut against inflation. I think nearly every teacher in the land is. But because I don't understand how it's not fully funded now and I've been saying you need to offer the SRB and he's turned around now and said OK. And and I'm like, ohh, you've kind of done what I've said but I still think I'm going to vote to reject it for like four other reasons.

24:59 I I don't, I don't know it's it's it's a tough one and I do understand, Hayden called me out basically and said haven't you been asking him to do what he's just done? And I'm like, yes, but now I've read it, I still don't like it because I just, I worry that those small schools are going to be swallowed. Swallowed up. Yeah, yeah. And and the the sort of feeling I'm getting from talking about is IT support staff who are actually really sort of worried about if it's not fully funded it'll be them on the on the chopping block. You know what I mean? And and and the fact that they don't get valued anywhere near enough is just so it's so wrong because they they are the backbone of every. Teachers aren't school teachers. Yeah, you know, we talked about this on the podcast. It shouldn't be teaching assistants, it should be assistant teachers.

25:43 Small change, I've heard you say before. Small change. But it makes a difference, doesn't it? Because they are in the first one, they're assistance in the second one They're teachers, which they are to denote some tetas. I remember in my old school there was at a a wonderful woman, like one of my favourite people ever. Just couldn't do enough for anyone that basically been a teacher for 30 years but never actually been a. Teacher and got a teacher's wage for it and she would teach more than me in my NQT year because she was basically booked out for cover for all 10 slots, all mornings, all afternoons, all week. And she would teach more than me. And I would leave the room for my NQT time and be like, Oh yeah, you're right. And I'd walk out, you know, with my higher pay packet with with my title as teacher. She'd go in just this lovely one. They couldn't care less.

26:26 Just like ohh yeah, gonna do some art with the kids. And it just felt so wrong. And I remember in that moment just thinking now she's a teacher. She is a more experienced teacher than me. Well I have the exact same type of TA. When I wouldn't have got through my QT had it not been for my TA, she carried me, carried me. Yep. So the art, the worth awaiting gold honestly and and you know that's what that's what my worry is, is if you know on paper it might be like ohh, you've made you know provisions for a 3.5% pay rise. But the reality is I don't think many schools have and are already in a deficit before the next budget comes in. So you know it's it's worrying. It is. And even the kids miss out on something that's vital or we lose our support staff.

27:11 And it's like neither of those options are something I'm very comfortable with at all. No. No. We've turned this into a political one again, and we're Dylan well. I was saying it's no, no, no, no. I do. I do listen to these podcasts and I'm like, this is what I'm really looking forward to, cause I'm very political. Hayden's like, he's political. Like he agrees with a lot of stuff and he feels strongly about it. But it's usually me sat here going, Hayden, this is bad. Have you always, have you always been that way or was there something that sort of triggered it? For me, it was basically so if you if you think I'm 29, OK, right. So my, my when I first got into politics, it was when David Cameron was coming in and I remember being in school. Before I knew much about politics, I 100% saw David Cameron and I thought ohh kind of sleep guy in a suit that he's quite well, he he presents himself quite well.

27:59 I didn't have any idea about politics. I just thought he looks like a Prime Minister, that's cool. But I couldn't vote in that 2010 election because I was 17, right. And so I kind of that kind of peaked my interest in it was like, I'm interested, but I've come, I've come from a very, very working class background, no money at all and like remotely. So then I kind of looked into it a bit more and I was like, this guy doesn't represent me. And then austerity. So you like the context of my entire adult life has been austerity. I work in a school since 2015 and I've seen the impact of austerity and every single year that goes by I I have been pushed more and more and more against these guys and I think the government have been pushed more and more and more to the right. So like the difference gap between me and what I see happening. And for me, I just care about people. That's why I'm a teacher.

28:46 I love helping children, I love helping other people in general and. Yeah, I've never been more like, passionate about talking out. And This is why I really appreciate what you do. And we'll get on to this in a second, actually, is what you do in the media. As a teacher, I I just couldn't applaud enough because it's exactly the kind of thing I want to hear on the television as someone who's so disillusioned. And when someone says there's nothing that annoys me more than when a politician says it's what the people want and it's like, sorry, I'm the people and I don't want this. I know lots of people who are also the people who don't want this. So, yeah, I mean maybe we could, we could chat a bit about, you know, obviously. Everyone listening right now Knowsley, that you, you've, you know grown a following. Yeah, just before we do move on. You know when it was for me?

29:27 Do you know the point where I got really? I need to know, of course the politic was post 2012 Olympics, right? So even when I became a teacher, was never interested in politics growing up, starting teaching, and I'd say for the first. So by 2012, I've been teaching about five years. And don't get me wrong, the job was hard. It was never. It's never been an easy job but it was manageable and the amount of money that was going into school sport in the build up to to 2012 like we my, my school were winning awards for the amount of PPE we were doing because we had the money. You had the budget you could take like we used to make sure that every child was doing. I think it was like 3 or 4 hours of sport a week including your PE or it might have been five hours actually. I think that was a target and then every school would leave primary, having represented the school in in a in a every child story would represent the school in a competition. That's what we prided ourselves on on. And it was just so the the impact that had on on everything, the health, the sort of well-being side of it. You know, I think sport as a parent is one of the most important things you can get your kids into no matter what the sport is.

30:37 The lessons you learn from sport really help you in whatever you choose to do in life. I'm a firm believer in that. And then the 2012 Olympics came along, which was incredibly successful and was just this massive moment as a country where we sort of one of the proudest moments as a Brit because it's all been downhill since. And then literally within weeks the government went right we're cutting all the school sports partnership funding and I'm going what like you've literally just had this celebration where we've done the best we've ever done. You know one of the best Olympics we've ever had because that investment's been there. And because people from a certain background were given these opportunities that they'd never have had and found these talents and develop them and gone on and won these goals and on.

31:20 And then you just going to cut it up and and to see because it's now, it's now you're seeing the impact 10 years on when all of a sudden we're not doing as well in the Olympics. You've got obesity levels through the roof all these sort of things and it's that knock on effect. And that was the first point where I thought, this isn't going to go well. This is it. Like these people in charge, they're not gonna do. Yeah. Yeah. And and and it's just been and this is probably why I'm so outspoken and negative And about the government because those first five years of my teaching, I always say like the golden years. Since then it's just been a steady decline in every aspect. Like nothing's got better. I I would argue that since 2010, when these got the governments come in, they've not done a single thing that's made anything better for teachers or schools or education.

32:10 I'm sure some people probably disagree, but. I say this to my friends all the time who aren't in the teaching world and my my running joke that just kind of a silly analogy of this I guess is that yeah, there's a reason the schools look exactly there's exactly the same as they did in the year 2000 or when we were leaving primary schools because nothing has gone into them since then. We're still using the same bean bags. We're still using the same everything like that. Nothing gets put into it and and talk about think about politics. It's hard to avoid, isn't it? Because I was. I'm probably more similar to you, Lee, rather than Dylan like he was. People aren't really into it, whereas my mother have a bit more of a slow approach and again started teaching. I was. I didn't really know much about politics, but you just can't avoid it when everyone has that, that that moment and that for you was after the Olympics where you realised that absolutely nothing they're doing is for the good of the people.

32:58 It's only how they look in that moment and when the Olympics were over and it was no longer beneficial to look like they cared about primary, like sport in school. Bye. Done. Onto new things. Yeah, yeah. And. And now they've come out and they've released something else. Now going, yeah, we're gonna invest more money in school sports. And Jillian was saying how you know, she wasn't, she wasn't allowed to do football when she was at school. And so she wants girls got and you go in, well, you know, this football, this girls football team we've had for the past six years. When I tell them they're not that they've not been allowed to play football, you know, it's ridiculous. It's it's it's all it's doing. I'm very quickly because we move on. We could go on forever. I just feel like everything they do is a dog whistle to their support base.

33:41 Like it's a dog whistle to the to the Daily Mail to pick up story. It's a dog whistle to what they want people to hear because people don't work in a primary school and if you're 4050 and your last experience of primary schools when you were in primary school. Gillian Keegan saying girls weren't allowed to play football, and I'm going to make sure they are. That sounds good to them because when they were in school in their 80s, girls didn't play football as much. That's just the fact. So they don't care about what's true or what's helpful. They care about what's going to minimise damage against them or maximise publicity for the people they want to get to vote for them. And it just winds me up because nothing ever comes from a place of what's best for our kids, what's best for the well-being of the teachers who raise our kids in school. You know, I say raise kids. We do, you know, we, I feel like we do contribute to raising society.

34:24 You know, it's it's important as that. But we're just constantly, But I'll cope because there's two options. They can either give us more money to do stuff or they can like to have things, you know, like we're going to talk about technology and things like that. Or they can keep the money the same and our staff to do more. It's like we haven't got the money. So you're gonna have to actually do that after school club because we want to help parents with, with daycare, with childcare. So can you do an after school club everyday and do we get paid? No, no, it's just a TS8 teacher standard 8. It's fine, you can just do extra. It's like, no, because I'm at the point now where not only are we striking, I think teachers need to be. Do a bit more to say no to these things as well. Yeah, as a as a as a front, because we can't strike forever, but we can say no to these things. Yeah. And we were having a conversation in our school actually recently where, you know, back when I was full time, most evenings, at least four nights of the week, we would be doing some sort of after school club sporting event, like 4 nights a week we'd be doing something. And we were talking about there's no way in a million years you could do that.

35:24 Now there is no way in a million years you could do that with the workload that's expected of teachers on top. But then there was a sort of compromise oral. If you are doing that, don't worry so much about it. Whereas now it's like, no, you still need to do all of you still need to do all of that. And that's where we were at rugby the other week and they were talking. Some of the parents were talking about how the school just doesn't do any sort of sports and rugby. And I'm like, well, because teachers don't have the time or there's no incentive for the. The only the only way schools are still really good at sport is if a teacher's got a passion that they're willing to give up their time for. If you've not got that in a school, why would any teacher do it? You know, there's no other incentive. We used to talk about we.

36:06 I think we talked about it last week, had another week before. I worried that's what's going missing in schools now is, you know, teachers going that extra mile. Because when I was in school, I remember so vividly all of those sporting events and those extra curricular things. And that Saturday morning trip that we did, or we went to a secondary school after school and we did some DT in there, you know, their DT lab, which we didn't have in our school, or we went swimming in another school. All of that happened outside of curriculum time. And and I really worry now because the thing that's being squeezed the most here is teachers used to have. Very middle class income, very wealthy. But like in terms of relative to housing, relative to food prices and things, where actually I think at the weekend I would say, you know what, I'm paid quite well. I, I, I enjoy teaching these kids. I'm going to give them some extra curricular stuff on my Saturday morning.

36:49 Yeah. Now, now my only thought is, and I don't care if this sounds selfish because it's a fact of the times we're living in, I think to myself, there's a kid who wants me to go and tutor him for a couple of hours. I mean, I'm going to go and do that and get my weekly food, shopping, money rather than the thing that I would love to. Do, but I just don't want to do it because in the week I'm already doing too much. Yeah, yeah. It winds me up anyway, Hayden. So we get Hayden. You can take us off politics, right? We'll be. We'll be here forever. Lee, let's let's let's dive into the past a little bit because you mentioned earlier that you've been teaching a bit longer than us. And obviously now you know, you've, you've got your own brand, essentially ICT with Mr P you're very well known as a ICT with Mr P Yeah, I just kind of want to know a little bit about your story, really.

37:33 Like where, where did that start, you know, from the beginning of your career to now? How did ICT with Mr P get born? Like where? What happened? Yeah. So. So yeah, I am. I am part of the old guard now, I think at my school and the longest serving member of staff bar assault. And that was made apparent at our end of year do last week. We sat there and one of the teachers was doing the playlist because again, if you if you know how to work an iPad you get given the DJ set at your end of year do and one of the teachers had requested pulp right as you do. And this younger teacher, he sat next to me like who's this? I might pull up. It's like who's pulp? I'm like, you know Jarvis Cocker. Do you remember when he got his arse out in front of Michael Jackson at the Brits and she's like, no said look on it at that.

38:21 What year was it? What year was it 96? And she went. I was born in 97. Ohh God. Well, this is, this is where I revealed to you, Lee, that I spent that whole conversation saying, I don't know what he's talking about because I was born in 90. Three. Yeah. Yeah, So, yeah. And then I never wanted to be a teacher, to be honest, uh, funny enough, growing up Or wanted to be an actor. I was. I was quite into acting when I was younger and then applied to get on a few uni courses for acting. Didn't add to the audition and stuff never got picked up and it was. It was purely the fact that my girlfriend at the time, my my childhood sweetheart as they say, the high school sweetheart, she she was doing teaching at Chester Uni and I was like ah yeah, I'll give that a go. And so I applied and got on the course at Manchester Met and yeah, I did a four year BA in primary education and I'm not gonna lie, I I was far too young to do that. Like my uni expert, I just went full Gunco uni and it's not quite the course to do it when you're expected to be on like a ten week placement and you're on a Wednesday night booze up with the rugby.

39:27 You know, it was, it was yeah, I didn't help myself in some respects. Came very close to quitting the course in my third year because of an absolutely dreadful placement which was my first experience of sort of toxic schools. And luckily had a mentor at uni who sort of kept me in and she came and saw the circumstances I was in in the schools. I mean I won't go into it but it was it was it was like a Catholic school. They'd been this new head teacher would come in after a head teacher had been there for like 25 years wanting to stamp their authority and everything. I had the worst deputy head mentor I've ever met in my life who within a week of me being at the school basically said you never pass in this placement.

40:10 There's no and you thinking it's 10 weeks give me a chance. I had a really challenging. Class really challenging class. It was quite a a sort of rough you know deprived area and it was and they were quite dead streetwise these kids but just was so challenge, just really challenging. My class teacher was lovely but it was a Catholic school. She got pregnant halfway through the through the placement. Nothing to do with me. But she was she got, she got pregnant and wasn't married. Right. And so had to then. And this was a few years ago. Yeah. So then had to confront the priest and there was all. And so I just got sort of left aside and it was it was a yeah. That's that's a mess.

40:53 Mess, yeah. And luckily my uni mental, mental mental said look just get through this placement we'll get you another school and and yeah as I stayed in and then managed to get a job at the school I'm still at now and and absolutely love the school. It's it's an amazing school amazing stuff amazing kids and yeah I got married, had had the triplets so I've got a 12 year old triplets. So when they came along, things changed a lot for me and it was quite funny. I look back on it now. So at the time my head teacher, so I we had them in the April and then I did a year full time in class as like class teacher.

41:36 And at the end of that year my head teacher was like luckily I know you're going to be looking at going into sort of management and deputy headship. So what I think is going to be best for you is if we bring you out of class and you can get experience teaching right across the school, developing your subject area. And then you've got that. So that when you apply, you can show that you've moved the subjects across the school. And now look back and think, I must have been that knackered from having three, you know, three babies. That was literally like a zombie that he's gone cut him in class all the time. No, I mean, he's he's framed that really well, isn't he? He's framed as like a really big compliment. He's like, we gotta get laid out.

42:16 What can we do? Yeah he's he's just knackered all the time. He's he's he's not with it. He's he's a zombie and and and to be fair my head teachers always been great with like that. He's very fair in that if you put the graft in he will always be you know put be fair with you as long as you're not taking the Mick is is is great and you know I'm very grateful because I wouldn't be where I am without him and and and the deputy is. He still your head now? Is that the same guy? Yeah he is, yeah. So he's he's part time now and then the deputy sort of part time deputy, part time head. And they've always been really supportive and so accommodating. Because I know had I been at other schools, I would not have had the opportunity to build this while still being at school. Whereas he's very much take.

42:58 He's always said to me, he's always said because he's not into like social media or anything like that. You know, he was like, listen, Lee, just whatever you do, I don't want you doing anything on that face tube that's gonna bring disrespect to the, you know, bring bring the school into disrepute. And he's always said that. He's like, look when you're here at school you missed the Parkinson. Everything you do outside is Mr P and as long as that doesn't you know crossover in a negative way you know and and he sort of sees the opportunities as well that you know companies will say to me, are we alright if we come and do a date your school and then if you post about and I'm like yeah and then so the school benefits from that as well. You know it sort of works both ways. So anyway so when he said that I was like right so ICT was my subject area. We had this old ICT suite with like Windows bloody 95 in there. It was awful.

43:48 And so is that right? I want, I want some iPads had. We'd had a training day with Alan P and he demoed a couple of things on an iPad and I was just like, this is incredible, this is this is the future. And I started researching a few things and seeing the potential to these devices. So I was like, can I get a class set and then I'll go and I'll do my ICT through that around the school because it's mobile. And. And anyway he agreed we got the class set of iPads and yeah, so I was then just sort of doing bits of of sort of that transition from ICT to computing. So everyone was sort of to their own devices of trying things out. And I really focused on using this technology to sort of support across the rest of the curriculum because I could see how it can help in lots of different ways.

44:36 And and I now started just blogging some of the things because I couldn't stick everything we were doing on the iPads. I couldn't stick in a book. Right. And so it's like, well, how do we evidence what we're doing and how do we showcase all this? And so we started the school blog and what I would do on the school blog is I'd post the work kids work on the school blog and then I'd start my own teacher blog where I'd show the how to that, you know, this is what we've done. This is how I did it. And obviously started Twitter with that as well. And then Facebook followed after that and then just sort of took off from there really. So I was getting loads of views and engagement and all those blog posts and then started getting asked to to sort of do some training and actually went to a teach meet.

45:24 Like one of the first things I ever did was I went to a teach meet and I presented it a teach me and that went really well. And next minute Alan, Pete got got got in contact with me and he said look we've been, we've been told about you. We're looking at potentially bringing someone on board who can look at you know do some sort of tech type training. Do you mind if we come and watch one of your sessions. And then he was like yeah, love it. Would you, would you want to. And it was what I will always love Alan. For Alan and Julie's life is it would have been quite easy for for them at that time to sort of say rightly we want you to work for us and you will be working under the umbrella of Alan Pete Limited and but they never did that. What they said was like we want you to work with us so if you want to do this you can set your own company up. We will help.

46:10 We will guide you. We will give you all the support you need and then we can work together on certain projects. And I just think there's so many people out there that would never have done, that would have seen here's this eager young sort of teach you once this opportunity, right. We'll we'll, you know what I mean? Like just take. Advantage of that, Yeah. And they never did. They never did. And I'm certainly grateful for because we learned so much. And you know, my wife, eventually she was a social worker and obviously with the three kids it was, it was tough. So she stopped that and started doing all the admin side of the business as that grew and yeah, it sort of just progressed from there really. So alongside all the useful tips and lessons and apps that were sharing, I started doing this sort of funny videos. And that really sort of blew up.

47:01 And it's interesting because I've been doing it for about, I'd say about a decade now, about 10 years. And I was in a school last week and this teacher came up and said, ohh, I love your videos. I love everything. I mean, Pandemic was great for you. That's where you suddenly went from nothing to this big. And I was like, no, no, I've been doing it way, yeah, way long on it than the pandemic. Yeah, eight years. Ago I started teaching and you were and like I you for me, for my career, you've always been there. Like I remember at the start of my career being like, oh, this is he's funny like he hadn't seen you on Facebook. I just Facebook. Stuff he's funny and that that was like 8 years ago now. So yeah, it makes sense. And and yeah, so it's just all sort of evolved from there. And yeah, I absolutely love it. It's it's it's hard work.

47:43 I think, you know back in those early days when I was doing the blogging that was like proper. I mean it is still graph now but I remember, you know, there wasn't any sort of rewards from doing that. It was just I'd do all my schoolwork and I'd be sat there bottle feeding the kids trying to write a blog post about what I'd been doing. Wow. And I was like, but this summit here with this this this this is gonna be something that's gonna help lots of kids and lots of teachers and and that's what sort of really motivated me. And and and yeah, it seemed to really resonate where you know I'm now in a position where I'm, I'm, I'm travelling here, there and everywhere. I'm getting to meet some incredible teachers, work with some brilliant schools. And you know, one one thing that really put it all into perspective for me was a teacher on a course once said to me like you must love what you do.

48:28 So yeah, I do, he said. Because, you know, if you were just a classroom teacher all the time, you'd only ever have an impact on 30 kids. Whereas when you're doing this to 100 people, you're then having an impact on, you know, 3000 kids and and and when you. Is that right? Is that the right calculator? A lot of children, yeah. A lot of you know, so it's good when you put that into perspective. It's quite a nice thing to know that these ideas and these things have been able to help and support not just teachers, but a lot of the children as well. Are there any downsides to it all? Because it sounds like, you know, it's all very positive, but are there any, like, really hard areas of what you are now, what you've created for yourself? The travelling's hard.

49:14 The travelling's hard. Now is where the pandemic really puts things into perspective for me. So pre pandemic I would be on the road 3-4 nights a week and you know, that's all I'd ever known and it was, you know, that was the sacrifice we made and and This is why, you know, people often ask me how did you do it all, how do you fit it all in? You know you you teacher you this that and the other and you know the the the cliche of behind every great man is a great woman and and my wife is just an absolute superhero. Like I would not be able to do any of this without her being an absolute rock with the with the kids and stuff. So you know, and and I know I annoy you with it because I do become obsessed and I get really into it and but she's never held it against me.

49:58 So you get frustrated, you know, rightly. It's 9:00, o'clock now stop, stop working. But she understands that it's something I'm really passionate about. And you know, and again, I could be with 100 other people who would just not stand for that and it'd be like, but she, she gets in, you know, and she's, she's absolutely incredible. And the the fact she steps up to look after the kids and do everything with them allows me to have that freedom to to be here, there and everywhere. So obviously before the pandemic that was all I ever known. I'd just be on the road and I'd just be travelling here that's staying in hotels and just eating crap out of services and all that. And and then the pandemic hit, and I remember I was in a hotel in Maidstone the night.

50:41 There was near us. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The night that Boris announced and I was due to have a conference in London the next day. And remember within an hour of that being announced six months of work just completely went And and I had the longest and most scary drive home where I'm thinking what what am I going to do here where the whole business has has stopped And you know I had a couple of weeks where it really did sort of worry me. Luckily I had the website. So I'd had the website going for a couple of I think I probably about a year where I'd started doing sort of online tutorials for teachers who couldn't come on training and you know if you want to carry on the learning journey off the back of my training, you could go on the website endless tutorials.

51:27 That's. So again I channelled everything into developing that website. Obviously loads of remote learning support on there and that just about kept us going. But then what I realised was being at home all the time was great. I loved it and and I realised that actually these kids are getting old really quick and you know, I'm getting to spend every day with it. Don't get me wrong, it was a struggle doing the home learning. But beyond that it was, it was dream stuff. And you know, we'd go on walks every day and we just sort of find that there was all these things in our little local, little local area where we could walk down the canal and all this sort of, you know, doing all these bike rides. And I was like I don't want to go back on the road and you know and and so since the pandemic obviously do still travel but I don't do it anywhere near as much and I sort of give myself at least a day at home a week now, yeah, just to be there and be present a bit more.

52:20 So that that's been a a downside. I think the other, the other side of it is probably the negativity that can come from putting yourself out there on social media. That's something I've struggled with a little bit. You know, I I think I'm better now. But it does. It does. It does. I hate the fact we live in a world where people think it's OK that if you're gonna put yourself out there on social media for no other purpose than just to try and raise a smile and try and, you know, help and support. And that's always, you know, been my motivating factor is, you know, if I can make a video and get a message from a teacher who says, look, I've had the worst day at school, this happens, this happened, came home, sat down, stuck, you know, put Facebook on one of your videos, popped up and it just made me laugh and just made me realise I'm not the only one then that that's all I ever want.

53:08 But the way people, because he's a term in education, I absolutely detest and I hate it more than anything. It's an edge you celeb, right? Ohh yeah. And people throw that at me all the time and I'm like, I'm not, yeah, I'm not an edge use celeb. You know, I I can't stand that term because as soon as you put the word celebrity with anything, it's like you're putting someone on a pedestal just to knock him down. And I've I've, I've had it before. It's like it sounds like it would be nice but people use it as a so there was a Facebook Group A while ago um that I was actually a well no I wasn't a part of but someone started sending me screenshots and basically someone just gone in there and just said something negative about me said you know just said ohh miss P this that and the other and it kicked off this thread where all these teachers by the way who you know should be setting an example I just going in on me like really hammering me about things you're not funny this that and the other and people are saying me screenshots. So I got, I got in touch with the admin of this group and I was like, look, I'm not, I don't understand where this is coming. This is a group that's very much, you know, all about helping each other and supporting each other and being there for future.

54:11 Yeah, you're letting people just slagged me off with no real reason. And then I've just got blocked. It's got blocked from this group and I'm like so so that that's been hard to I mean I'm getting better with it because it you know you have to don't you otherwise you. Can't. I think it's. It's unavoidable, right? Like it happens with anyone who gains a following. There's always gonna be another people. It's very cliche, but it's always gonna be haters. They say that. Don't they always going to get them? It is impossible to become. But I've got to say, though, there are some people who. About controversy and you expect that then, you know, the political commentators might go on and be like ohh say something to like stoke someone up. You're you're posting a, you know, renaissance meme.

54:53 It's like, come on guys, it's funny. Yeah. And if you don't, if you don't find it funny for whatever reason, just get on with your day. Like why? This is the thing for me, right? I have. I scroll through social media and see so much garbage and stuff that I just think that's wrong. That person doesn't know what they're talking about. That and. But I would never, ever dream of going well. I need to now tell you my opinion on why I think this is, you know, and some of the things you get. I mean, it's almost laughable now, but it was like I made a video in my back garden yesterday talking about and people that you know, like when people leave all the staples in a staple board, right? Like, who are these people? Like imagine falling in love with someone and I'm realising they do that to a display.

55:37 But you know, and then the comment was, I can't believe you've got fake grass in your garden. This can be so and you go in. What? Yeah, but nothing to do with it. There's more to you know, and and what I've come to realise is the type of people who do leave that sort of negativity, they're just really not worth the time. And and and I mean it is annoying because you can't argue back because as soon as you engage with these people you lose. What I've come to realise is you cannot win an argument on the Internet no matter what, so there's just no point trying I need. I need to take something wisdom cause I get sucked in far too easily to these. Yeah yeah. I need to take a step back because I think you're absolutely right. It doesn't bring anything good.

56:17 Nothing comes from. It. But even when it's an argument worth having. Even when it's an argument worth having. What are you talking like? I'm sorry I made a meme about staples and a board? It's like, cool. Like, you're definitely gonna win that argument because someone thinks that's worth an argument. Then just crack on with your day. You'll be pleased to know that the other day, when I was when I was messaging you lie about coming on the podcast. I was on my sofa and my partner was next to me and she started chuckling and she didn't know what was doing. This just complete coincidence. I looked around and she was just watching what are your reels and just laughing and I was like, typical. I was like, yeah, I'm talking to you right now. Thank you. Yeah, I tell you what as well, just just on that note of your reels and stuff, there was someone at school. We were in school last week, obviously. We said we're very excited to have a chat with you, Lee.

56:59 And we were saying, oh, you got, you never guess who we've got coming on to have a chat. And the reaction was like, you know, I know we don't like the word celebrity. What? How? And I was like, he's just, you know, he's just a bloke. He's a lovely guy. You know, I think sometimes you, whether you like it or not, people will put you on that pedestal that you talked about liking. But what's so good is you come across still so down to earth and the people really respect you. And it kind of leads on to what I wanted to talk about briefly is, you know, you've you've now started to make quite a few more appearances in the media, like on television. You know, almost like if they want to book a teacher that you're you're kind of the guy to go to at the minute. And it really interests me because obviously a lot of your views are aligned with what we think. So when we see on the television, we think ohh thank God someone's like really standing up for teachers, for support staff, saying all the right things against maybe like a government spokesperson or someone who's not been in the school for 20 years. Like we're really grateful to have you as that voice. But I was just just wondering though. Because I think I'd struggle with it, even though it's what I think.

57:57 Do you sometimes, when you're going on these television shows like you go on to Lorraine or something, who's lovely and you have a really good chat? Do you feel that pressure? Because all of a sudden it's not just your opinion anymore? Because whether you like it or not, if you're on national television representing teachers, do you feel the need to represent all teachers? Or do you still manage to kind of stick to your guns and go with what you actually think? Yeah. Because I think I I've always, I've always thought that my view is just very similar to every other, every other teacher at the chalk face. Like I just think in the same way. And and again the amount of sort of messages and comments I'll get sent on things sort of reflect that and almost give me the confidence to think actually this is what most teachers believe and and I mean there is a bit of pressure with it.

58:43 I I do. I do get very sort of nervous because I think you know it's not the first time someone said you you sort of the voice of teachers and and and and you know I don't try and be necessarily controversial with what I say. I just sort of state the obvious almost and try and get it across to people who aren't aware or have never worked in education. This is the realistic picture. It's not all you know, flower, you know roses and you know these parts of the job that are absolutely incredible and make it the best job in the world. But it is not perfect. And these are the reasons why. And I think having that platform and having that support gives me the belief, you know, you know, but also gives me different perspectives to sort of draw upon what then forms my eye, you know, forms the ideas that are then sort of share and talk about, yeah, it's been good.

59:36 I do, I do enjoy it. I do like it. It's been. I mean the funniest one was the other week I got I did a course in Bury it was before the the last strike they on the Wednesday. There was a strike on the Wednesday on the Friday and a producer from Good Morning Britain came to the hotel once I'd finished and she was like, look we were wondering if we can interview you for about the strikes now stood there for what must have been about 20 minutes just going on going on going on like like I do and in turn right. That's brilliant right. All I need now is I just need a shot of you walking past the camera and I went OK and then it was almost as if my brain. And you don't know how to walk.

1:00:16 You do not know how honest my hands it was just so weird. So I can stand there and I can talk to you all day. Well, get me to do anything. It was just it must have talked about 7:00 or 8 takes because she's like, no, you're going too slow. No, get your hands out of your pockets. No, don't cross your arms. Are you walking? Like that's not your natural walk. And honestly, it took forever. Isn't it? That's, that's the thing. I think. I think everyone can relate to the point where this needs to be our poll for the week, right? Can you walk when when you're aware that you're walking? Because we had our graduation year sixes, right, last last week and I just, I kept them chuckling because I was at the front like giving out stuff for the graduation. And we have it so they all walk down the centre of this lovely church. It's really nice.

1:00:59 And but yeah, just seeing them have that first experience that we've all experienced where they had to suddenly walk and there's a massive crowd and they're doing like for a solid 10 seconds and their hands are just like. Yeah, I've forgotten how they're like 4 headings through like I I don't know how to do this anymore. I've seen, by the way, I've seen the video that Lee is referencing. Ohh, once you did your thing before, when you see the video, it's just like wooden man. Hello. Yeah I teach. I'm here to talk about teaching. And it was, yeah, it was, yeah, it was funny. But no, I do. I do enjoy it. And it's nice to be in that position, to hopefully be the voice for teachers, because we certainly need it at the minute. So yeah, if it can help, you know, love it. No, it really does.

1:01:43 Yeah, definitely, definitely. OK, one thing whilst you're here, Lee, we've got to talk about before you go, because I know you've given us a lot of your time. We're very, very grateful. But just in general, obviously teammate AI, big thing in the past few weeks, especially due to reports, we did a little, we did a podcast on it. I know that you shared it with your followers, really, really grateful for that. And it was just this whole idea of kind of trying to break down the barriers of AI and how it can help teacher with the workload. Because we're not going to get the pay rise we need. Well, why not take advantage of some tools, whether it's AI or whatever it is, to reduce that workload for very low cost or free in in most cases. So just in general, I know you're really passionate about this, but how can you see AI helping us in the future in terms of teaching?

1:02:29 My main got my main focus of all this AI that's that's come about as purely been the workload side of things. Now, you know at primary school I don't think necessarily children need access to these sort of language based AI models and I'm I'm not 100% sure of how far we allow students further up school to access it. That's just not really been of my concern really since these tools have come about I've just become obsessed with how it can help us. Do you know we talked about before didn't we so much of our work all the time he spent on stuff that's not having an impact. That sort of stuff can be replaced by or get get a helping hand with Dai stuff.

1:03:09 And so obviously I've been, I've been experimenting and playing around with that GPT from the moment it launched I was talking about sort of open AI on my training probably for the best part of the past year. Obviously when ChatGPT came across it just made it accessible to everyone and I saw the potential to it and and then just got involved with developing Teach Mate which just sort of harnesses it and fine tunes it so that it sort of minimal input for teachers for maximum output and and and already the impact it's having has because it's not going to solve the issues and and you know you go back to strikes like you were saying before would you rather take a 6.5% increase but your workload be the same and and funding be dreadful by or would you rather have a reduced workload and workload is the biggest thing for teachers it is and what I've found over from doing my training So when I first started doing my training like decade ago it was very much like a day of just idea after idea after idea after idea and then I'd visit these schools maybe a year after and nothing will have been implemented. And what I've realised is if teachers don't have time and an opportunity to build their confidence and knowledge and try these ideas out, my trainings are complete and utter waste of time.

1:04:28 And I want because I know the tech can really help, but teachers need the time to get the red around it. And what frustrates me is a profession is one of the worst professions for letting go of things. So I always use the analogy. If if we were taxi drivers, we'd be the worst taxi drivers in the world because we you getting our tax and we'd be like, where do you want to go? It's like, oh, we'll go to the airport. So you put that in the sat NAV because that's what everyone uses. Well then you go right, just strap yourself in. I won't be long. I'm just going to hand write the root in as much detail as possible, just in case someone wants to look at it, you know, And it's like, why can't we move or what? So my trainings then evolved over the past few years in saying look if you've invested in this save, invest in a class set of iPads, right. An iPad.

1:05:16 For me by far my favourite tech tool tech device to use in primary school. You know I know there's a lot of schools go down the Chromebook route and I get a lot of schools like Ohh Mr P we're thinking of buying some Chromebooks which which Chromebooks should be buying them like an iPad because for me it can just do everything everything an iPad a Chromebook can but so much more and the sort of accessibility and the multimedia creation and and and that sort of thing. So, so if you've invested in a class set of iPads, the first thing you need to start with is how this tech and help teachers do their job more efficiently and more. Don't even worry about the kids to begin with. What are the tools that are going to save teachers time? Because if you can do that, you're going to get teachers on board with the tech for one and two.

1:05:59 They're then going to have time to sort of play around and experiment and and sort of build their confidence and knowledge and other apps. But what tends to happen is we buy these iPad, it's like, right, you gotta start using this in your class and teachers are already, they've got no time anyway. So and it's like, yeah, you gotta use this as well as doing everything else you've always done. So for the majority of schools who buy all this tech rather than reducing workload it ends up adding to your workload And and so you know for years I've been campaigning about how tech can help us sort of work smarter not harder is my sort of mantra. But I honestly believe there's not been anything that's been that's come along that's had such an immediate impact on saving teachers time more than this sort of language based AI stuff.

1:06:44 And it is just, you know, I know there's a lot of apprehension and there's a lot of teachers who because I think you talked about and you put on that episode you did, which was which was brilliant about, you know, some teachers saying they weren't allowed to use it. And you just sort of thinking where's that coming? And it comes from that fear, doesn't it? It's that fear of the unknown. I I did a training session of the week where a teacher was like, ohh, I'm not touching that AI stuff. They want the robots to start killing us all. And I'm like, listen to it. Terminator is not a true story, you know, and it's not. He's really good at writing reports. He's great, yeah. And it's not going to be the AI that's going to be the downfall of humanity. It's going to be how we choose to use it as humans, you know? Exactly.

1:07:24 And don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's going to be in the same way that social media can do amazing things, can do dreadful things, AI, AI will be the same. And it's all about how we choose to use it. And if we can embrace it and allow it to to to do some of the heavy lifting with certain admin tasks so that teachers have time to do whatever it is that's that's going to help them. Because this is where I take a very sort of frank approach with well-being because I find that to be, you know, majority of things schools do for well-being tend to do the complete opposite of what they're supposed to do. Because, you know, luckily at my school, we don't do any of that rubbish. But there's absolutely no point in putting a mug on my desk with some chocolates in with a little post it note saying you've been mugged.

1:08:09 If I'm, if I'm the biggest mug stuck in school till half six, 7:00 o'clock every night pointlessly marking books, No, my kids can't even read it. Yeah, and we don't see the irony in it, you know. Yeah, don't get me started on yoga. Have you ever, very quickly, have you ever found yourself in an hour long meeting on well-being? I'm thinking the only thing that would help my well-being right now is if you let me leave like that. Yeah. Number one thing you can do Don't talk to me about well-being. Luckily I've never sat through a staff meeting myself because we're we're not we're not like that. But I've had messages like it's one of the most common messages I got sent home. Must be have been been asked to do so to lead a work a staff meeting on well-being. Can you recommend anything?

1:08:49 And my my response is cancel the bloody meeting. Yeah. And stop my best at 9:00 PM about it, Yeah. You're not yourself. It's the best thing you can do. So there was a teacher who subscribed to, so she got this teacher recently, got a little bit of budget to do some sort of staff, well-being staff meeting or Twilight or something like that. And she just signed a school up to teach mate, got the whole school subscription, spent the first part of the staff meeting, teaching staff how to use it, how to navigate the site. And it's like, there you go. If that can save you 10 hours a week, then use that 10 out. Because this is the thing about well, you can't force it on someone is completely and utterly subjective. Like some people will find listening to this podcast that you do good for the well-being.

1:09:33 Other people would be like, no, no, I can't think of anything. But you know, that's the because it's each to their own. And you know, some people love the yoga. They love it. I can't think of anything worse than being in a hall, doing the downward dog and farting in someone's face. You know, I'm not flexible. Just like thinking about my my own, just me. Like if, if, my well-being and what my subjective experience of that has changed. But if you ask me eight years ago at the beginning of my career, to do certain things or if I was struggling with something, like no, I'm loving this because I was at that point. Honeymoon period of the career where I worked every single working waking hour on it and I loved it. And I wouldn't do that now. I'd resent that completely. So yeah, you would. Absolutely. Right. It's a completely subjective experience and you just have to provide those tools.

1:10:15 One thing I've really liked that you've been doing recently, actually, and. And it's just, I'm not like a really personal level. It just did something in my brain. I was like, oh, that's a good way of doing it because it made me think about it was you've been making a lot of videos recently about, like, actually showing how to use teach my AI. Yeah, like properly, like being like, this is this tool, this is how you do it. And then just filming you literally doing it and using it and saying I'm gonna use this now in this lesson or whatever. It's gonna save me some time for this. And as a teacher who is at that point where you know and just working with Dylan as well, like we fill our we fill our weak all the time. Constantly. Really busy. Um, I just hadn't had time to. I like the idea of doing it, but I was like, oh look, another time I'll look. Another time at all.

1:10:57 I'll look, it's been 5 weeks now. I'll look another time on that tour. But seeing your video and just the way we all consume media, I was like, oh, I've just done that thing that I meant to do for five weeks because you did it for me. Ohh that. Yeah, I can use that tool, yeah. Yeah. And that was really good. And what I like about, I think one of the biggest sort of selling points almost of it is the resources it creates are so bespoke to you what you want. So you know, you've got all your big resource websites out there. We know, we, we know who they are. But there's certain topics you will do in class that they won't have. They're not going to have a local history resource for where you are in, in Kent compared to, you know, we do something about style, Milliman not going to have anything about that.

1:11:38 But with this tool now you're able to curate resources that are completely bespoke to what you're covering or what the interest is of the children or whatever it might. And I think that's such a powerful, powerful thing. So obviously the time saving element is the the top one. I mean anything that can be used to save teachers time and you know it's not going to solve all of the problems we're facing as as educators it's not. But if it can give teachers that time back, you know, I think it's a really good thing. But also the fact and this other bits, so you know a lot of the feedback we're getting from CT sort of young teachers. I don't know if it was the same with you when you came in. It's it's like watching a Line of Duty episodes sometimes isn't it, where there's all these acronyms and they're talking and what seems like a foreign language.

1:12:23 We're going what's what's an NQT PSC you know ECT and and and these tools there that can you know explain certain terms or give you a breakdown of you know what what am I supposed to be looking at or what does this mean or what is the you know KSI children safe and. You know, we're going to have to use that for our we get a lot of people listen to the podcast who are teachers, and after every episode, what is it? What is pedagogy? What are you talking about? Ohh, Yeah, sorry. Forgot. You've got no idea what we're talking about the time. So it's good for that and and also sort of some of the send support that's there as well. So we've built some tools that you know if you are noticing that a child is behaving in a certain way or this certain, you know, you can go in there and sort of say look this child is presenting with this, this, this and this. And it will, you know, use its data to sort of say, well, it could be this and this is, you know, there's one where if you say, right, I've got a child in my class who's got ADHD. And then the the AI will create a number or you know, generate a number of ideas for how you can make your classroom more inclusive and and best support the children. Which you know you could go on Google and you could fat but this is just doing it at the speed of light you know so. So I think it is a really, really positive tool obviously where it goes the it's sort of exciting and scary at the same time.

1:13:44 It just how quickly things are developing and you know and and we do obviously need to be aware of certain things and you know people have commented on some of my posts about uh oh be careful because next thing I will take over your job and I was like well it won't will it because the main part of our job is the human connection we have with these kids. You know and that's never going to go away. You're always going to need that. We just search quick side thing for part of our tutoring stuff. We we make a lot of YouTube videos as well. Yeah we just for fun. Last year, when ChatGPT was like first hitting the media, we just made a silly video of Will Will AI replace teachers? And we got ChatGPT to write us. A script to follow as a teacher on how to teach five things.

1:14:25 So we gave him, he said, ohh, write me a script on how to teach children how to tell the time, for example. And it was hilarious because it got one or two of them right. Anything really procedural was quite good, like how to find the interior angles of a triangle, you know, whatever. But yeah, it was a real laugh because it just got it completely, completely wrong. It can, it can be erratic sometimes. It can come out with some stuff and you're like, where's it got that from? So. Conclusion. It's it's not gonna replace teachers. It's a Turner. It's a team. Yeah. It's not us. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great tool and it really powerful tool, but ultimately is a tool. It's like I said in a video about it, sort of being like a calculator. Calculators haven't replaced mathematicians. Yeah, you've still got mathematicians, but it's just a tool that they can use to help with what they're doing. So I think a I can certainly help with that and and and and and sort of the impact it's having has been amazing sort of the feedback we've been getting from teachers. Like I had a message from a teacher who said it's it's literally kept her in the profession. She was so close on it a day and having a tool now that giving it gives her a week, evenings and weekends back. He's just unreal.

1:15:33 So you know it is. It's great. Lee, we are so grateful for your time. I think we're going to wrap it up there. It's it's it's been like amazing to talk to you and again, just wrapping it up with the thanks for all your insight with AI. Thanks for all you're doing on the media. Stuff because, you know, we're going to be the voice of the teachers who aren't on the media now and say you're doing such a good job for us. So we really, really appreciate it. Thank you. No problem. I really do. And yeah, Hayden, anything before we go? Well, I just wanna ask one quick question. The final point. OK, what's in store for the future? What can we expect to see from ICT, Mr P? Just more of the same, really. We've got another podcast tour happening in October and that's going to be that. We're playing some quite big venues with that one, which I'm absolutely cracking it, but hopefully people can We're we're, we're doing it.

1:16:23 So the first tour we sort of agreed to do it. During lockdown, when I just wasn't sure of where the training was going to go. I didn't know whether I'd be back on the road, I didn't know whether schools would. So I sort of had that offered and we were like yeah, well then you know something guaranteed And then because it was sort of selling so well they kept adding dates and dates and I think we ended up doing close to 70 dates over sort of best part of a year which was incredible. But it really started to take its toll a little bit. So it was sort of still travelling during the week doing my training and then Friday night, Saturday night, Sundays were were on the road, you know and I made clear to my brother that when when we are on the road we we're back every night like I'm not staying out.

1:17:09 So even if we don't get home till 3:00 in the morning and want to make sure I'm there with the kids on a Sunday and we have a full day which sort of backfired because I would be there but I'd be so tired. I think that's not being there And it was amazing and and and sort of the reaction to it and I thought it really sort of came at the right time where post COVID when teachers had you know really worked their arses off and stepped up and you know it was really you know cannot underestimate what an incredible job teachers and schools have. Did you know having an opportunity to come together and just sort of not not reminisce that makes it sound like it was a pleasant experience but sort of talk about it and have a bit of a laugh and a bit of a giggle and have a few drinks.

1:17:50 It really did seem to resonate and help and so but, so when they approached us and said you want to do another tour, I was like, yeah, but there's no way I'm doing you know 6-7 months of every. Weekend. Condense it to two weeks during the October half term and then they've gone right. OK, but we'll book you it. Venues that double the size of what you were doing last time. So we've got like, the London Hackney empire we're doing. Whoa. Yeah, I think I've, I think I've been there. That's not small. No, no, that's what I mean. So that's amazing. So we've got that in the pipeline. Some other sort of exciting projects have been working on and obviously exciting to see where the AI stuff goes and obviously really developing that.

1:18:34 I mean we've got some really exciting updates on Teach Mate happening over the summer and and sort of looking at building that and just making it as, you know, I think what what sets it apart because these sort of AI teacher tools are popping up here there and everywhere. Yeah. But what I really think sets us apart from all the others is, you know, it's made by teachers, for teachers. So it's sort of exactly sort of getting the best out of this sort of technology. And and what we've been able to do now is bring on a really experienced sort of coder and programmer who's able to build stuff that we could only dream of. And so we're sort of going actually, would we be able to do this? And he's like, yeah, just give me a couple of weeks and I'll build it. So if you do go on the platform now compared to maybe when you made that episode a few weeks ago, you'll see the drastic difference in in all elements of the website. Thanks to Ian, who's just been an absolute godsend. So that would be exciting to see where that goes. And then yeah, I suppose just continuing to to represent the the profession and and and sort of help and support. However, however, I can really.

1:19:40 So we like to hear. It's what we like to hear. Ohh amazing. It's been so good talking to you and thank you so much and. Happy down to earth as we we thought you would be who you would be and it's been a really good chat. Yeah, and keep doing what you're doing guys. I've been enjoying listening to the episodes. Thank you. No. Cheers, mate. We, we now we we do appreciate that. That's really cool and we don't need to tell you how good your podcast is. So thank you. Brilliant. Yeah. Cheers. OK, now as always, every single guest we've had on this podcast, we've been so lucky. Haven't we had him? Because afterwards I just feel like I get so much out of it. But the one thing I will just say that I felt was amazing about that from my point of view is I felt like I had someone on my level of my political anger and it just felt so good to have that discussion.

1:20:24 I know you, I know you care about these things either, but I just, it was like 2 Mr P's. I'm an honorary one now with Mr. Price and I just felt like I say yeah, yeah, he just, he gets it. He he he gets it, he gets the anger. And I like said millions of times, No. Just so grateful that he's on online, on the media, spreading our word. I I was gonna try and make a joke at one point and I just said, you know, when you get the right moment to jump it in. So I didn't. But I was gonna say it's like talking to two Dylans is I've got two of you now because you had very much the same ideologies, same ideas and there are points where you two are just going off on having a really interesting conversation about politics or whatever. So I actually thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and I can't wait to see the next installment of three Mr P's in a podcast and. And everyone else gets a list.

1:21:06 I'm gonna do this solo from now on. I was gonna join them. We've got some on that. On that note, I guess some sad news for a lot of people. This podcast is ending this week because I have been off the contract and unless you change your name to something, gonna pay Mr Stevens if. You're not involved, right? No, that's it. I'm out of the game. It was a good run. Thanks everyone, for listening. Thanks. Rishi Sunak being our biggest listener, bringing that joke back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's what comedians call a callback, apparently. And if you give you callback stuff enough, it's funny apparently. Is this the point then, where you are and you say things like thinking of callbacks? This is where you can check our old episodes and stuff like that. Is that we do, Yeah, definitely, definitely. So you know, if you did enjoy that and you know and you enjoy Mr Peace podcast and why not 21?

1:21:48 That's a sub tier version of it and that's our podcast Teach, Seat Repeat. So if you come from being a fan of Mr P and his amazing podcast, this one, OK, so why not? Why not check out all of our previous episodes and and yeah, we'd love to have you and love for you guys to stay. Anyway, Aiden, I've seen that's it for this. Week. Yeah, nice one. I meant the social media stuff, but that's fine. I don't need to know where to find us on social media. It's down a link below. I really don't want to say it again, so. We have to watch that. I'm gonna finish with this if you've got some funny stories from the classroom that you'd like to share with us. Bought some cringe worthy moments, Awesome toxicity in schools that you want us to out because you know, which is well then do write to us and we will definitely share them on a podcast because we love it. See you next time.