Ep 46: Will The Teacher Workload Reduction Taskforce Actually Make A Difference?

0:00 Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Teach, Sleep, Repeat. My name is Dylan. And my name is Hayden. And please don't. Don't click off. You've not clicked on the last episode or the episode before. Hayden has, for the third time in a row, wore the same shirt. Don't. Worry about I also wore it last week when we didn't do an episode. Just just you know. I'm starting to think that's all you wear when you're not in school. Well, and I've got a bit of a theory. And the reason is because this week I was speaking to some children on the playground who are in your class who I thought previously, we obviously talking about you, we'll come onto that later. But she said to me, yeah, I call him Blue Shirt man, because he always wears the same blue shirt. It's so true, I have right just to explain myself here. But please do, because I am about to absolutely expose yours, because I I think people will think that what you do is mental. So God.

0:44 What do you mean? I've actually got like 12 to 15 shirts in my wardrobe. OK, how many can fit? OK, let's I've got 15 shirt, right? Yeah, 12 of them. I haven't worn in over 2 years. Why? Because I've put on weight and I was like, no, I I still refuse to accept the fact that I shouldn't be. I need to fit into those. Shirts. That's fine. That leaves you with three that fit, right. Three. And you're only in school for three days a week. Yeah, so naturally. Obviously I wear one a day always. Is that true? I do. Now. You do. Now I do. Now you do it now. Now talk about my past all you want. Dylan, he you're trying to embarrass. Me. No, I'm not. I'm right. You have you. You you defend yourself. Another reason. Look, I have three shirts, OK? They're all blue. Yeah. And I wear them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday they get washed and wear them next week.

1:27 I wear the same free on. Rotation so you've never won the same shirt 2 days. Anymore, because these are, these are what I call my fat shirts, alright? Because they're the ones when I'm at my biggest, I wear these three. It just happens to have been that I've been on them for two. Years You've been fasting diet for two weeks. Obviously you've moved out. Talk about that in a minute. But I used to. I used to. If I got home and my shirt wasn't like, particularly if it wasn't smelly, basically I've been. I'll be right for another. Day. That's good. Take it off and hang it up. I can't do anymore. I sweat too. Much so. So that's how you judge whether clothes go in the washing machine or not. If they stink. If they stink. Bye, Lauren. Be like, what about all that bacteria and yellow stains? Like, no, it doesn't smell. Doesn't smell.

2:10 It's going back on the next day. So sometimes. And my whole point was, yeah, I wanted to reduce washing, yeah. I mean, I mean it's a matter of reduction going from three shirts to two. Have you ever ironed a shirt? Yes. So I don't plan to start. Soon. Wait, so you're trying to reduce stuff? Not even you. Don't even do it. Do you wash your shirt? Do you do the washing home? Very rarely. Do you do the ironing? No. So he he had no benefit at all from from wearing the shirt. Twice. I feel bad because I know Lauren does the ironing and I'm like, I. Don't give up ohh mine to do. It's funny because I do that but with my trousers. I will often wear my trousers every day of the week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and. But I think that's normal underwear. And wear for terms. You've actually never changed.

2:54 My trousers get washed probably once every two weeks. We. Do change the waistline every every year or. Two. Yeah, I get a new belt. At 36 now, I don't know what you're on. By the way, it's 3636 is my account. I've got 36 and that's when I thought do something about that. So as you all know, anyway, off on a tandem very quickly on that point of the waistline, you've been doing a challenge with me every day, OK? And your challenge, just for anyone who wasn't listening, didn't hear that Hayden's challenge every single day and we're going to see how far we can go with January 1st. Is January the first New Year? How many days in a row can we both do Our particular challenge? Mine was to cut out sugar from my diet. Hayden supposed to go on a fasting diet. Now. Cutting out sugar for me was more about how I feel. It was more about like, I want to get clarity when I don't eat sugar, I'm less groggy.

3:41 I feel less tired, I feel better and like the weight loss is kind of like a a separate thing that happened as a result. It's a bonus. Whereas you chose fasting specifically just to lose weight. Yeah, I just want to drop a. Few pounds. So how much did you have you lost in WOW? I started kind of. I'm going to share my weight because who cares? I started on OK because I don't really care. Actually. I start on 15 stone 2. Yep, I did drop down. I did drop down to 14 stone 13. Really. Yeah, Now 115 stone. What happened? What happened? Wow, I've got a bit lazy with the old. This is the problem. Right. Wait, wait, wait. No, I'm still going. I'm still doing it. The problem with this diet, and I know you're going to rinse me about it anyway, the problem with this, with this diet is I can do the fasting easy. I cannot eat for 16 hours a day, but when it comes to the 8 hours where I can eat, like technically there are no rules. It always says, yeah, you know, just eat a normal amount, eat what you want in those eight hours. It's the 16 hours that cause you're you're you're keep something about ketosis, you're going to ketosis and ketones. Buddy, buddy, did you get this off like an? Instagram ad Was this like?

4:44 We've got off some app that I was using to track it and I was like, Oh yeah, brilliant. What it doesn't mean it doesn't mean is you can eat a whole range of cake. It doesn't mean you can eat a pack of four whispers. It does. These are the kind of things that I need to stop doing. This morning and there was a four lack of whispers, A4 pack of ripples, and some whisper golds. Yeah, why? Why? Well this I I tell you what this is cause and I know what this was from. So yesterday I came home and on the side I said to Lauren, ohh my mum, My mum's been around then ohh every time my mum comes round she always brings. Like, is she an enabler? Yeah, she's an enabler. Blame her mum. But so in all seriousness, if I actually want to see results like you're seeing results you can talk about in a minute, I do. I do need to also basically do your diet. Maybe a light version because I'm doing the fasting if I just cut out like 50% of the.

5:30 Sugar. Yeah, yeah. I'll probably start losing weight. You stopped eating chocolate? I bet you would. Yeah, almost definitely just that one. Almost definitely. Chocolate is the. Is the killer, isn't it? We've got you've had loads of success and actually wanna hear about it because it's a hard diet kind of sugar so. Yeah, I mean, it's hard. It's hard for someone like us. I think for the average Joe, it's like it's a couple of chocolate bars, yeah. No, I already have some self. Discipline. Yeah, literally. So we're coming from a place of no self-discipline whatsoever to just trying to be a bit of a grown up. And I always say this, just trying to be an adult and it's going well. But essentially I'm not snacking. Yeah, I'm not snacking at all. So you look different. Yeah. Yeah, I've lost weight. I've lost some weight. So And it is.

6:10 Jokes aside and taking the maker stuff, it is it is nice when people say it and they're like you because again numbers on the scale it doesn't actually matter, might actually care that much. The number one thing is genuinely how I feel and losing weight makes you feel better because you are just a bit more mobile and also in your clothes you feel a bit less conscious. I've I've realised I never thought I was that conscious but but now putting the same clothes on and not like noticing my belly and stuff as much, it just looks like a how AT shirt should fit. Yeah, and only then did I realise that, Ohh yeah, that was in my mind definitely. Like, every day when I got dressed, I was like, God, and like, when you put on a shirt, like you said, you do the buttons up and you're like, OK, this shirt never used to feel like this where it's getting tighter. It does just feel better to have lost a bit of weight. And that's the side goal of this thing. And it's working.

7:01 But also, I must say, I don't feel remotely as tired remotely, like, not even close to it. And we've always said this before, that's the best. We've been absolutely knackered, like, during school and stuff. Yeah. And we were like, OK, I need to get some more sleep. And then maybe we'll get some more sleep and we'll still feel knackered the next day. And the reason is you don't feel tired because you're not getting enough sleep. You feel tired because your body is an absolute mess, like, like. Honestly, it's like. It's running of ripples right before bed and then got a good night's sleep did not help the. Situation. Yeah, literally. So you're waking up, your body's done in. It's trying to like function off a diet which is not remotely suitable. So all I'm doing is I'm having breakfast, dinner, and I'm not going to do this again. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's because I'm.

7:43 Northern and I want to say breakfast dinner, just episode dinner, breakfast dinner. Dinner said no, said Yeah. I just have breakfast, dinner, lunch every day. And I said in that. Order. Yeah, funny, Good joke. But yeah. And then no, No crisps, no chocolate, no fizzy drinks. They're they're trifecta. And no fast food. No fast food. The trifecta but and I know like no fast food but like backing like McDonald's, that kind of thing. The only thing we have had is like a Nando's. Yeah yeah yeah. From this oven, that wood fire oven pizza place and stuff like that. Yeah. So not. Necessarily, no. So it's fine, you. Can. Yeah, You've got to. Because I tell you what, it feels more sustainable than last time.

8:24 Yeah. I I, you know, I walked in and I saw them chocolates and a part of me was like, I would eat two of them right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't, actually. I don't sit wanting it, and the benefits of the whole diet is outweighing my desire to go and eat it. Yeah. So it does feel good now though, and I'm going to start doing some more exercise now. Now I've added in a bit of that and I've got to a bit like knocked a bit off, Yeah, because like I said, the numbers are cool, but I want to feel better, so I just want to get. Stronger anyone not watching, by the way, Dylan is has been doing this episode so far with his top off. He's really, really proud to present. Isn't it? Isn't me. I've gone from morbid obesity to obese and I'm like, yeah, this is how you do it, guys.

9:05 On the on the app. Yeah, all BMI is all crazy anyway, because I'm like a short stocky. But I tell you what anyway. Obesity. There's like, it's very easy to get into that bracket, isn't it? Like the actual technical side of it? I said I've been on like that app. I've been obese for years. Yeah, I've got news for you. Real life killer. Not the app mate, But yeah, no. Lower threshold than you think it. Is it is. And I know a lot of people will be listening who feel the same way of like, OK, I know I need to do something, but I'm working so hard constantly at school, it's easy for me to get a ready meal and some chocolate and walking for the staff area. We've done it for years. Like, it's this is not remotely like a judgy thing. And if you're listening to this anytime from sort of March back on, then then this is what we need to listen to this advice we have given up by them. I think what I have found this week really hard though, purely because and I know you know this as well, because we've both been there.

9:56 I had a rank cold last week. Yeah. And when you feel ill, just everything is just so much effort. And I think I really dropped off because I was, I was actually a bit more conscious before this week about what I was eating in the day that was losing. I was losing weight and then I've kind of put a pound back on I. Forgot you all that does. Actually, and yeah, it's like it's just pure, like it's not lazy. Feeling sorry for yourself? But also your body is trying to fight, like fight off stuff and it needs more calories I assume, and I'm not. Saying the nasally. Voice if I'm just guessing. Anyway, let's move on. Let's talk about this week. A quick recap of our week. Some funny stuff happened. Yeah, we're gonna get into a really chunky bit of this episode. Now move forward to it. So. So I wanna start with story and it is kind of between me and Dylan. This is for you guys because it's a funny thing that happened this week. So I was on the playground on Tuesday and a bunch of your kids, your maths class, Dylan's in year 4, I'm in year six for context and maths class.

10:44 A couple of these girls come up to me and was like really riled up and they were like, we're going to beat you. And I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, we're going to beat you. And Dylan explained that he set up a times. It was rock stars competition between his class and my class. A year four set and a year six best mathematicians in the school set. Yeah, just for. Context top set year six. So I was like, all right, OK, yeah, I've only set it for three days so they can smash you. Yeah. OK. We're going to get the iPads in. Obviously playing behind the scenes, I'm playing along with this but to the kids I'd be like, no, I'm going to go tell all my essays right now. They're going to go home and they're not letting year fours beat me. If you fours beat us and and I think I said something like Mr Mr. Price can take over or something like that And I was like but if I win if these if they are my year six is win. I'm coming into your classroom next week I'm kicking Mr. Price out.

11:33 I'll be taking the class from now on. That's all I said. That is all I said and and the conversation ended there. I didn't hear anything More of these girls ran off like. I'm going to tell you what happened after that. Then yes. So they came into my classroom, like, honestly, could barely breathe. They were so like and and it and it and they said something about right, right. We get to, we get. Listen, if we win, we get to chase Mr Stevens and he's gonna kick you out the window. If you win, he's gonna kick you out the window and take over and teach us maths for the whole time. So completely made that up. Already kicking out the window? Yeah, literally just made out of nowhere, went out his PA that afternoon. I came back from PA and what the teacher teaches, PSHE said. The kids have written a note for you or something, this whole note of this plan, how they're gonna chase you around the playground, right?

12:16 And they said in maths on Wednesday, Wednesday morning. And they found that they'd won. Yeah, because I because initially it was Monday to Monday and my class, like we had iPads out in the morning and it's correct answers. So like my class got like loads ahead And then your class just did their homework, which is like a minimal amount and they overtook us. So I was like, OK, the yes, they're just gonna win because they're quicker, just even if a few of them do it. And so I changed the date back to Wednesday and then we got the iPad out again on Tuesday. Anyway, they won and they were unbelievably excited. And I was like, I need to really think of something for you guys. A nice little treat because you beat the year sixes. Just a trick to make do those times table. Yeah. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's a letter. There's a letter on the on the shelf.

12:57 And I was like, what? And they they left the letter, that letter on the shelf. So I've got it. And then then we come to the front and explain what's gonna happen. And I was like, yeah, right. So the same 2 girls came to the front in maths and they were just so excited. And the kids in the class were so excited as well and they were there going right. So basically what we get to do is, Mr Stevens, we're going to chase me. It's going to be Mr. Price and Miss Gillett, who's my teaching assistant. Or some days in school. Yeah, they're gonna be behind. Mr Stevens. And they're gonna be chasing Mr Stevens. Then it's us two behind them that we're gonna be chasing Miss Stevens. And then everyone else is behind us and we're going to change Miss Stevens all around the playground and that's because he lost. So like and basically that was that was yesterday the last day. They think that's happening next week. Yeah. I mean, it's got to happen now, isn't it? And when this is released, it's going to be happening like tomorrow it's gonna happen. And I said, I think, I think this is Stevens on duty on Tuesday.

13:42 And I've just got this vision now, because if 20 kids are chasing Man Playground, everyone will join me. In the whole of the school kid years ago that that started in my class was really funny and he started this chant about me. I can't what it was, but it was quite funny. Baldy Baldy over there, yeah. Probably it was like Miss Stevens for president or something like that. I think it was. And he managed. I'm not joking. He got every single child on the playground to following. Him like a big. Conga line chancing this. Thing was that I was gone now. Yeah, I think I remember. Yeah, yeah. Every year or two years. Ago. Look what's going on. There's like hundreds of years. Ago. Two years ago, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like it only lasted for like 20 seconds but for. The fact he managed. To get like a hundreds of children for a minute just to do this thing. That kids gonna go someplace? So yeah, Tuesday, bring on Tuesday. I'll be chased around.

14:26 By just love it, I feel like we're getting right back into our group of of like winding kids up in terms of getting them riled up about you, cause my class are now becoming a bit obsessed. With you, but it's great cause what did make them do their times? Yeah, completely, exactly. That's the whole thing. I was like, yeah, they're gonna love the fact they've managed to beat some year sixes they weren't realise it's because we didn't cost. Like they won't know. That I didn't think of you winding up kids. I did have a bunch of girls in my class come up the other day and I know this was to do with you and they were just staring at my forehead. I was like well. What do you want to watch the US office, Right. One of the things Jim does to Dwight cause Jim's always pranking Dwight. Yeah, one of the simple pranks Jim does to Dwight is just literally get everyone to look at his forehead instead of his eyes when he's talking. Yeah, so I said to him, get as many people as you can to do.

15:07 I think they just ran off quite excited and did it. Just them to as many people as you can to do it. And don't tell, don't pretend nothing's happening. Have conversation with him but stare at his forehead and don't get eye. Contact at all came into my English lesson. Just stare at my forehead. Ohh no. I love the idea that something that happens and straight away like I know. Stella Yeah, of course, Yeah. I went too far. After about 20 seconds, I was like, Mr. Price specifically told us. To stare at your forehead is like ruining the joke, but fair enough. Like I only worked. If you don't tell him, you go crazy. But yeah. I also had the other day on this note of the thing between us two. We were doing an RE lesson and it was it was on this this passage from the Bible where Jesus talks about making the fisherman Fisher of men And and the whole point was it's about Jesus like recruiting disciples and people to spread the word. Yeah.

15:55 And. And they. And they go and fish for men in terms of go and get them to join Christianity. Catfishing. Yeah. Yeah. Catfishing. Exactly. Yeah. Dress it all up and it's nothing like they said it was going to be but like and the idea was that we would right at the end the job advert as if we were Jesus trying to find Fisher of men And the whole point was what are the characteristics that you would want from a disciple. So like, kindness, loving, popular, they come up with all the Christian values basically. And and persuasive was a big as well because we're trying to convince people to. Yeah, of course. And then we talked about like being a salesman and how it was modern day. They'd be good people to get in because they convince. People to imagine they thought really hard then about, yeah, yeah, the kind of people they probably definitely label some people. Yeah. This kind of person, so the quality.

16:36 Exactly. They were really, really focused. They're writing was actually really quite good. You know, had lots of ideas on the board. All those things you just said, love, kindness. And at the top of the sheet for the job advert was a picture of the ideal candidate. Of course, someone said finished writing. They could drop picture of the ideal candidate and label. It and everyone took it. Seriously, everyone took really seriously. And and but Marcus Amari and opened the book and it was just a picture of me, knew nothing to do with Fisher of men. Quite rotund people, I must say. My beard and hair you completely round circle. Yeah. And it was labelled Mr Bruce, Mr Stevens and arrow to me saying good and an arrow to you say bad. Nothing to do. With nothing to do whatsoever underneath. He's like, yeah, fishermen needs to be, you know, have have real kindness, be persuasive. OK, Can we see a picture of that? No. But you have got a good and bad. Picture and there everybody is the downside of hyper too much and then they just ruin their essence. Got too obsessed?

17:23 With it literally. So this is a fine line. Not pretending we have the line, but I'd much rather be like we are. Yeah, I much rather be. Like I've always said, kids, my number one priority is kids enjoy school. I go home happy, go home with a smile on their face. Yeah, they're learning, Will. Will come and maybe the second priority would be that teachers got home the smile on the face because the Workload Reduction Task Force, what manages to introduce some new Is, is there fantastic? Is there been a Segway early release of the teacher workload reduction task? Force. I know we play the Jingle and find out. All right, so anyone who doesn't know recently, and I'm talking like last week when this is released, the government have responded to something they've set up. And what they set up was it was a DfES workload reduction task force.

18:12 And this all came about from the strikes. It was the idea of OK, listen, a big part of the reason why teachers are striking is because workload is at crazier than ever. It's more than ever. And systematically alongside that simultaneously. Rather, pay was stagnating. So you may have heard a lot in the media, especially if you're not a teacher, about the whole pay thing. Yeah. And that was the thing that drove forward because inflation was high. We could be like kind of blasted as selfish to the to the country because we're asking for so much money at a time when inflation is tough and everyone's feeling the pinch. That was 1/2 of it. And for many teachers, less than half of it. And I know a lot of teachers where they had to pick one thing that was more vital to them, the pay. It was, it was. The pay was important, but it was like, OK, listen, if we're in a situation where we can't afford to pay teachers at inflation, then we need to do something to reduce the amount of work that.

18:59 They do, yeah, to make the job. Less so. You know, one thing had to give and part of that was the government signed up to kind of set up this task force to reduce workload. It's been, there's been ongoing for years and years, these ideas being popped up to the government and it's kind of separate to the government. And then the government can respond to them and be like, OK, yes or no, yes or no. And this week we had the first recommendations from that task force. And it was big news because the government have already replied to a couple of them and said yes or no. And there's been a general feeling of OK, this is how we're going to move forward. We'll talk at the end about what happened next. It's not done. But I thought this would be a fantastic episode for anyone who is in teaching or is wondering what the teachers do. Why are they striking? Why is this such a nuisance?

19:39 Yeah, is it not known? What is the problem with work? What is the problem? Yeah, why? You know, the fact there's a task force being set up does kind of suggest there is a big problem. And just look at the retention. Particularly the government. Know this government who are Don't budge on anything. Yeah. If they've actually agreed to do this, it's kind of like, OK, yeah, probably should take this seriously then. And and the great gaol gaol free card for the government is they can reject this the. Suggestions which, yeah, we'll talk about. The first one and I thought this was a fantastic idea and I'm not afraid to say when things are good and when the government make a good decision. I think that's really important. We've got to say when it's a good thing. Is it an election year? Yes. But anyway, um, could they have separate, you know, reasons for doing it now? I don't know. But anyway, one really, really good thing, and it's it's rife across the the whole system since we started, really, was the introduction of performance related pay.

20:26 Because the idea of performance related pay is you'd set up some targets with your SLT, whatever your mentor in school over the year. And it will be to do with progress for the children, usually in maths or English or linked to the school's performance plan and what they're working on as a school. And that all makes sense. It's good to have targets, especially. We've been told as well previously that, you know, these targets are stretch targets. They're targets where they're really kind of, you know, aspirational. It would be really amazing if you managed to move all of these children up to that level. It's more than what's expected from you as a baseline. The problem is though, when the government changed all this, I think it was like in 2014 and when Gove was the education secretary, they linked pay rises and moving up the ladder, not just to experience anymore, but to whether you met these performance targets and a big thing schools could do then was set ridiculous targets.

21:18 You're never going to meet them. You don't meet them because it's not reasonable to you. And then you'll pay isn't bumped up to the ladder. I'm not talking about a pay rise percentage, pay rise for inflation. We're talking about the experience ladder, where you go up to the first wrong step and wrong as years goes on. So they're saying and that it works poorly in practise this this does the the the government, sorry, the body who the government have paid to go off and do all this research have said this does not work in practise. It doesn't actually make sure that teachers get there or not. It's not enough of a carrot for teachers to be able to achieve those goals because the goals are unreasonable. It doesn't matter what they've got in front of them. Yeah, it just adds stress. It just means that some teachers don't get a pay rise at the end of the year. And what's your thoughts on scrapping?

21:59 That a couple of things. So it adds, you know, like you said, it does just add another layer where that just makes this job ridiculously different depending on what school you work in. Sure. For some reason it's like ohh, there's public sector job, you did the same training, you're on the same pay scale in that school though they're gonna set a crazy target for they're not gonna give you a pay rise. Go over there and they will. It's like I'm the same person. Yeah. So that's that's just stupid. I hate that. So I do agree with you know, it's not the best system if we're supposed to have this lovely public, fair public sector job where everyone paid the same. So if you're you know someone who's not in teaching and you look at this, I can imagine people look at this and go I've got performance related pay. I've got sales targets and need to meet to get Commission and things like that. Someone really. Maybe I'm gonna state agent, I'm gonna really low base salary and unless we meet our targets in branch then I don't get paid as much and that's that's because you're making money for the business.

22:43 What what do you think is different about a teacher? Why should teachers not have it? Why why do we. Not annoying me, I was about to ask you the same question. So that's my that's my counter thought all the time. Is anyone in the private sector right now? I was thinking performance related pay is pretty, pretty standard stuff. Sure. So I understand that the sympathies might not be there when we're saying to scrap it. So I don't, I don't necessarily think we should just scrap it. Yeah, because at the end of the day, do people perform differently? Will people work harder? Will people be trying to improve themselves at a different rate? And should should there be any kind of renumeration for it? Maybe, but I don't think that's true. And we've worked in schools long enough to realise this, that the amount of work and hours you can put into a cohort doesn't always necessarily translate to how much progress they're gonna make.

23:29 It's not like sales where the more telephones you pick up. Hmm. And the more calls you make, the more sales you make. Yeah, the more hours you put in, the more sales you're complete. Therefore, you're gonna kind of kind of linked to the amount of effort you put in with this. Really. You know if I sit and replan the entire English curriculum, maybe one or two Cosby children might get through that didn't before because they, you know, they relate more to the text and they're more engaged. Your teaching style isn't gonna change because of performance related pay. Yeah. I'm not gonna suddenly become that teacher who now manages to make it form an amazing bond with this child who was so reluctant before. But now that I've got performance related pay, wow, I've made a real difference to that child. Hmm. It's it's not as linear, I don't think.

24:09 And what's really interesting from this is the research says from this task force that it doesn't work in practise. It's this idea. And I think sometimes in culture we think that's what we always do, that's what everyone else does. Well, why don't we just carry well, you know, if the research is saying no, if the research says working from home for a private company doesn't impact whatsoever with the output of the company and it makes people happier, we don't just, we shouldn't just turn around and say, oh, but we've always been in the office, so come back into the office, please, You need to react to research. And if it's saying it doesn't work and it's only adding stress to the job, there's already 74 other things that stress out enough. It's one less thing to worry. About so do you think it should go back to or if it was like this war but just guaranteed every year you go up a point?

24:51 Yeah, I do. On on the main pay scale, yeah, I I don't mind that at all because the main pay scale, you've got to remember we're talking like 2 grand a year, right? We're not talking unbelievably high amounts of money. And naturally, if you've been a teacher for one or two years, it doesn't mean you're worse than a teacher that's been there for four or five years necessarily. But on the whole, in general, you do improve. Yeah, you're probably gonna be better than your two year pre yourself. Because you've taught this, you've done different year groups. Now you're more of an asset to the school in terms of your experience. Confidence. Yeah. And and I I look at it personally. This is how I look at the pay scale for teachers. I look at the pay scales teachers as top of the main pay scale, which is about 38 grand now. I think 40 grand something like that. I look at that as the salary for being a teacher. Yeah, so that is a salary of being a teacher. We start off too low and we're working our way up to the teacher salary.

25:38 I don't see it as the teacher salary is 30 grand. Prove yourself. Be better to get more. Yeah, I see yourself as 40 grand. Work for five years, gain your experience, got the main pay scale and then that's the level of a teacher. That's a good way to think about it. That's how I look at it and that's why I think going up, you just earning your stripes. Yeah, I don't necessarily agree with it. I I absolutely despise the fact that an ECT gets paid. I think it's roughly 12 grand or 13 grand less than someone who's been doing it for four or five years when in my opinion they're doing the same job that that's mad to me. I I've I've never really liked the whole experience. Automatically means money, which is what I'm saying we should go back to. But equally don't think that performance related pay when your SLT are setting different targets than other schools that could be harsher or better. I don't think either system is ideal. I just think if you're teaching kids, you should just get paid to teach the kids.

26:29 If you've done it for three years or five years, should you get 4 grand more? It's hard. I think there's more like psychology behind it, I think. Do you think it retains people more? Yeah, I think there is. There's got to be an element of. And not enough people are leaving. Yeah, well, as I'm saying, like if there wasn't a. Do you think more people would? I'm just imagining, I'm just imagining a scenario right where there was no pay scale at all. It was just everyone comes in at this is what we pay teachers. Everyone gets paid 40 grand. I just feel like people like me and you who especially early on in our careers were like super, super driven, like aspiration wise one. I want to earn more. I want to be high on, be more important than school, whatever I think we would have been like. But you know. What day one I'll never even get paid. Like, why should I improve? Why should I get better in any aspect?

27:10 Nothing to reward. Me. That's interesting, because the I thought the same thing, but just five years down the line. Yeah, I looked at it and I thought, OK, I already know what I'll be on when I'm 28. Hmm. And I didn't like. That exactly. So imagine it was from day one. Yeah, sure. But I think I agree. But I also think all that might be replaced with then is I think, paying teachers adequately for doing extra work. For example if you're just a class teacher, 40 grand. Your class teacher, you who's been here for two years and you, who's doing it for 10 years, you're still both class teachers. You're still both sharing planning equally. Hmm. Like you're just saying you're better so you get 10 grand more. Yeah. Whereas maybe if it's all at the same, I don't know the same renumeration, we might recruit more people because it's higher and then in the job you would then my point was we had to reform everything.

27:56 It doesn't work currently because if you're a class teacher and you get X amount of money, cool. But then if you lead geography, you get a bunch actually get paid more. If you lead maths, you get a bonus. Then the aspiration comes in leading something or or taking on this kind of role within the school to make the school better. That's. Renumerated. It has to be monetary value. I was gonna, I was gonna say, like a lot of private companies have bonuses, right? Sure. They'll be bonuses for people's performance as well as their pay rises or whatever. Yeah. So if if we've got this scenario where no one's being paid anymore, I think we'd within one year, the entire nation would go to the point where we feel right now where we feel stagnated by not going up with strikes and stuff. And you know what that makes me feel? And I know a lot of people. It's like, cool, I won't do any more work then.

28:36 Yeah, it's almost that spiteful thing of like, OK, if you think I'm not worth any more money the next year when I'm more experienced than I won't do anything else. I will purposely do nothing more is almost how I want. Yeah. I want people to be like that because that's the point of the strikes. So I think if I was on the same pay without any kind of new system, right. Everyone's just like, no, everyone just gets paid 40 grand. Now, then I think you'd see a lot of people just not really doing it much extra. You wouldn't get those people going above and beyond like they are now. Because I think the current system does kind of trick people into thinking or if I'm going up from 26 to 28 grand, I will do that club. Sure. OK. I'll prove myself I'm worth that. You're absolutely right. It does trick people into doing because. Currently the base level for a teacher is 20, 27.8 grands, 30. Right. 30 grand. It's moving to that. It has already. But it is. It's it's gonna be 30. Or at least it is.

29:17 Yeah. So let's say it's 30 grand. That now is the base level for a teacher. And then you justify the leaps by doing extra work. Exactly So. So that's how they getting more work hours. Yeah. So I think the base level for a teacher should be M6, which is the top of the main pay scale. That's just what I believe. And because you're still doing the same job but then anything extra, if you pick up extra things or if you get better, maybe that's what upper pay range would before you know use the upper pay range for that for that in that case. Because at the minute pay range, again for anyone who doesn't know, there's a main pay scale for schools that goes when we started it went from like 24 up to like 35 Right now it's moved, I think it goes up to about it's like 30 to 4042 maybe. And the first level of upper pay range is now 43.

29:58 So it's a separate scale, right? And a lot of schools still now cling on to the fact that if you move to the upper pay range you have to be leading a subject. You have to be doing loads extra to really justify moving from just the range of a classroom teacher to doing extra stuff. My point would be classroom teachers should be paid a base amount which is good for that job and that anything extra. You either use TLS if you're leading just maths for example, you get an extra amount of money for doing that. Or if you then do more for the school in general, perhaps you are, you know, overseeing upper key stage two or you're a year group leader or something like that. Justify it through putting them through to the next stage and you have this kind of two tier system of OK, if you're an ECT or just the classroom teachers been doing it for eight years. You, in my opinion are doing the same job and I don't think anyone could actually really begrudge apart from experience, the fact that you get paid the same. I reckon people, would you?

30:48 Know. Yeah, they would. They would because of the traditional thing, though. Yeah, if you've got that experience, OK, So what are you bringing more than the other person? Are you their mentor? No, it might just be that you're just getting better results, you're more confident you know you're doing, you don't need, you don't require as much. Support. In that case, if you're getting more, if you're getting more results, you could justify going to the pay range, yeah, yeah. So I don't mind having some form of performance related pay when it's off the main pay scale, but if it's just the idea of just doing that job, I don't know. I I think there's a huge discrepancy there and I don't think it's a bad thing that the starting salaries gone up. Hmm, no, not I don't think it's bad that we've basically squashing that main pay scale. Personally, it's annoying for us because we've gone through the main pay scale and we started on 22 grand, like you know, we started on really low.

31:31 But if you just let go of that for a second, objectively it's better that they're putting up the starting salary, I think. As long as yeah, in this, in our made-up system here. As long as there is has to be widespread, there has to be a bonus system. There just has to be. There has to be. I just don't think. Yeah, I think of what you've had one year, right, where you got two teachers on the same pay. Yeah, one of them does the bare minimum for the job. Yeah, OK, fine. They're doing the job right. And the other one just goes above and beyond all the time. They run all these extra clubs they take their kids to on trips and they do these things. They just require loads of extra planning. And at the end of the end of the year they go there, they head teacher, OK, what am I on next year? Obviously I've done tonnes more work than here and they're like, oh, same pay again. And it's like, OK, so if there is a system where it's like, OK, you can go up to the other pay scale actually, because I tell you what, you are doing all these extra things, they're not. That's their choice.

32:15 Come on, you stay there. You're doing all these extra things. But that then to me, it's just like this whole thing is just justifying. That already exists though, yeah. That already exists now, I know. And then we were like, what's the point? I'm getting paid 12 grand less. When we started as ET, right? We were getting paid less than what we are now, three days a week at the top of the scale. And we were getting paid less than, never mind inflation and pay rises and stuff. We were getting paid less than than someone who was part time at the top of the pay scale. That rinsed me. I was like, that's horrendous. Yeah. So we can't pretend that it's working now. That's true, But there used to be a bit more of a bonus system. Didn't they used to be retention? Retention like schools used to have a lot more power to to basically, yeah, just pay, pay their teachers like a bonus at end of the year to retain them.

32:59 If they're really good teachers, you know they're going to. Golden handcuffs thing, wasn't it? You can't move for three years, but here's. 6 grand, yeah. Then they used to have that power and they did it all the time and they just don't. I think the system still exists, they just don't have the budget. So there is no retention bonuses. But yeah, overall I think scrap, scrap, the performance rate related pay because it does just get abused. I don't actually think it works very well. I think we need to be very careful about what comes in, in its place. There has to be, you know in the same way we talk about Ofsted later, there has to be something I guess that makes sure people are doing their job properly. But I don't think we should link it to, but I just you know the standard pay. Scale there going out for more trust army when you join in the state agency or if you join in the shortage broker or have you join anything that's kind of in the High Street and there's there's this kind of performance related pay thing and you're earning your stripes and and it helps you to train more and get better. It's an incentive to improve, right. That's very different to us who've done years of training and our professionals and have done stuff in. There has to be a level of trust here. Yeah, it's not the same as some sales job that a 16 year old can walk into on the High Street.

33:59 We don't need to have the same kind of pay performance level. We are already qualified, have passed strenuous tests. We are professional teachers. I think there has to be reflected in how we're paid. We don't then have to justify every year like yes, we have to have something in place, but I think at the minute it's not working. But luckily the government they've reacted to a couple of these things already. They've said they're going to urgently rapidly review this and try and replace PRP. Well, fortunately paid by the excitement by next year a less bureaucratic way to manage performance fairly and transparent and that's only a good thing. But watch this space we'll see. I think that's a good thing. Yeah. Next thing on the list this again all of these are really interesting to me. This is something you're really passionate about. So I'm gonna introduce I want you to crack on with it. It's the idea that they've said okay schools and trusts because this is something we come on to later schools around by local councils. Trusts are their own kind of business. Lots of schools are moving to trusts. You don't quite understand the difference. We'll go into that later.

34:52 But just for now know that trusts have more autonomy. Schools are more answerable to local authority. Council. Yeah. Yeah. So schools and trusts should consider assigning a senior leader with dedicated. So this is their debt, that's it. Their responsibility is simply to improve well-being and reduce workload. Now we see this in schools at the minute. This does happen sometimes, but it might often be a teacher, a teaching assistant, a side thing to tick off for their like, you know, that's my appraisal target is for well-being. There might be a questionnaire every now and then. This is very different. Senior leader. Yeah, dedicated to well-being and reducing workload. Why is that so? Important right? Someone in the SLT doing this is so so important and already even like the should consider.

35:35 I'm like no, that needs to not be. I should consider it should be as important as. Does your school need a deputy head teacher? Yes. OK. They also you also need this person. So important. I think it's fair to say that none of this will happen. This change will never ever happen or become another one of the 1000 mix that we have in teaching, because so much of teacher education world is just a gimmick, just gimmick after gimmick after gimmick after promise after promise after broken, whatever. I don't think any of this will happen if we don't have someone who is wholly accountable for it, Someone high up that leads this is, you know, involved in leading the school. Absolutely. Like their job is on the line for doing this, you know? I mean, it's part of their job. It'd be like us walking into school.

36:15 I'm like, Nah, I'm not teaching today. That's how. That's how serious it would be taken if they said no, I'm not going to, we're not going to do well-being. No, no, no. Your school doesn't function without this, you know, this doesn't. It's broken. Now you need this person. So yes, very, very passionate about this, purely because I just think that without the accountability it will not happen. The big word for me in there is dedicated, because what I can see happening a lot now, maybe it's already happening. People have experience of this, someone already an SLT who has a kind of responsibility already. Let's say it's EM provision. Let's say it's teaching and learning across the school like this really big thing. We'll also tag on the end. I'm also well-being manager and that there is immediately a detriment. Like there is immediately kind of a crossroads there if they're gonna clash.

36:59 Because objectively, if you are leading teaching and learning in the school and you're leading SEM provision by by default, every year for SN is getting more and more children who need special provisions. That's true. And every year, for teaching and learning, it feels like there's something else that's going to happen that we're going to. Have to stand as a higher. Higher frameworks, the bars, higher. We've got to get up the league tables immediately. Your gut there on how to fix that will be to increase workload for your staff because they've got to deliver different things. They got to plan more stuff, they've got to write more ieps, They've got to you know apply for some funding for for these children in their class. They've got to put extra time in to help them. Your initial thought there is, OK, more work for those guys, but your well-being manager just offer them a younger class at end of the time.

37:42 It will be that's. What's so dedicated is really important to me because the responsibility should be for a well-being manager is to have an ear on the ground, and you are representing your staff at that point who are representing the school. It could even be that a teacher joins SLT. Hmm. But they're still just a teacher. But they join SLT meetings. Yeah, they're there on that. When decisions are made, the well-being manager, whose sole job is to be, well-being manager, has to be there to say OK, well what's the payoff? For example, I know in our school last year we did this big rollout of a new curriculum in the afternoon, which is fantastic. It's a really good curriculum, but it was a lot of work for our staff. It was a lot of work. We're maths leads. There's no well-being manager in our school, but as mass it would be very easy for us to walk in and say, OK, cool. By the way, we are completely revamping how we do times tables across the entire school also, and the planning, it's OK, but I think for these three topics we need to take. This course with new scheme.

38:35 We're gonna go to a new scheme. Yeah, we we absolutely could have walked in and said that. And we have the backing of our SLT, which is, which is really nice to be in that position where we know that if we think something's good, SLT will have our back. But we also had to consciously be say to ourselves, no, there may be things that are objectively for maths if everyone does them right now. But during this time where, including us as class teachers, we're planning more and more for an afternoon curriculum, we have to balance it out. And the idea of someone, yeah, the idea of someone being dedicated in SLT, that would already be on the table before it got to us. It would be, it would be a linchpin where they've got all their fingers in all the pies they know the English team are planning, revamping this, this curriculum. They know their history leads over there thinking all we need to add in some extra tasks at the end of each unit.

39:20 They're going to have all of that in their mind thinking, OK, well, this in English League. If we're going to do this, I need to go and talk to these other guys because we can't introduce that yet. It's gonna be a timetable thing. It has to be proactive because we've seen what schools like. You can go for a lull in a school. It's very rare. But you can go for a lull where everything's kind of chugging along. It's like, OK, well, we've just changed that. It's OK At the minute, suddenly three different subject leads will get really passionate about something, which is great from their point of view. And I think, OK, look, everything's running along. It's quite quiet. Let's do this. Now let's let's do that. All of a sudden, within the time, you've got 4 curriculums to change. Yeah, you've got four things to do. So I think that's really important. It was interesting to me, the government replied to quite a few of these things. It didn't reply to this. They've got a history, haven't they? Have kind of not liking this idea. You know I've my genuine thoughts are right. I think it's a bit of a Unicorn role. I I reckon I have to see it to believe it right? Because I'm thinking about this scenario where we go from what we are now to having dedicated well-being leaders in schools. Right.

40:17 How do we get there right they've got to employ someone. What are the chances that a school that maybe is a bit more toxic actually go no, we're gonna do the right thing this time. We're gonna employ someone that really will challenge us. What's the chances they do that Or they employ someone that they know will just be they can just puppet master again. Yeah, like, I think it's gonna be a really, really, really, really hard thing to actually get schools that really need this to go from having horrible workload and terribly toxic schools to employing one person who hasn't got the the confidence to come in and. Say. Yeah, we've got the confidence to challenge it and actually make a difference because I just don't. I think it's going to be really hard for schools. To do that and and and you're right, because it will be easy to do in schools where already you can have that. Dialogue.

41:00 So ohh, I've got this. I've got this teacher in year six who already have tonnes of work and it's totally on on the head teacher now. Right now thinking OK I'm going to see if she will be the work, the well-being and workload manager because I tell you what she'll just do whatever I say. She's trying to work out her career. You do that. OK, we all, we tick the boxes, we've got, we've got it now all look how good we are and actually not doing anything. Yeah, I think that could happen. So we have to be really, really careful. However, it does leave me on to the next point, the next point here as well, because when I read this, my first thought was OK, someone needs to keep their head teacher in check. Them. Sure. Because because yeah, by by, by proxy, everyone SLT your head teacher stole your. Boss. Yeah, exactly. And actually the chances are you're going to be closer to them and anyone else in the school and probably trying to impress them, trying to be on their side. Sure, because you're a team at that point, right? But the next point I was like, this is good because the next point here is DfE may want to consider having a designated governor as well-being champion.

41:49 Now again, if you're not in schools, head teacher is at the top of the pile really. And the only thing that keeps them accountable and kind of a local day-to-day basis or week to week basis is the governors, the governing body of the school, who are all volunteers. And I just think, yeah, if we've got our volunteer coming to the school, that's way more likely that you'll be able to find a good volunteer governor who is super passionate about well-being without the head teacher being able to maybe have their, you know, to fight that off or, you know, make a bit. More of And we've seen how sometimes head teachers get when they know governors are on the. Case. Exactly right. And some head teachers, you know, I've got a good relationship, their governors and maybe they've managed to find a way to have that kind of thing. But actually there's a good chance that you could get in a governor of a school who is like, no, I'm not, you know, this is the head, this is not good enough.

42:37 The head teacher is absolutely just employing people that that will do what they say and not doing the job properly. So no. So having the governor above the head and having an an SLT member below the head teacher in terms of job hierarchy, both dedicated to well-being, I think. I think it could. Work. OK, so that was advocate here, my favourite role to play. My friends, they used to say were at union stuff because I just like debating and arguing. They'd they'd call it Dylan's advocate. It's just replace the devil. So just do that now. Yeah, OK You're head teacher in a school that is struggling. You've got staff who, you know take shortcuts because they're fed up. I've been there before. I know nothing against the staff for doing so. You've got Ofsted due.

43:18 OK, this has just been released. You need to put a well-being manager below and above you in the governors and in the SLT. Yeah, you really want to implement change to improve the outcomes for your school, but they are blocking you every Rd because inevitably change means work. What on earth is the solution there? Do you let the school stagnate? I think that's when it comes. I think that's when a good head teacher puts together a proper report, a proper report, because I think they've got to have they. Still, in what way report? Report as in to report to the governors maybe with this well-being person in line saying right. Appreciate the these are the concerns you've raised. This is this is our future of our school. Right. And actually put together, say here are numbers. If we change all of this at once then it might have this effect. I understand we can't. If we don't change anything, sure this is where our standards are going right now as a school. And I think a good head teacher has that persuasion ability, has that ability to look at to plan for the future, look at the school action plan and saying yeah, no, you know no one wants to do extra work.

44:09 But if we don't at least put in a B&C, then this is what's gonna happen to our school. We're gonna, you know, our standards are gonna keep declining if it's one of those schools. Because it's rare that it's seven things going wrong. At once, yeah. And it might just be that the plan is not that we're not gonna do these things at all, is I imagine that a well-being manager's role is to be like, OK, can we not do the seven things at once? Could we space them? Out, Yeah, Because. You think gonna do stuff. Yeah. Of course we are. We. I think if any teachers take this away of like yes, no more change. You need to drop that. That's not how it works. And actually that's a port that is actually a poor attitude. I think to to education. Of course stuff has to change it. It moves the times. It moves with your cohort. Yeah. You cohorts. Your kids change every year. Every year that goes by. So I think a head teacher's role is to go like, yeah, OK this is our ideal world.

44:51 I now thank you well-being. Nigerian governor. I appreciate that. Actually, doing that I probably would lose 7 of my staff. Yeah. Going off long term sick because it's too stressful. Here's our new plan. Do we all agree on it? Do we think this is manageable? We're going to do this thing first and then next year we're gonna do that thing and the year after we'll review it and hopefully we'll put in these other things and I think that's what we'll go ahead. Teacher will do. They won't just go. OK you're fine. Have a pair of Paddy. Fine. We'll watch the standards drop then call. You're not. Don't be. Don't. Be I actually think collaboration is really important. And I think if if these roles do happen and those people in the same way a head teacher, a rogue head teacher might right now go rogue and say we're doing all of this right now. If if the well-being people come in and say we're doing nothing ever, that's equally poor for school. So I think having them in the 1st place, they're going to be really defined.

45:35 It needs to be collaborative. Yes. Their first thought is, well-being the head teachers. First thought is progress. Yeah. You know, come together meet in the middle and talk to you. That's how it comes about dialogue. That's how it can work. However, the government have always been very reluctant to kind of introduce anything like this, but they're very much like, no, we'll leave it to the schools, knowing full well that schools can eat as much out. Because they think that pandas in that scenario standards could drop a. Bit well, look, OK. Do you agree that objectively they would? I actually don't, and I'll tell you why, OK, cuz I was thinking this thing. They probably wouldn't, but actually. If you did, I think. In all these scenarios, we always, always take out the fact that really stressed teachers don't perform as well. Absolutely. And it's like we never, we never include that metric. It's like, no, no, no, no, no.

46:17 They might get the work done. But I tell you what, when they're sick and you've gotta cover supply and they're doing it for six months, that's not going to be as good as your teacher being there. I do think we have to take into account or it might not be as good objectively if the seven things get done over three years instead of one, because then we've had to wait three years for these things. But having really healthy happy teachers in school probably will out offset that in in a positive way. I think so. But we can't measure that. So the government should they ignore it. So no standards will be. Worse. Yeah. Because, yeah. And and I think you're absolutely right and it's something I'm coming more towards you on. Never disagreed with you, but you've always been very staunch. That's the absolute most important thing for anything is the well-being of teachers because of the domino effect.

46:57 And I've always thought, yeah, you know, but they need to have good teaching and and good lessons right in front of them. But I think it is a domino effect and I think when having been in the profession now for like 8-9 years, you see the effect. I felt it. When I'm happy, when I'm happy in my job, I do just do more genuinely. And I've seen it online as well. I remember I've read it out ages ago. I saw something on Facebook, someone being like, I hope I left my old school. I don't know exactly what it was, but it was like I left my old school where I where I refused to do clubs and things have gone to this new school and they treat me really nicely and I feel really happy. And now I'm doing clubs voluntarily. Yeah. And the whole point was like, yeah, cause they're happy now. Look at that. Standards improved. Because you know what, That hour they're doing a club, they've saved 2-3 hours of planning. Yeah, because it's not anymore. They just feel valued.

47:38 They just feel like, yeah, I'm happy. So I'll do this for the kids rather than I'm stressed. I need to go home. I'm get away from this. Place I've gotta say, and it's not down to the score anything. It's just down to like I think being ground down after years and years the system and like the government kind of disrespecting as in my opinion constantly about paying stuff where I do miss. I've said it before on the podcast miss doing things with the children because it's fun and and that's usually in lunchtime club. I used to just have kids in at lunchtime because they wanted to come in and do some colouring and but yeah of course you can I'm only marketing you come and sit down whereas I know for a fact now said it a million times they come at lunch and like no I've got to prep I've got to do this I've got to mark and also even if I don't do you know what I just want 5 minutes. Yeah and I think it's all acceptable but I miss being that person who is driven solely by the kids outcomes and I think that makes for a better teacher. I feel like that's been grounded out because of the system and I want the system.

48:28 To change, I do think that was that was our Unicorn years though in terms of we have we've got kids now. Yeah like our our lives personally are very different as well. So I think that does. Also, if I don't mark half an hour at lunch, I go home half an hour later. Yeah, and then you see Rory for half an hour less. It's like it's it does suck. I'm definitely feeling that pinch. Obviously Rivers 8 weeks now coming up to 9 weeks and every single day by 3:30, all I'm thinking of is I want to go home because I want to give her a cuddle. I've been away from my little like child. So little I know, and she's not. Or even when they're four. I think that but they're. So precious, I got really sad last week and I genuinely felt like actually upset because because I had a cold. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I obviously when in those first few days when you have a cold and you actually are contagious as anything.

49:09 And I had a nasty cough and I just felt. Rubbish You miss swimming, didn't you? Yeah, I miss you guys went swimming. I didn't come and I just tried to stay away from river as well as much as I could in the house. I didn't care. I didn't cuddle her and it was like 4 days and after about four I genuinely felt I was like, God, like the four days in a race in proportion of her life is quite a big chunk so far. It's like I've missed a big chunk of her eight weeks so far, just we're having four. Days changing quickly. Yeah, and I was like, what she what? She forgets me. And I started going down these stupid avenues. Of course you won't. But I was like, no, but feeling sorry for myself. Like what if she now doesn't now? Now she's used to only seeing Lawrence and she doesn't trust me being around anymore. And I was like, oh God, well, I've been at work. I feel like this. I'm like ohh should not see me for 10 hours. My, my mum and stepdad went to a care home and where my nannies, Yeah. And there was COVID in the care home. My nan didn't have COVID, but my parents didn't have COVID either.

49:59 But they both were like, OK, we're not going to come just to be safe. And we were like, that's really thank you, because you don't know if COVID. It meant that they didn't see Rory for like it was between 10 and 14 days. They didn't come to. You didn't come see because they thought, you know, we'll stay away. It was just after Christmas, right? So we saw them at Christmas. They've been to the camp. They found out there was COVID and they were like, we need to keep going to the care home. We're the only people who go and see her very regularly so we need to keep going to the care home. But whilst there's COVID in the care home, we won't come and see you even if we've got symptoms of symptomless or anything like that. And they came to see him and we worked out like they they missed 12% of his life. Hmm. And when you as a percentage, you know, obviously, but at that .12% had gone past.

50:41 Yeah. And they were like he's changed so much because it was nearly two weeks and it's so precious right now. And again, it's things like this, you know, I wanted to change as soon as possible if we have more children or just for anyone joining the job. Just just. I just wanna healthier, healthier, work life balance. That's all it is. Yeah, it's got to be healthy. So next one is the only other thing the government has responded to. OK, so I'm looking at the time. This might be a slightly longer one, but I'm really enjoying this. So guys, strapping the next one the government responded to straight away is the idea that the schools might want to consider using inset time to look at addressing workload. Now that in itself sounds. Fine. Do you wanna explain in set time? For Yeah, so anyone doesn't know inset days are those, I think they used to be called Baker days after someone in the government who invented them. They're just days where as teachers we've got to teach children for 190 days in a year and we've got to be available for 195 days.

51:34 And that five days difference is when, for example, if you've got kids and they don't go in on the first day after time or they don't go in the last day of time. Or maybe your school puts all 5 into one week and you get an extra week off on 1/2 time somewhere in October or in in the summer. And so those days are used for training. So that time specifically is OK you're getting paid for this teachers, but you're gonna be trained to be trained not be you're not with the kids. It's just you go in and you might have a morning of training and an afternoon of getting your classroom ready. It's the start of the year or something like that. We have five of them a year. So the idea of using inset time to address workload, great, but they went one step. However, the Commission who were trying to reduce workload and said you might also want to consider adding an additional inset day. The point being that if there are workload reduction taskforce, it's quite funny for them to come out and say do this as well, but in the same amount of time. So I can imagine they were Saturday going OK, we can't really say this because it means less stuff gets done. OK Also, have another inset day.

52:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it'll be 6 a year. Makes sense. Have six. It was 6 terms for Christ. Yeah, it's true. How? Six anyway. Yeah, like the only the only thing I suppose there would be like, does it mean one less way of learning for the children? Yeah. If that's true, there's a whole absence scandal. We'll do a podcast on that soon So the government can't be seen to be taking hours of school. I get that. Or do you pay us an extra nought .5% for an extra one day out of 200 or something like that? How would it work to have an extra inset day? Would it just be for free? And then in that case, that's worse. So I can see why the government did come out and say, no, there won't be another they're insert. They don't think that's the right course of action. I don't necessarily disagree with that. Again, I might. I might think that we could fit in another one like you, but I don't think that's a awful government decision because at the end of the day, it's another day with the children in school, kids in school, you know, after COVID and strikes, whether people in the media likes to think or not, I love my kids to be in school and I want them in front of me so I can teach them. That's like the number one thing that I could ask for. We're going to do a whole session on absence. It's crazy at the minute.

53:30 But yeah, Instead, basically the government say they're to work with schools and try and make use of the current 5 days. And I don't think that's a bad thing. So you know, Hayden, going back to the initial point though, how helpful really is it for a workload reduction force to say, yeah, use insects to reduce workload? What when there's already stuff? Insects are a weird one. I've been at schools where you have the classic one day at the start of each term you go in but the kids aren't in. And I've also worked in schools where you get the it's all banded into an extra week off as insects and you do it all in one go. Well, yeah, if it's a if it's a week off, just everyone knows the people with the week off aren't necessarily just getting away with not doing 5. Days. No, there's always.

54:11 Split into, you know, doing extra stuff in your time. It might be that you do some twilights during the times. It might be that you do clubs or whatever it is, the hours. Are the hours are yeah. Rack up somewhere else? I don't know, I just maybe I'm just being a bit sceptical. Anyway, in sets to me, five days or six days, I don't know if it's gonna make much. Difference. Well, I don't think this is about, this isn't about doing less work. This is about, you know, like you go into inset day, you might have training on maths in the morning. Yeah. And like there's this new approach, like when master was introduced in 2014 and new curriculum, there was a lot of CPD going on about how to teach mastery properly. This is saying, OK, in that we get training on CPD, we get training on mass training on technology, training on English writing. In the same way, we need to have dedicated time to have a collaborative approach.

54:57 You spoke about what everyone has to be in the same room, and the only thing you're all discussing is well-being and workload, right? Do you do you think? For that I get you now. Sorry, Yeah, so do. Yeah. So it's basically saying, OK, we might have to do a bit less training on history or maths over the five days, but maybe half of one of the day all everyone is in a room and you have that discussion. I don't necessarily think that will, in a toxic school, bring them back much change. Whatsoever. No, I'm not. I don't know if a weird I don't agree with the government, but I don't really disagree with me though to be honest. In what way? In in the fact that I'm saying no you you've got 5. Just just. Ohh, I agree with that, yeah. Just really just reschedule your. Year. But do you think it would even be useful to do that? What do you think will come out of doing that? I think it be useful like one time at the start of all this. Would you like to keep it up?

55:45 You might have to but to set the culture maybe to be like this is a thing now that we do yeah maybe it is worth doing it once once a year, once per year in one of the insects. Just talking about well-being and like what the score would be quite interesting to explore how in that day, here's our school and for the year and how we're gonna tackle work load and you're all part of it. We've all got to do it in the same way that if I introduce a new math scheme, we've all got to do it for a year and then we can evaluate. It I guess now knowing in in ahead of time over the year what you'll be introducing is called as well. If you've got the SLT member and that governor like we talked about earlier, it would be cool to go to your staff at the start of the year I think and say right, this year, look we're looking to transform the writing curriculum and we're also looking to transform the history curriculum for example. At least then you could sit down and say OK, right.

56:27 If we're going to do that then we have to agree now with everyone in the room. Maths leads, we're just going to keep chugging along, you know, art leads. We're gonna not do that competition this year because that was extra workload, because we're gonna put X amount of hours extra into doing this. We have to find X amount of hours somewhere else to not. Put it in, we were gonna do on our fifth insert day this year. We're going to revamp their geography quickly as well. But we can't do that because we've now got this inset on well-being. So actually, it's already working. We've got one lesson that day this year to revamp another. Curriculum. No, Just your own time. Now, yeah, that's what was it. Ideally, schools, you know, let's say they've got 5 insects and. Right. And in each one they're gonna do some training. Ideally. What, just drop one of them now, You now get rid of one of those and you put this workload in. Yeah. What's gonna happen is in those kinds of schools is like, cool, Now we're gonna squish 55 incidents.

57:10 Yeah. Training into four. Yeah. And then have. This and then when we finish, go, OK guys, carry on. Yeah, you finish that off in your own time. So realistically, just having a sick one does kind of make sense to me because that way it's just it's the middle ground, I think. I know we're gonna talk about absence, but my honest opinion is losing. Losing one day at the start of the last, like you've lost the day at the start of every term. One. Let's say you do it that way. Losing one more day. OK, fine. One. Mitigate it. We'll make up for it. It's fine. We can. We'll go from this in one day, a day off on all times apart from one, to having a day off on all. Times all the sixth term. I just think it all keeps missing. It's different as well. If all kids miss a day, it's very different. You just shut everything back, right? And let's be real, like, come on, How many years go past where at least one day doesn't kind of out of nowhere just get completely ruined by something completely.

57:55 And you have to and the kids aren't. You know there's some some fun day happens or you a day out, a trip, whatever. I like on that. We can deal with one day. One planned day, yeah. I think before we go into like the real juicy thing, that really caught my attention. Like we're gonna hour in before we get to the main bit. No, it's not. But it's. I guess it is really. This is gonna be a long podcast, guys. Hope you're enjoying it. Haven't, you know, have a little. Don't pause it, keep playing it, But use this time to just reflect. On how people can pause. It OK, let's do Jingle after this because I think we're gonna come into one part of it now, which is a list of things that this body have said teachers should not do. And it's fascinating. It's really fascinating. So I'll come on to that. But I think if we're talking about the general tone of this workload reduction task force, I'm sceptical because the general tone is all of these points we talked about.

58:44 The two main ones that the government responded to. Yes and no. OK, whatever. The main point of all the rest is always beyond workload. Be ready to change and manipulate what we say helps workload. Review it every time. Have someone across the school and the governors have someone across the school in their school basically used the reduction toolkit push that make it better. Yeah, and that's ongoing thing. I think that's all fantastic. However, I'm really sceptical about workload being reduced in school until Ofsted sort out, Yeah, until until there is not that pressure on a school to deliver. There is only one reason that we're putting all of this work already in as teachers and going above and beyond.

59:24 It's because of the stress of Ofsted and being held accountable and that one word judgement coming in and completely rinsing an entire profession for everyone who works at that school, especially for the SLT. Until we reduce the pressure on our SLT, who in the most part work incredibly hard for our children and really push amazing change forward, it's going to be between a rock and a hard place of teachers saying no, I'm not working anymore, I'm not doing anymore. And Ofsted saying, well, you've got to revamp this whole thing and work towards all of these standards that we've just. Introduced scrap performance related pay scrap Ofsted gradings as well because you know what I think I've I've, I was a head teacher. I'd be a lot less worried if I was sat there thinking yeah this workload, even if I was on board with the workload, right.

1:00:04 I think this is all great, but at the end of the day if Ofsted come in and call us the required. Improvement school will all be in a worse place. Workload and stress, You know, Just get rid of that horrible, horrible, stupid grading system. Yeah, and it is stupid. I'm not afraid to say. That's what's so. Stupid. Stupid, but it is. It's just get rid of. It often needs a revamp. It needs a complete, complete revamp that's supposed to improve standards. They don't. All they do is stress teachers out. They're not even that good at doing it. You might get a good inspector. You might not. Potluck. Mr P says that all the time. Yeah, Potluck. What you? Get those. There's a video recently of a head teacher talking about their parents of Ofsted, and Ofsted inspector said to her, If we don't try and break you as a head teacher, how do we know you're worth it?

1:00:46 How do we know that you're good enough? For the job, I tell you, I did watch that. I think I was like, is that true Cause that even that seems, I can imagine that. I can imagine mad propaganda. Yeah, I. Mean you called her a lie ahead. Can't even father surely a human being. It's number. It's unreal. But anyway, so we're gonna talk about what happens next to this report. These were the initial findings. So we'll talk all about that. It does include Ofsted. We'll do that really quickly at the end. But I really want to go on now after this short Jingle, this list of 23 things teachers shouldn't do. It's fascinating. Stick around. Thanks for sticking around. That was a long break. You know, you've really got good attention guys. Yeah, so hey did, Scroll down mate. Scroll down. We're going to go to this list of 23 things now. Bit of background whilst Hayden finds the mouse and his eyes and knows where things are.

1:01:31 This is a list of 23 things this list existed before. So anyone who's been teaching for a long time, over 10 years, you may remember that. Again, another thing the beautiful Michael Gove did who was fantastic for education in this country. Every time we're shaking our heads to anyone not watching And he got rid of this list. And the point was schools do not need to be babied and head teachers and teachers told what they should and shouldn't be doing. It's down to the school. If the school wants to say teachers do this because they're in charge and they know what they're doing, it's we're not going to have government tell you what not to do when when in all reality all that happened was this list got rid of. And then everyone was like, OK, you can do all of these things please. Yeah, that was telling you not to do before. Now you can. Yeah, you can. They really think they'd be like much nuance here, but they can do it now.

1:02:15 No, I'm going to choose. Not enough. Course weird, isn't it? Since then, workload and stress has got worse. Yes. Weird, isn't it? It's weird. It's almost like it did just not work. At all. That's all of these. Again, this is the 23 things. We're not gonna go through all of them, but I will link in the description to this podcast. You can go to the podcast. All the information we've got is from schools weekly or schools week. We'll put the information up there anyway, so. We'll read the title of it, just in case anyone's lost where we are. So this is the full list of administrative tasks the task force says teachers shouldn't have to do. So we started our teaching career in 20/15/2016. So not long after, this kind of this list would have been scrapped. And it was really, it's really, really interesting to me now looking back because having found that out, this was on this whole list, was on the lips of loads of experienced teachers when we started. Yeah.

1:03:00 And they were saying things like, no, we shouldn't. We, we absolutely should not be spending our time putting data in. We should not be spending our time doing this admin. Yeah. Not teaching like literal admin. And I remember sat there going, yeah, of course, of course we do the job, which probably do because. Because we trained them a time where there was didn't exist And we were like, yeah, of course. It's just part of what we do. So it's really interesting. Now we've made highlights of some of the ones that stood out for us for various reasons. If you want to see the whole list, go and click above. But we're going to go through some now because some really stood out the sore thumb and others wanted to ask because I I don't see it as a problem. I don't think teachers do these things already. Well, yeah, so some of them the the number one thing and I think a lot of teachers out there be thinking, ohh, I do this and I know that I've spent a lot of time doing it to the point now where I just refuse. I'm like, no, it's silly.

1:03:43 And it's good to see that this is kind of back in now here managing and transferring data about pupils into a school management system or printing electronic records for paper filing or more specifically as well in this list, reformatting data that already exists and then re entering it into multiple different systems across the school. Essentially it's data entry. As a teacher, it is now going to be explicit in this list that I am not expected to spend my time typing numbers into a thing. There is no point me doing that specifically when it already exists and it needs to be in for a. Different level. I mean, when we started our career that was a that was a buzzword. Remember people, we call it triple assessments, triple assessment.

1:04:23 And that has fizzled out over the years where people have been whittled down, All those people have quit, and then all the new people didn't know about it. But it was, it was a big thing when I started. It was like, no, it's really, really, really bad. If you have to enter data into a system, then you're told to put it onto another one. Oh, it needs to go on here because we need to compare stuff now. So I need you to copy that information into this one. It's terrible. And I've always, always begged, I hate doing it. It takes so much time, like, for example, when you have assessment weeks, right, which all schools do. It already takes longer. We have to mark the marking the test than it would do like marking lessons that day. So we're already well over what we'd be normally to be doing to then have to sit there and put in ones and zeros or have to put in scores into three different places. It is just such. By the way, when we've got a part of them to like get on through cause we've got English, we've just done the maths paper. Yeah, by the way, we did history that afternoon. We got a whole part of history books. You know, teachers need to spend time doing teacher jobs. But on the flip side, who does it then? Because we do need that data.

1:05:19 So this is going to be a theme all the way through, right? Because I think it's all well and good putting this list in. But I completely agree. And it's that devil's advocate again. It's like, you know, teachers want to have our cake and eat it sometimes. Yeah, the the problem is that they've been squeezing pay for teachers for so long that we're at the point now we're like, no, yeah, it I I truly think maybe I'm being naive and maybe you'd get used to it. But if there was any kind of form of keeping up with inflation and not having 0% being completely frozen for that whole time in our first like 8 years, six years of teaching, I truly do think that we'd be much more up for just continuing with the job. I I think knowing that on my pay has been absolutely whittled away in terms of inflation and where I would have been even 10 years ago at this point in my career, it makes me really reluctant to do any of this stuff.

1:06:03 Yeah, I think I'm much more would be like, yeah, alright, I'll do a club. But let's be real, because it does come down to the point where it is useful to have this data. Assessment data is extremely useful for schools, and gap analysis are extremely useful for your teaching, so they need to be done. Who does that? And I do actually think there's gonna be a bit of a joke here running through where every single answer to all these things is schools need to be paid more so they can have someone that does it. Yeah, because I honestly don't think I can't see another answer. Yeah, the answer can't be ohh, we now give it to the office staff. Yeah, they're everyone working in school is maxed out plus 50% on their job. Every single person. I promise you, there's no one in the school who's. Who's having a? Having a job, I've got a cushy deal, like, you know, I do six hours work but I'm paying for 10 everyday. No one is in that position.

1:06:45 So I do just think it's like, OK, I don't want, I shouldn't have to do it anymore as a teacher in my free time for no money. And there's no one else in the school that can do it. But we need. It done. So I think it should be. Hmm. And this is what we do sometimes in our school teaching assistant. Instead of supporting for one lesson, they're going into the data. OK, so that's a way it doesn't cost any more. But you know, a lot of people will be upset that there could be helping for children do that one preposition sentence. OK, they could be, but it means I don't spend 2 hours after school today doing it myself. So do you know what they're going to put it in? I think it has to be. We're gonna have to have a lot of that. And if people don't like that, OK, give us money to hire someone. To find the schools, you have to find a manager that does all of this. Exactly right.

1:07:27 Because this is the problem in now there's no funding, so it falls on us a lot. We're gonna talk about academies later, but here's one of the perks of being an Academy where you can absolutely just rip off your staff anyway, is that you can save money by not paying your staff properly to employ these kind of people. So maybe we should All the government were right. Let's all become academies. Then we can rip everyone. Off. I can't wait to guys stick around, because if you're listening all this thing, it sounds good. Just wait. Just wait. Anyway, we're going. So yeah, that's that one. It needs to be done. Yeah, someone's gotta do it, Eva. Someone's time is repurposed in school and there's no extra time or we have money to employ. Someone or you put time in before to know that data goes in one place and everyone uses it from. This is where the workload workforce might come in really handy, because they might be able to think of it. I don't know the answer, but they might be able to sit down and think of a solution where it's like teachers still can do this because we've now put in the system where they we've just freed up 3 hours, 3 hours of their time on this.

1:08:15 As well I don't I I don't mind and maybe I'm still wrong with this. I don't know how to interpret this, maybe more clear by the time they finish, but I don't necessarily think it's bad right? That I marked the test and put their score in. Somewhere. I'm not above it. No. Yeah. I don't think I'm better than people. Yeah. I don't put numbers into. Yeah. No, of course not. It's just that I'm doing at 8:00 PM. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. At home or for the 4th time of the same? Day. Yeah, yeah, that, that kind of thing. So that actually scrapped. So really entering data does does just need to be scrapped. We need to stop doing that. Schools need to sort their systems out. So you're not putting in your data in three different places. It's ridiculous. But when it comes to doing important jobs, like actually putting data into, see, yeah, to see gaps. That's part of our assessment, in my opinion. That's part We get it every week. I know it's not enough time, whatever, but part of our job is.

1:08:56 To assess the someone said to me, OK, on assessment weeks Friday afternoon, you got two hours you've been covered that day. All you need to do in that two hours is just put your data in up. Cool. Thank you. I'll do that. It's in the job time. Of course I'll do anything you want in that job time. It's almost the same as saying OK, by the way, this week after school for an hour, you need to teach another maths lesson. People like no, Yeah yeah, like what? Why, then, is it OK for you to tell? Me. Hayden, You're right. Head this tonight, 8:00 PM. Four of your kids were couldn't make it. Can you do that math lesson again tonight? Yeah, sure, I'll do it. I'll do that. No, of course I wouldn't. I'm not also going to sit there and put ones and zeros into a spreadsheet at 8:00 PM anyway. That's that one move. On next one. Really. I I love this one. It's something I've stopped doing. I think it's nonsense. I did a lot when I was younger. I mean, I thought it was really important, explicit now. Teachers should not produce photographic evidence or practical lessons, yeah.

1:09:44 Like, I think they don't have to. You can do if you want, yeah, of course. You have to do it. I might do it sometimes because maybe it's a beautiful piece of art and they're gonna take it home and maybe I just want in their book. But if I don't, it's not bad. It's not something that I can be asked to do. Because guess what? Planning and teaching and still marking and assessing A practical lesson. Yeah, is still planning, teaching and assessing A practical lesson. There's that trust there, which is like Ohh unless is the picture of Deans in the book, how do I know they had? The Deans. It's the trust. I thought I was gonna say was scrap it. Because you know what? It's just a stupid way of checking. The teachers have done nothing. Yes they have. If they wrote the thing in their book and said they did it, they did it. If you really look at that plans, look at. That plan, even if they didn't write in the book, But you know the planet. Yeah. Well, did you walk for the room and the kids were sat watching a film. No, we didn't.

1:10:25 OK, but I had that. Honestly. Go, go look at what your teachers are doing. God's sake. I think it's a harsh comment. Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to. They're getting on with all the safeguards. Every day, but just trust them. Yeah, next one. This was really this. This was something that I thought straight away. Yeah, OK, sounds good. But we need stuff though. Yeah? So this is interesting. Funny, I thought, creating and creating or copying files perceived to be required in anticipation of an inspection from Ofsted. This was the ultimate example to me of what a ridiculous thing to put in a list that teachers don't have to do while simultaneously not completely revamping offset itself. Would you? Saying I fully agree often Inspector comes in. We had Ofsted recently, right? Yeah.

1:11:07 OK. And we did obviously print and copy all of our important documents and have them in front of us. And some of those things we wrote up in the week before, we actually, we this needs to be more concise. We need to have this in a nice concise way so we can be like, hey, look at the stuff we do. Of course we did that. And if we didn't, it would have been, it would have been picked up and we would have looked stupid. We would have looked worse because in the current framework of the Ofsted Inspector would have been like, OK, you're not prepared. You're very good leaders. You have nothing to show me. It's terrible. Requires improvement. Yeah, of course we need to do that. That's a stupid. That yeah, it warmed me up that that that's cool. But I actually just think it's wrong. I think it's the only. Again, maybe this is just for teachers. If you've got a TL and you're leading something, maybe then that comes under there and some of this stuff doesn't apply right. So as a class teacher still the history the drug free. The people lead.

1:11:54 I bet in your school don't have TLR. Yeah and what if they get deep dive in history. Sorry the 23 prong list said that don't have to prep anything. Do you think that's gonna? Wash. I reckon we probably misunderstood this bit though, cause I reckon there's a deeper thing here. Maybe it's just as good. As creating. I know, but I think this is probably talking about those schools where it's like Ofsted could come anytime in the next five years and they're constantly asking their teachers to produce extra things or copy certain things just in case everyone has to keep an Ofsted folder in their classroom of your current lessons. You know stuff like that. It's like that's probably what it means. I think we've been lucky enough to not with that. That is not the environment we've been working. So it's hard to even perceive it. I know that schools exist where weekly teachers workload is increased on the fear that often are coming in. It's offsets come in next week.

1:12:36 You don't be caught short without these things that's always have them ready that worthless. A week later you have to update them the next thing. I think that. Yeah, OK, do it when offered. Come not every weekend. When we found out after becoming the day before, obviously we went and printed a bunch of stuff for them. That's fine. But yeah, this next one is something that I maybe I'm blind to this, but it's in there. So it's obviously a problem. But it's something I read and I thought, that's not something we ever do, is it? As teachers, yeah. So interesting. If you're listening, you do this producing and collecting analysis of attendance figures or investigating pupils, absence, neither of those things we should be doing as a teacher. I think it's a. Huge huge issue right now which maybe it's been put on teachers door because I've never, you know, teachers see them but I've never ever experienced that. No, no I can.

1:13:18 I can. I can't imagine a school perhaps saying, like, if someone's awake, could you just give the parents a ring after school Could imagine that slipping in. Sure. And I'll be interested if you if that. If you're in that situation, please do write to us. Yeah, and how can they write to them? And they can find us. But honestly, the best. I've not actually checked the e-mail in ages, so if you've emailed us brilliant, it's great. But Instagram? That's the place to be. Follow us on at Teach St repeat podcast on Instagram. We don't ask so much, guys. If you got this part on the podcast and you haven't given us a five star review on Spotify or on Apple podcast, we'd really appreciate it if you could follow on Instagram. There's a nice growing. Community, when you used to do the app for our e-mail and our Instagram, then threads and also Twitter and Instagram or we won't.

1:13:59 Bother her anymore. Come to Instagram. Instagram is the place. OK, Instagram place. Anyway, it's about people's absence. I don't think it's much of a problem. This next one again, is in the same kind of thing. Do not responsibility for producing, copying and uploading and distributing bulk communications to parents and pupils. Again, I think most offices do that. I've read this and I thought it bulks out the list a bit, but is that really happening in schools? Yeah, it's a weird one because I think we split that up, right. The producing bit I'm sort of like. I don't know though, because if I organise a trip I do kind of think. It's that if you organise a trip, let me very quickly tell you the next thing on this list. Ohh. Hang on. God. Yeah, I know. I know. OK, go on, say it now. Sorry, but this is something I didn't understand so you can make the link here.

1:14:42 Yeah, teachers should not administer anything relating to school visits, trips and residentials and of work experience. Yeah, so no administration related to that. No no booking, no no calling, no sorting. How will How would a trip? Happen. Maybe we're being naive here. Maybe we are have just fallen down into that sinkhole of. Well, actually, I tell you what I have worked in a school before where that was true. Right. And we had a person who's role it was they were dedicated to this was all you. All you had to do was fill a little form saying this is where we want to go with this class and give it to. And they do all of it, right. They did all of it. So they looked it up, looked at the price, the cost, the timing. They booked it, they booked the coaches, they made the letter they sent out to the parents. Yeah. So it could exist.

1:15:24 But I do. It is hard one because right now it's true though should it be our job? Should it? Clearly not. But it is one thing for right now I feel very guilty if I went out to my office staff, who I know are equally completely round with exactly right and said to them I want to go on a trip to the Kent life thing. I'm going to do a day there next term sometime. Can you sort that out? Cheers. Yeah. I would rightfully. They'd be like, no, yeah, obviously I'll go, obviously I'll sort that out. Yeah, they're doing too much. Stuff, you know? But there you go. Maybe we just fall into that. Sorry. So that's producing, copying stuff and uploading and distributing anything that goes out. Yeah. So the producing bit was for me. That's what I was talking about, really was. Of course, I'm gonna produce the letter to save their parents. We're gonna go on this trip newsletter as well. The parents, the the office staff might check that letter or copy here and and give it to me, or they might distribute it at via the school website or something. But yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna at least produce the content of the trip that I want to take the kids. Yeah, I just think this list is cool in many ways, but there are some holes in it and I think it felt like they were bulking out. Maybe they're just being really, really cautious and but I think they've gone too far sometimes.

1:16:23 Hopefully just proved as well with the other analogy that that you can have a system that exists where you actually that's true and you just focus on. Tech and This is why we're saying at all you guys you know if you've got experience this you're thinking guys know this is needed let us know. Tell us and ordering applies an equipment. Another thing. I'm the person who knows what we need because I've planned everything. Let's say I've planned a unit. I recently planned it art unit, and it was printing, it was weaving, it was all to do textiles and stuff like that. How am I? How are we supposed to deliver that without me ordering? It OK, devil's advocate, was it your decision to to have that unit of planning? No. Did someone tell you this is the this is what you've got to teach this time? No, I'm sorry. Yeah, someone told me. So you didn't originally decide to do that. So I think it would be fair to say, OK, SLT have decided that you're doing this complex art thing. They can, they can sort out the.

1:17:10 But do you not think that them doing that would be them coming to me and asking me what I need and then I still have to tell them and I still have to find it and I? Loved it? I guess. I guess you could argue that if they have come in with this scheme of whoever's come in with this scheme of work, maybe part of their role should be knowing all of the extra supplies that teachers are now required to get and just ordering it for them, in the same way that I kind of just expect, you know, pens and books. This was going to say, do you think that this is talking about daily equipment? It doesn't make that stipulation. I don't know. And maybe again, it's not even talking about the first stage, which is just knowing what we need. It might be that in some schools the teachers have to actually do the whole process, like e-mail the company and do the actual order.

1:17:53 There's a lot of schools that they do half and. Half you put a sheet. You give us a little form, tell us what you need and we'll do the rest, because I think that situation is OK. But yeah, but but 90% of the job is filing through the website and the and and the magazine and seeing the numbers and finding it and working out how much it will cost and saying how much you. Need Well you again you're assuming that this teacher has would have to do all that I'm I'm I'm imagining there's a sheet where it says I need more pens and books I don't care what they are you you you would know the pens and books that we order for our school. I'm just telling you need more of them, you know, I think that's. For a specific thing, I think it's different. Now for a specific art unit, you're gonna have to know what I can't just put fabric and hope you know. Yeah of course in that one goes back to my other I just think OK you unless you if you decided if you took it upon yourself to change your art unit and and you were like I really want to do this thing then maybe alright but then have a.

1:18:41 Head on, but then that'll make people not want to. Do it? Yeah. OK. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. There's not again which? I guess the extreme would be imagine someone came to you and they changed your SLT, change your curriculum where three times a week. Now you needed to have tonnes of equipment and you weren't planning on making these changes. You were quite happy with your curriculum before and they said yeah, now three times a week we did these things and you constantly need to order enough. I think you you'd be reasonable to be like, OK, you've made these changes, so I will deliver them and I'll look through the lessons. But you do need to just supply me with this stuff without me having to order it three times. I've got 17 IP's to go through. I haven't got time to do that. Yeah. No. Yeah. And so. OK, next one, administration of cover for absent teachers. This was interesting because I know there are some schools certainly where it does kind of fall on them to go around and ask, you know, cover supervisors, oh, can you cover this point? I think chase it all up.

1:19:27 I think that's a huge problem. I thought that was. That was something where I think that needs to be addressed in a lot of. Schools and give you a really real for example from very recently is I went off on paternity for two weeks and in those two weeks we had an assessment week. So all of those tests that I'd be marking gap, analysing and putting assessments on for in my evenings fell on someone else there, you know, someone else had to do it. So there was loads of administration in terms of people in my team, they had to sort out tonnes of stuff to for me to be covered for those two weeks. And it's like I ended up feeling bad about it, even though really it's not my fault the system is broken like that. But it definitely highlighted the fact that. You were on potentially feeling bad about your job. Feeling bad that someone else has got has got to do the free work that I would have done.

1:20:12 In the evening because like, you know you we might get like, covering and cover don't. Cover is different. As a teacher, they're not paid past school. They don't. They don't sit and mark like they might sit and mark something. Again, some people do cover. I know you Mark, because I've had to cover. People come in, but some who are by the book will leave at 3:30 and it's not their problem and stuff isn't done. So that's a classic example of just. Yeah. Administration. Yeah. Required by other people. Yeah. To cover my absence. Yeah. It happens all the time. People are absent all the time. And it's very much just if someone sick in the morning, right. Sure. Ohh. Can't come in today. I think it's quite normal. I think it's quite normal for a school to say, OK, the team around you just can you just sort out, can you go and find that lessons and print it for them and sort it out for them is that it's not really your job.

1:20:56 Isn't it? No, I can't actually. The last one, last one going to talk about again the rest of the list, which let's say above, it's it's a podcast, there's nothing above. It's the discussion below in this YouTube video. Subscription And this one really made me laugh because it's really vague and I think it sums up kind of like the hit and miss nature of this whole list. Some of it's great and some of it I just find a bit weird. It's simply said bulk photocopying. Yeah, I remember, we both remember, we saw this list. We were both like, what does that even mean? Yeah, because it can mean so much stuff. We've kind of already covered the distribution of bulk communications. So it obviously doesn't mean that doesn't mean bulk photocopying for your team because we do bulk photocopying because that's what we planned, because what we plan. And it's easier for me to be stop being one lesson like 100 times than it is for me to copy every single lesson 30 times. Hmm.

1:21:43 It's it's easier to get my head around that as a team, we decided. To kind of feel like it even needs to be that that statement even needs to be about photocopying in general. Like, yeah, just stop. Photo teachers spend so much time photocopying in general that could be a point to make. But bulk photocopy just seems weird because it's efficient. It suggests that there's some photocopying that's not bulk. Really, for a start. Because realistically, everything. I've got some stuff. Just yeah, true. But some people would just print for their class as a mind. Yeah. And other people like us, we bulk. As in, yeah, I'll. I'll print history for everyone. Yeah. And then someone else will print geography for everyone. Yeah. Which actually saves you time. It does. It does more. Efficient is weird. Get rid of, stop bolt photocopying, Go back to doing it everyday. Yeah, that's worse. I don't really have.

1:22:24 Yeah, and if their point is that there's too much photocopying, putting it, spreading it out doesn't. Help. Yeah, yeah, it's the. It's either the photocopying or not. Sure, it's not the bulkiness. That's not how. You do it, that's gonna cause me. It's the amount of photocopying I have to do overall across the year that's the problem, right? So the other day, just real quick photocopying, I was just speaking to my team and we were sat there trimming sheets like you do every single day. And I was like, I wish I knew. I wish there was a metric somehow, obviously can't exist. I wish I knew how many sheets of paper I have trimmed in my card, what how many times I've stunned this on the slicer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's got to be like, if we had the numbers, I reckon they would be. That's crazy.

1:23:04 Stupidly crazy. Do you mean. OK, so how many times we're gonna go to. Yeah. Well, it doesn't need to go into detail. Yeah. Do you mean how many times you've moved it or how many individual pieces of paper? I was thinking about both. So individual pieces of papers would be. I wouldn't, I would be shocked if it's not millions. Yeah, I think it will be in the millions. Maybe I'm completely wrong off there, but my my gut is million. I think about this nearly 10 years. Well, I think in a day, right. In a day. In a day. Roughly. Eat this three lessons in the honestly, like 100 bits of paper. I reckon more. More. There's three lessons a day. That's one sheet on each kid. Each day is 100. Yeah. Let's say on average there's probably, there's probably two or three sheets. Yeah. OK, they say 200 a day. It's 1000 every week. Yeah, that's 1000. Have we have we been teaching for 1000 weeks?

1:23:44 So 50 weeks, 5038 weeks? 38 weeks, 38 weeks. OK, 38,000 sheets a year, 38,000 sheets of paper. Oh my God, is that? Right. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, What, 200? Something like that, yeah. No, we've what we've done. I don't. Know plenty. It's loaded. With 38 come from. Ohh God 38 weeks that we teach ohh so 2002 papers, 1000 sheets of paper a week, 1000 sheet. So 8000 a year. It's not millions then, is it? 1000, a year that was in 10 years and nearly 10 years. Yeah, 100,000 comments. Probably more though cause like you said it is on average some lessons. I've printed half a mil, Half a mil sheets of paper. I've put for a trim of myself trees. Is that? How many hours is that? Oh my God, I care about the planet, my time. How many hours of my time as a teacher, as a professional trained teacher if I spent cutting? Paper.

1:24:32 That is where we need to move to A. We need to get into the 21st. Century is getting the bulk bulk photocopying and got to. Go do is instead of cutting 38,000 in let's say 1000 cuts, you wanna be cutting 30,000 and 38,000 individual cuts. Yeah, in fact, get rid of slicing. We're gonna get the scissors out mate. We're gonna cut every single individual one. That will help workload massively. Ohh God. Anyway, you can find the rest of the whole report again in the link. Go and click it. You said that? Yep. Go click in the link. But OK, couple of things. Now then, at one, what's going to happen next? OK, so what's gonna happen next very quickly is basically they're going to carry on looking at this. This is just the initial findings.

1:25:12 This is gonna carry on and luckily it is going to move towards Ofsted, OK? Also, they're going to look under the microscope at the STPC D that is the school teachers paying conditions, an official document. That's all schools, right. All schools have to follow the schools, teachers paying conditions, which all of this is linked to because everything that we've been suggested so far is going to go into the schools, teachers paying conditions. And we're so lucky in this country, right Hayden, that every single school has to obviously follow the school's teachers paying conditions. Right. Ohh, didn't. I think you're giving a bit of misconception there about how the country works. Hayden, what's the bombshell after this, you know, one hour and a half discussion we've just had about all of these things that the government are going to agree to and bring in and and change the schools, teachers, paying conditions so that all of us have a contract that we can really enjoy and go along with and and reduce workload. Hayden.

1:25:59 Alright Dylan, calm down, OK? The problem is, the problem is in this country there are thousands of what we call academies or trusts. Trusts tend to be more than one Academy, don't they? So. Schools. Amusement, OK? An Academy trust. So a school can be an Academy and that simply means it's not run by it. They've taken out the link of the local educational authority and the government basically works straight with the school. It just cuts out the middleman. The idea is it's it's a bit, it's run like a business. You're you're given X amount of money and there's no one to you decide your budgets. Yeah, you decide your it's not the council. Giving you the budget. Yeah, right. And the problem is that comes with this is it's more run more like an independent business and the SPS TPCC D no longer applies. They can make their own rules.

1:26:39 So are you saying that all of these changes to the schools, teachers paying conditions, even if they do go through that an Academy could turn around and go, well, we don't follow that our. Academy can go like, no, we're OK, thanks. And carry on doing what they do in the same way and we've already experienced this in our lives and Academy can just change the pay scale. I can go like, Nah, we're just going to take it. Let's double the amount of pay jumps and therefore half every time we go up and then put it to do with pay and make. It worse. Yeah. Really good. So yeah. Yeah, so that was, that was that story of someone who we worked with who after like 6 years had gone up about one or two grand just because just because they could. And you know, it wasn't this thing where it was like, oh, that's horrendous. That needs fixing. It was well, we make our own rules, so even if it was a mistake, Oh well. Yeah, and mental.

1:27:20 And she was a really good teacher. Extremely passionate. Really good teacher. Yeah. And they just totally took advantage of her, Yeah. And. And shunted her pay. By this year in in the same, in the same breath, every single time. If you were an NQT and you started and you did your year as an NQT, yeah, very often in in a normal world you'd go, you'd been a teacher for a year, you would go up one. And the pay scale in this situation, all the pay scales have been halved. So let's say there's six, there's now 12. Yeah, because each jump is actually half of a real jump as standard. If you're an inquest, you've got half a jump, so you miss out on a grand. The absolute evil genius of this by the way, is what that even then on if you went up two jumps, which by the way obviously is just one actual jump, you were constantly half a pay scale behind where you would be. So every single year, this Academy would be saving 10s of thousands of pounds.

1:28:09 And it wasn't just like our one year on Behind. No. Every single year. You're always around. You were a grand every single year they paying you and less than what they have been. Doing so, they split up. Because it's just you. Yeah, that happens. I remember that. I remember the start of my career and just being like, obviously you're timid, so I just accepted it. But I was really annoyed at like I could see the scam. Straight away, no matter what you did, even if it was performance related, you could have been absolutely fantastic. Well, you're an IT so half pace car. Yeah, the rule was I remember, I remember, I actually remember this so vividly. I remember speaking to the head and and I literally dead. Ohh, this does this can't be right because I'm only like I've done my performance appraisal. Everything's been fine in my 2 year, but I'm only going up from .1 to .2 on our 12 point. System which was seen as one point was seen as like you didn't quite meet your targets.

1:28:49 2 was good and there was always scope to go 3 which was more than you would point and half. No one ever went up three, right? It was either two or they could justify giving. You less unless you were coming and they keep you, but so I went. Wait, I'm quitting. I can suddenly got 7. People, so I went up. Obviously you were on the same 111 point, which is half a real pay after my first year of teaching, the most gruelling year of teaching as well. And and and and and the response I got, I remember being so like harshly, like, no, it's it's just no, that's the rule here. That's the rule. NQT. No, no, no. NQT's can't go. You're on TV. The rule is NTN got one. Do you know who made that rule? Hmm. Do you? Know you you you made that, could you, could you not make that role? Cause now I feel undervalued after a year when I know that in any other. That's the role, sorry.

1:29:31 Can't do an Academy. I would actually just get paid up the next. Time scale. That would work if you were in a local authority school where they had to follow the rules, the person making the rules to turn around and that shows the rule that you've decided to save money so that you can have a six figure salary. Well done. I'd love to do a whole episode on Academy. So if you're listening to this and you work in an Academy and you've got some mental stories of how they just changed the rules and make your life considerably worse than if you just went down the road and worked at a local authority school, please let us know because I'd love to do an episode. On it like if only we had two people here, moved from a horrendous Academy to a local authority school and I was this yeah, we definitely need your advice. On that, loads of people have stories in the. Same week everyone I trained with and worked with in that kind of happened is no longer works. With no one will, their attention is 0.

1:30:11 Percent, yeah, doesn't matter to save money. Anyway, yeah, so Academy is going back to the point academies don't have to do any of this, which is the burning hole because thousands of schools in the UK are already academies after the massive push about five years ago by the government to say that all schools will be academies by 2020 or whatever it was. And and then obviously, loads of schools panicked and quickly became academies when they didn't have to because that got scrapped immediately. Guys, the answer is the free market isn't always the best thing, OK? And when it comes to our children's education and the well-being of people, let's not throw that to the free market. Brexit. The reason I became a teacher is because I did work experience week in a recruitment company in London and it was absolutely horrific. Cut throat became a teacher to make a difference, be good at my job and help children.

1:30:53 It's evolving lots of schools into the same kind of cut throat industry where you get toxic buses. It's a business, it's not. It's children's livelihoods. Children should get what exactly what they need at all points, whatever that is, and it's broken right now. General election year. Let's see what happens, shall. We crikey this has been a really long. Episode. I've really enjoyed it. Though I've enjoyed it, I really enjoyed it. Three of us let us know so we can ignore you. I was waiting to make the same joke. You did it for me. You did it. For me, I actually would like to because sometimes sometimes we say things and maybe our opinions are based on our own experiences or we just don't know the full extent and it is good to learn. So if you have an alternative opinion on any of those points, do let us know and if actually we'll review it if if we've challenged.

1:31:34 And maybe I'll check my emails. Yeah, someone on Instagram. Kizzy, I know you listen. You've got this far. Hey Kizzy, I've just remembered now because she sent a message after the last episode saying really enjoyable. I've got a lot of points to make about this. It might be an e-mail and I'm really scared. She's emailed us and I've just not seen it. Ohh, no. So Kizzy, you've got this point. I will check my emails, I promise you. But I love getting messages from people. And what's great now about the Instagram, I think we're over 2000 followers now. Instagram is, you know, polls and questions and messages. It seems to be every day we're getting stuff in there which is really, really. Good. More ammo. Exactly. And I love it and thank you for taking part in those polls and things that I post. And I hope you enjoy the memes that we make as well.

1:32:15 So yeah, I really enjoyed that. Let's do a very, very quick single and then we'll sign off. Welcome back. Thank you for joining us for this long and we will see you next week. Bye. Thanks guys. Thanks for waiting.