Ep 71: What Makes An 'Amazing' Teacher?

0:00 Right, Hayden, we don't have a sponsor and a lot of people start podcasts off with a sponsor message. So I thought maybe again, we could just do a little thing, just plug on ourselves asking people if they could maybe rate the podcast. Could you maybe rate the podcast? Oh yeah, maybe if they could follow the podcast, you follow the podcast and could they follow us on Instagram, teach the repeat pods, follow us on Instagram on whatever you just said, teach the repeat podcast. And the reason is because it really helps us and sharing it far and wide because does a lot of help for us basically. Do we have to mark this as sponsored now even though we did ourselves? I don't think so, because we have made Let me just check then. Yep, £0 still from Brilliant. Good stuff. Yeah, if you could just review, it's amazing. We get reviews on Apple Podcasts especially where you can actually type a review. They're really nice to read. We get lots of messages on Instagram, but guys, go and rate US five stars. We're trying to hit 100 on Spotify, we're trying to hit 50 on Apple Podcast.

0:46 It helps us a lot. Well, I'm going to start the podcast off this week. You ready? OK, well, hello, everyone. Well. We're going to do a little Jingle first. No, I want to be you. No, no, We're going to do a little Jingle first. All right? Come back. Come back for me. Thank you. Welcome back to another episode of Teats Repeat My Name is. I get, I get one shot, Dylan, one shot of this. What's your name? My name is Hayden. Welcome back. Welcome back to another episode guys. It's good to have you. Hayden, how you doing? I'm all right, I'm all right. I'm. I've got another cold you'll be pleased to know. God, no one cares. No one cares. They do. They don't care. People have got a tracker of my colds. Do they? If you listen, if you listen to this podcast for more than eight weeks, you'll know that I've had at least 8 colds. Oh, has Hayden got a cold? Well, I don't know. It's 5050.

1:26 Flip a coin, love. I do know I'm sick of it though. Oh yeah, you're sick. You think you're sick of it? I'm the one with the cold. Yeah, you are literally sick of it. What do you mean a cold anyway? Like you've got a bit of a bunged up nose is. That a bunged up nose, sore throat, just groggy, doing that thing where I wake up in the night because I think I can't breathe because I'm choking on my own spit. We all do that, right? Please make sure you know everyone does that right Not. Just yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Thank you. Anyway, moving on because you never get a cold gently. I don't. I don't. You actually don't. No, no, not at. All you work in a school, you never get ill, Yeah. Well, it's because I've worked in a school for a couple years. All that got flushed out my system, my immune system. My immune system went, oh, I'll build up a barrier to this. I guess your immune system went on. Holiday. Oh yeah. Well done. Yeah.

2:07 Immune system works. Yeah, all colds are the same. I want you to add a few. You don't anymore. They're eight years old, mate, They've got an excuse. You're over 30. You're going my nauseous. You've got to be. Sound like Homer Simpson instead of high voice. That's what I was going for. I wanted to give a shout out. OK to Sean. Hello Sean, you're listening. I love receiving messages. Receive messages, genuine all the time. If you listen to our sponsor at the start, you know that already because you followed us on Instagram. But I love receiving messages. And there's this one message from Sean again out of the blue, just basically saying, Oh my God, I came across your podcast. I love it. Sean's, she had a 21 year career in the NHS and now she's just spent this year retraining to become a teacher.

2:48 And I just thought my honest reaction there was cool 21 year career in NHS, becoming a teacher. You must be such a lovely person. Well, I went down the route of you must be so nice, like service. But yeah, she's she said it can be stressful during the PGSPGCE, but the podcast, it reminds her why she's doing it, makes it feel good, gives her a laugh. And I thought, oh, well, that's bloody lovely. I can't give you a shout out. And she went, yeah, sure. And her name was something different. And I was like, oh, is that because you tried? Oh, of course, because she said all the Year 5 students trying to find her. And such a yeah classic. Into that world where you change the name, yeah, and just make it completely different. I know when my friends have become teachers, or I did back in the day, because their name would change to something really obscure.

3:30 Yeah, welcome to world of teaching where you can't actually make friends of anyone outside of the building because no one knows how to contact each other because it was changing with cryptic names. Or do what we do and open up a podcast which is open to the public and have thousands of people. Oh, we could do that tuning in. Yeah, yeah. It's like one of the other, really. No one can find us though. Can we have masks on? Yeah, yeah. And we don't use our real name. And we don't release the video because we don't have to. No, silly, wouldn't we to think, should we release the video as well? Because then people can't really identify. Us, yeah, we. I'd be mad. That'd be mad. And we, and we definitely would never say Dylan Hayden. No, our names are actual names. Our names are actually Hayden Dylan. Yeah, that's really the idiot thing. Anyway. Crazy. We're losing it. Yeah, we are losing it. We are losing it. I want to say a quick thing. Oh, listen to this and say a quick thing. Yeah. Because the The thing is, if I don't push this podcast and push it forward as the leader, nothing happens. So we'll keep going.

4:15 Go leader. All right, Leader. Yeah, apparently I heard something. You might be someone's favourite. I don't know. We'll come on to that in a minute. We're listening to this on Monday, which means one of two things has happened. Football has either come home or it hasn't. Yeah, because the final has already happened, of course. Yeah. So last night. Let's do 2. Let's do 2. Takes. Ready. Yeah, Yeah. Get in there. Come on, Spain. I love football. We're not. Who I I actually hate doing anything football with you, honest to God. Oh, oh, I I hate football. Isn't football ridiculous? They all just die to the floor so easily and and they're so pansies and I hate I'm not interested. Oh, tournament. Oh, I love football. Me, I watch football. Hang on, if anyone was watching, then if anyone was watching, you saw a genuine.

4:59 There was a genuine moment there. It doesn't often react a lot on this, as you can tell, because the teachers practise. There was a genuine moment there. If you just saw Dylan's face, he'd probably pause it at the moment where he really was annoyed. He really was a little bit annoyed at that. He's like, well, I don't. Have anyone remembers last last time where I was going through my top tips for the summer time and Hayden completely trolled me every single time? I couldn't even get a word out edgeways. But I'm going I won't like man. But you're so loud, you're my phone wants you to speak to Google. Yeah, well, Google. Hey, Google, can you turn Hayden off? Thank you for doing. That now? Oh man. So yeah, either we've football's come home or it hasn't. Yeah, I hope it has. I have. Genuinely. Jokes aside, genuinely really, really enjoyed watching it. Yeah, good. I even messaged you saying I kind of get why people watch football now because I got so excited by the. Last, my favourite bit was when you messaged me every time my decision went going.

5:42 Was that really a decision? Yes. I know. And you never look at your phone. I know. You put your phone down, Yeah, you can just focus. Exactly. But focus on the game trying. To show you that, I mean, I'm trying to connect with you over something that I know you love. That's fine, and you're squashing. It 22 millionaires running around the field kicking the ball, what else could we connect about in this country? It's perfect. Yeah, who wants the millionaire? I don't. Know what you're on about. Other than that, I'm going to talk about my week now. I went out for a nice meal, my mates the other. Day. I got invited out. Actually, it was a little bit awkward because Dylan didn't. I felt a little bit awkward. Not when I was there. It was fine. But Dylan's got a very close knit group of friends that have been friends. You've been friends wherever I'm using school. Yeah. And I weaselled my way in, you know, once or twice in the past.

6:23 He played a bit of football. I befriended one of your close friends. Made sure you know he. Didn't like that but. Then he moved away. Didn't he come back down? One way he moved away. Wonder why it? Might be you, not me. Anyway, I got invited out to this meal so I felt a little bit like oh, it's just that closest group of friends though, and me. So I did feel a little bit awkward, but everyone was very. Nice 2 words colliding. Don't know how people feel about this. A lot of people have this with like work and social life anyway in general and friends. Yeah just like OK well that those, that's my separate life and people are very different around different sets of people as well, aren't they? Like around my work colleagues, I'm obviously very different. So around my friends do you do? That basically because, you know, I do this because you saw it earlier, literally, do you do that thing where when you, depending on who you're speaking to, you absolutely, completely change the way you speak, the words you use, the accent you put on? Yeah.

7:03 Everyone's got a phone voice. Yeah. You just really have a phone voice. Yeah. Phone voice, I guess. A phone voice. You wanna hear a phone voice, go to episode one of this podcast. Yeah, that's true. Hello, everybody, and welcome to an episode of THCP. My name is. Dylan, I hope you enjoyed the skit at the start of this episode. We're now going to do something serious, but not too serious. I'm going to hide. I'm going to edit out every breath in between the words so that it sounds completely perfect. Now, Hayden, why are teachers striking? Well, actually didn't thank you for asking me that question. It's just that well, and then and then we very quickly descended into our normal. I think it took about four episodes for us to become completely unbearable. I reckon about 10 good, 10 good ten. Yeah, we should go back and listen one. Day, if you're listening to this podcast and you have genuinely listened since day one, can you actually get in touch? And there's no I'd love to have any because obviously we've grown since then.

7:44 We know we've got particularly for our boots since then people come. Here. If you're a day oneer, If you're a day one customer that has no. Dennis got a cash prize. I do. Jeremy did the whole thing about glue sticks, rages pretended that was a story and we genuinely had messed up the message going. I can't wait for the glue stick story That wasn't that wasn't a glue stick. I think we lost a lot of faithful customers over that. No, not at all. Well, not deliver. I've got a quick story. Like the last government? Go on topical. This has just really made me laugh and it's to do with Curry. OK really random link here. We're in school and we were doing shapes. Link to the story I never finished to carry. On Come on, what's the end of your?

8:24 Story nutshell went out for went out for a Curry with his mates and it was great. I'll leave it there. OK, that's the end of it. But there was more. So I was, I was teaching, I was teaching shape to my year four class and we were doing polygons and we were just basically learning the definition of a Polygon. And something again, like when I was a teacher and I started off, you know, I kind of know that Polygon was just like a shape. I just said, oh, it's a shape. And since then, obviously you get to know a lot more because you're delivering the curriculum and you need to teach the children what a Polygon is. What's a Polygon, Dylan? Polygon is a 2D closed shape made-up of straight sides. OK. And so the point being that a circle isn't actually a Polygon because it's a curved edge. And I had kids ask me really cool questions. Like I loved it because when you really specific about definitions, kids kind of take it on their own. And there's really nice discussion that year four child had with me about whether a circle has no sides or infinite sides.

9:15 And I was like, that's such a good question because technically a circle, you could say it doesn't have any sides because it's just made-up of an infinite amount of dots the same distance away from a centre point. And it was like, it was like it makes it, it makes a curved edge. Or you could argue it has infinite number of sides that are so infinitely small that you can't even see where the angles are and it just turns into occur. And so we ended up having this chat, this kid and it was really cool. So these are the, these are the two levels because we had that chat going on. And then we kind of just did a little bit of a recap where we just went onto this blank slide that I built in halfway through just to kind of shock them a little bit and be like, ah, so what's a Polygon? Just to see how much they'd, how much they could recall. And they were talking to their partners and stuff. They were saying what a Polygon is because you're trying to get them to talk as much as possible.

9:56 And then I said, right, Kate, everyone stop, hands up, what's a Polygon? And I said to this girl shot up straight away, really, really sweet girl. And I said, OK, yeah, what's a Polygon? And she went, a papadom is A-222-D shade. Oh, and I'm sorry, I'm starting to laugh already. And I was like, a what? And she went, did I say papadom? And I was like, yes, you said papadom. And she went, isn't that something you eat? And I was like, yes, it's something you eat. So for the rest of the lesson, we all call polygons papadoms. I love that, but don't remember that. That is what we're going to talk about later, about what makes good, what makes a good tea. They will like that because they will remember that. Now I find a lot of kids with polygons, they're, sorry, poppadoms or with real polygons, not problems. They confuse me with the word regular. Do you ever know?

10:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite often. Just think it means like a normal looking shape. Yeah, yeah. And they say normal a lot instead of regular and they don't, you know, you're just introducing their definitions at this point and you're just trying to make sure they're being really specific with their mass vocab. You know, I think we should do in the future, by the way, an episode on on mass vocab and stuff. I just love it. I just, you know, we get, we're very laid back on this show. We kind of just talk about steams and have a champ thing, but we know we are passionate about. It do you remember that? And we'll finish this after this, but do you remember when we were very fresh into teaching and obviously we've always loved maths, but we were super into it. And I don't know if you were with me actually, but when it was like challenging the idea of kids thinking that an upside down triangle isn't really an upside down triangle, it's just that they've not been exposed. To There's no such thing as an upside.

11:19 Down it's just a triangle. And ever since then, I've always thought, yeah, God, I'm really conscious of how I show kids shapes and making sure it's not just always the exact same Pentagon that has that flat side on the bottom. And it's just I always think. Of that now the number one thing I always, I love teaching kids now in terms of shape is I love teaching them that a square is a rectangle. A square is just a type of rectangle. And this idea that these definitions for, especially quadrilaterals, they overlap so much, a square, it is a rectangle. But a rectangle is not always a square. Yeah. And this idea that a rectangle is a parallelogram. Yeah. And a square is a parallelogram. So if you draw a square, you've actually drawn a parallelogram, a rectangle, and a square. There's just varying definitions that overlap. I always lose mine when I say There is also a type of parallelogram that is just called a parallelogram though. Like we just call it a parallelogram. Do you know what I mean?

12:12 What do you mean by that? As in so very specifically the one. Yeah. But that the slanted rectangle, the name for that is just parallelogram. Yeah. Yeah. But. And that's because it doesn't fit rectangle or square definitions. Yeah, yeah. But that's that's very much like a normal triangle. It's like that isn't just about. That's a parallelogram as much as a square as a. Parallelogram I know. The definition is simply just two pairs of parallel but. That's the one. You know, when kids see when the word parallelogram is used and drawn, it's typically that classic one that looks like a rectangle of us being in the same way that it's classic Octagon, a classic pen. Exactly. But it is just as much of A parallelogram as the other ones. Yeah. Yeah. So it's always like what? Yeah, I find that so interesting. And, and that my one of my favourite things we did in year four, because that's when they learn about Quadra really is this tick box basically where across the top you'd have parallelogram rectangle, square, maybe like rhombus and kite or something like that. And you'd you'd give them a shape and they ticked as many boxes as it fits.

13:02 And that that process of just you can have more than one tick. And then looking at the definition and saying, well, does this fit with this right here? That's a really nice way of introducing the idea that actually it can be classified as more than one thing. Yeah. And this, this shape you've drawn could just be a kite and nothing else. But it could also be if you look at the definitions there. Or actually, I can tick free boxes and I love those. And all the way around, when you challenge kids like, OK, what When you say to them, OK, what makes a square a square? And they go, all four sides are the same. Sure. And I'm like, OK, I'll draw a rhombus. Exactly, Yeah. Square, then is it? And then just really getting to think, oh, hang on. Actually, though there are more definitions, there are parts of this I have to clarify. And being really specific with mass vocab is a huge thing. Like honestly, the one thing I think I've topped my head very quickly is just volume. That's the number one thing I think straight away when when I say to people, actually, we need to be really specific with definitions, really consistent and apply them across the school.

13:52 In the same way, you know, if you say volume to a child, their finger picking up ATV remote, they think of sound, that's that's their that's their real life experience lower. Your volume, that sort of stuff. How many faces on this shape? Like what? That's a face on my head. What do you mean how many faces on this shape? So there's so many different contexts for words where we use them so specifically in maths, but not at all specifically in real life where it's a complete different thing. Well, let's, let's, let's do a let's do a massive episode at some point. Come back in the future if you like maths. If you don't like maths, just don't read the title. Just. Get that one and leave us a review anyway. Love that, Love that, right? Yeah. Anything more about your week before we move on? Not really. We were doing shape. We did a marshmallow lesson and we're going to talk about this in a minute. I know you did. Because I got to eat some. Of that I know, because you know what I did? Classic me Type B teacher over here. I was in school and my maths teacher partner who we plan with together in parallel groups where we did the same maths essence said all we need marshmallows because it was her planning this week.

14:44 We need marshmallows, we need spaghetti. And I was like I'll do that. She's my head of year, she's got loads of jobs, I'll do that. Went home that day with you dropping you home. She cars in the garage and I bought the marshmallows and the spaghetti and I was like, I'm so organised. Left it by my front door for the next day. Came to school, forgot them. Did you? Yeah, I. Didn't know that. Left that's why I've got so many so when I got to school I had to then nip to the corner shop get some more marshmallows come back do the lesson and I came home and I got 6 bags of marshmallows at home that. Makes so much more sense. I did actually wonder. I think we didn't use. Many of those, No, no. All of the marshmallows I bought are just at home. But yeah, did that classic 3D lesson. Do you know what? Do you know that really nice idea? Oh, we're just going to do exploration. We're going to build 3D shapes. The marshmallows will be the vertices. The spaghetti will be the edges. We're going to build cubes that did an absolute disaster. Sticky everywhere, Come eat them. All they wanted to do is eat them. They even said to me, they said come and eat the marshmallows. I went no, come on, we're just going to be dirty on the floor. They even said to me then, oh, OK, well, I can eat the spaghetti then.

15:37 No, Yeah. Why uncooked hard spaghetti? What's wrong with you? I was almost tempted to say if you want just to say it's always someone that would just be like, yeah, right, Yeah. And it was just weird because it so happened that a few of them constantly had to lick their fingers clean. Oh no, I've just got to slit my fingers. I've got marshmallow all over it. I'm just trying to get marshmallow having. A bit of shape yet? Oh, it's just don't worry about it. Don't worry about it, Mr. Price. But yeah, it was a sweet lesson. It was nice, but it's one of those things where it sounds nicer than actually. It's not very practical. Yeah, nice. Well, one more thing moving on to I guess a more serious thing we can come back to in a second, but I want to talk about SAS. In fact, let's do a Jingle, should we? And let's talk about SAS properly. If you're in your six or just in education, you know, it's been SAS results results day. We could SAS results day recently.

16:18 So let's just have a bit of a reflection. I. Think and then we'll talk about what makes an amazing teacher. Right, Dylan? Hayden is just bad. Hayden is just gonna do it a whole 2 minutes honestly. Say to me, Dylan, can you just start, please? I'm. I'm worried I don't know what to do. You normally just come in quickly and I actually quite like it after all that big chat earlier I. Even said I know you're gonna take the Mick out of me, aren't you? Because I've done this. He's like, no, I won't, No I won't. I can wait to jump in horrible 2 seconds. Hayden. Hayden, do you want to talk about the Sats mate? Yeah. Did you not know how to start the sentence yourself to talk about the Sats? You want me to do it? Oh, come on then. Little our brains are very different. One little Coho Our brains are very, very. Different one then my friend. I like to plan Dylan. Dylan is a very, very like.

17:01 He likes to gaslight himself into thinking that not planning is a better way of doing. Yeah, telling to me it's fine. I'm telling to you all right. How many of us can actually say hello and welcome? Oh, just one. How many of us can actually just go let's talk sats? I think it's just one out of two. It's. Insane how many of us spend an hour making a 2 minute reel when it would have taken 20 minutes if we just planned it. I don't know, I don't I don't take it longer. Check out our new on. Instagram. Yeah. Anyway, Hayden, did you want to? Me, let's talk about let's talk about SATS because last week, yeah, it will be last week for listening now, people across the country received their key stage to SATS results, which has resulted in a lot of teachers across this country not feeling too good.

17:42 Why might that be, Dylan? I don't know if you tell me this is your bit. OK, this is my bit. Well, OK, in our school wasn't a big deal made of it. We got our results. It was very much like a well done everybody. It's a team effort, collaborative effort. This is this is the amalgamation of kids being in key stage one and two really. But this is their results at the end. Well done core panel. It's good thing to say when results don't go your way. It's key Stage 1. Kiss age one. But yeah, yeah, we're Junior School. KISS, age one. KISS age 1. When they go your way, it's suddenly. You're 60 is a bloody good mommy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're right. You're right. Because it should be. Yeah. And, and every single year cohorts are so different and it's so easy to just get into your head. Well, last year's cohort was this. So this year's cohort. And when you look at the national average, right, it's literally an average. And you'd be ridiculous to think every single year you could possibly have an above average cohort no matter what happens.

18:26 So people looking at this guy. Oh, well, the average was, you know, 72% for maths. So I'm God, we got sixty. We didn't, but let's just say So we've got 62%. Yeah. So you don't know your individual circumstances. You might be in a school where each child is worth 10% because you're in a small class. You might be in a school where literally that year you had children who struggle with maths. It doesn't matter how much we teach you. Yeah. If you want all the stats, Sophie B, she's come on this podcast a few times. Sophie Bartlett, she's wonderful. She does lots of work. She's my best friend. She's actually my best friend, but she is deemed as the what you say does in her phone. What am I saying? Yeah, I'm thinking I'm saved as my actual best. Yeah, my actual best friend. My actual best friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. What you saved as in her phone? That Who wants to be millionaire guy who? Wants to be millionaire guy, yeah, so shows said something doesn't.

19:08 It that was just my way of saying that we're saved in our phone. You know, Sophie B Yeah, SAT expert, SAT expert, SAT specialist. That's that's why I got an e-mail from a random company. It wasn't random. It was LBQLBQ was saying Sophie, our SAT expert, which made her cringe. But no, she's great. She's pretty some really good stats out there, so do do check them out. Because she's an expert. She's an. She's an expert and my best friend, if you're listening, Sophie, best friends for life. What was I saying anyway? So yeah, our school, our school I think approached it correctly. Obviously we care about the Sats because it is a measure of the school really, you know, that is that is basically the point of the Sats. It's not really for the kids, is it? Come on. They get tested again in the start of secondary anyway. But I know just from being online and being in teacher groups and speaking to teachers that I know that it is not the same story, not same feeling everywhere around the country.

19:53 I even saw something online about someone saying that the head teacher literally hid themselves away and refused to release the SAT results to the teachers and said you'll find out at the end of the year on the reports. And it's like, still, I've seen loads of stories like that where I'm like, really like you're just make, you're making your teachers feel like crap basically for the results and taking it, making it so personal. And I've seen tonnes of this over the. Last week, well the worst, even worse than that, I've seen people who absolutely share it straight away and you know when SLT absolutely take it out on the staff if they haven't set of results and just outright saying, Oh my gosh, this is an awful set of results and treating the staff badly as a result because you've done badly. Look, you are responsible for these results. And what I will just say to anyone out there experiencing that is that firstly, I'm sorry that you're experiencing that.

20:38 And secondly, if you're SLT putting that on your staff, you are absolutely just as much to blame, if not more. Because if you have spent the whole year doing observations, doing learning walks in the way you should, if there was actually a problem with the learning and the teaching, it should have been flagged up earlier by you. Because that's literally your job. And if there wasn't, then maybe it wasn't their fault. Maybe that cohort just performed? Less one thing I hate, and I know you hate this and we've kind of alluded to this. Well, I absolutely hate it and it's totally, totally pointless and irrelevant. Every situation is comparing 1 cohort with the last cohort of children. If you got really good data last year and you didn't get as good data this year, it is nothing, nothing to do with this process. It's so stupid to do that.

21:18 Every cohort of children is different to me. If, if, if, if I was a manager and I actually wanted to do my job, which ultimately does, you know, you do have to actually check in and see just doing doing their jobs properly. There's got to be some accountability, Absolutely. And that's not. But realistically, the only thing that should matter is is the progress of the children, as in through their actual journey of comparing them to other children. And most schools do use that as the wrong. Exactly. But that's all you know, that's all it should be. So I really, really do hate the whole comparing ourselves to national standards, comparing ourselves to previous cohorts, other schools. That's a classic one. All neighbouring school got better stats. Is that OK? Yeah, OK. Did they? It's weird, isn't it, when you get SAT results and it's like reading 65%, maths 68%, science 80%, writing 90%. Isn't it really weird when the writing percentage is about 1520 percentage points up?

22:06 Because I've always found if kids can't read, they really can write. Definitely. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. For anyone who doesn't know, can you explain quickly how those? I would do, yeah. So obviously the actual SAT exams are externally marked and assessed. And that's just in reading. In in reading for English, Yeah, and math and GPS in English as well. Whereas the writing is teacher assessed so that, you know what we're alluding. And science. So what we're alluding to here is the idea that you, you know, schools could, if they wanted to, bodge their results a little bit in. Reading science, I would never if that was yeah, that would never. Have known at school to do that. No, no. No, no, no, no, no. For any context, absolutely not. Where we work, no. No, no, no, we're not. We do know a lot of people in teaching now, yeah.

22:47 But it does happen. It does happen. It happens. It happens around here. It happens. And it's just laughable. It's laughable. You see in the piece of paper, 65% got reading, 85% got writing. It's like that's a 20% mark. There are 20% of kids there which can't read at their expected level, but they can write, which we know is an extremely high. Level writing is consistently our generally our lowest of the era because it's the most ridiculously hard one to achieve. That's the way it should be. Yeah, absolutely. So I don't know. What? So yeah, if you see those results. Yeah, take a pinch of salt. Have a wobble, Don't let them have one up on you. Probably made it up. Yeah, but yeah, you're exactly right. Heading down the head, I've seen a lot of worried people and it's bad management.

23:28 To me, it really is. Because like I said, anything that's actually a problem with teaching and learning should have been flagged that way before. Yeah, exactly. So if there is a problem with that, then it would have already been an issue should have been already been intervened with if as a SLT you're using now as the time to kind of reflect on that teaching. As a surprise. Teaching was bad because the results were bad. What? Yeah. What? You just eight months. You've even not looked. Or you've looked and thought it was fine. So you were wrong and. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with actually just admitting, admitting now, like on reflection, oh, actually maybe that was wrong, but don't, don't put it on the staff as if it was all their fault. Yeah. It's like if you're the SLT, it's your job to manage and and you didn't spot these things earlier on, then you just need to take it on the chin and be like, oh, maybe that approach didn't work, guys, this didn't work.

24:11 Next year, like we're going to try something. Different, yeah. Be supportive and move on in that. It's a collaborative effort. Definitely. Well, hey, I'm I'm glad you introduced this section so well. Thank you. You got it off your chest now if you wanted to do. That yeah, pretty much. I just feel sorry for people. So if you feel a bit rubbish. Just I'm sorry and get in touch and if you feel bad, I know it helps. Leaving us a 5 star review that really does help. It really does. Because guys, we've got SLT down our back. Oh, not going to have five star reviews. So if you could just whack as a 5 star review or any platform, we'd be really grateful. That is good. You're getting good at this. No, no, you. Are two or three Times Now in the podcast I reckon we can fit one more in yeah OK should we have a chat now about what makes. Yeah, right after you've left us a 5 star review done. It all right Hayden I wanted to chat about what makes an amazing teacher because once the half. I'm just you LED this bit.

24:57 I'm grateful. OK, very good. Thank you. So I was thinking, I was looking back actually at our old episodes and episodes that are banned and got lots of plays and people have found useful. And also ones where I've had people messages saying, Oh my gosh, that was so good. One of the most recent ones we did was top 8 tips for new teachers, Things We wish we knew earlier. Yep, loads of messages about that saying how helpful it was. People in their PGCE year who were looking for a podcast to help, they found that really useful. And I thought, OK, cool, well, a lot of the health podcasts and you know, how to get better at your profession and they're the ones that seem to do well for us. So I thought, OK, well, what let's think about then let's let's literally cut down to the chase because we're teachers, We want to be really good teachers. That's obviously why we're doing it. Everyone wants to be a good teacher.

25:37 And I just thought, OK, well, what makes not even just a good teacher, what makes an amazing teacher? And I, I want to harp back to when we were at school because I know you and I have talked a million times about how we had a really positive time at school. We liked. Think back just to teachers that you remember, even just once you remember now something. Comes to mind straight away. What? Yeah, yeah. So for you thinking of what was an amazing teacher just for your experience as a child. Yeah. Taking away all the fact you're a teacher now and you know what has to go into it. Yeah, yeah. What was that person and and who were they and and why were they amazing? First of all, I just want to say I had a great string of teachers. I was really, really fortunate. Lovely, lovely, lovely teachers, but the one that jumps out the most. Can I name? Can I name? People name them absolutely. So she had two names. She got married, I had twice year three and then.

26:19 Two names. She was an international spy. Yeah, wasn't remotely. Hello, I'm Guy Incognito. Was wow I love you. She was Miss Dunthorne to me in year 3 and then got married and came back as Mrs Plankton for year four. Mrs Plankton. Sorry, what you said Plankton 1-12 hundred. I'm so sorry. Taking the Mick out of her name. No, not at all. I'm sorry, Mrs Plankton, My disrespect, you said, Miss Plankton. Yeah, Mrs Plankton. Oh, Miss Plankton, isn't it? No. Missus Plankton. Missus Plankton. Yeah, you're. Which one is it? I forgot name, maybe doubt it. Plankton. Right. I thought you said plankton. Plankton. And then you started saying plankton. Oh gosh. Did you manage to get the crusty crusty crown recipe? Yes, we did.

26:59 Of course, the grabs. SpongeBob. OK, Anyway, so she was absolutely, absolutely amazing. And it's the teacher that comes to mind when I think of favourite teacher. Sure, back in the day at primary school, you know, early memories. Yeah, why did? This and you can ask that and I'm like, I don't, I don't think I can just I don't want to give out like a really simplistic answer. No, it's fine. But you might remember everything. You're 30 odd now. I don't remember anything anyway. Yeah, I know. So what? What was it was, you know, viable, man. Yeah. It's going to sound really corny, but it is. It is a feel. It is like she made me feel good and I felt clever and I felt respected and she was nice and fair. It was those things like I don't really like that sounds horrible. I don't really remember any of her lessons. Do you remember that she managed to do a plenary every single day at the end of a lesson?

27:43 No. Do you remember? Oh, I don't think she wrote down a Lesson plan. Actually, do you remember the wall really clearly wrote down and you had to underline it The date and funny. Enough. I don't remember anything I ever learned it all just, you know, bit stayed there. But what I do remember is how I was treated. Yeah, and how I was made to feel about myself, my self esteem, that's what really went up. I had quite low self esteem I'd say as a kid and my self esteem definitely improved when I was in that last. Night. And we've been on that long road to knocking that down either. In this podcast, since I've known you, but I but I really enjoyed learning with her. I think that's probably the the be all end of all. It was the enjoyment that I actually had by being in school. And was that primary school teacher you said? Primary school, Yeah, Year three and year 4. I, I find with primary school and secondary school, when I think back to my favourite teachers, primary school is, is way more of a vibe.

28:25 And maybe just because I'm kind of losing that memories of being so young, but I, I just remember in primary school, the reason I loved primary school was exactly the same as what you said. I felt safe, I felt happy. I felt like the teachers wanted me to do well. I felt like they were nice to me. Yeah, I felt like they were fair. And all of these things I don't actually physically remember. Sat there thinking, wow, what a fantastic route of teaching maths to me. You have or Whoa, these stats about Anne Boleyn have really stuck in my head. I remember just thinking in this, in this environment where I have to spend every day, I did feel loved. I did feel appreciated and I felt safe. And that was the number one. Thing and I remember the little quirks like getting to move around, just sitting somewhere else, stupid little things like that. I remember thinking, this is great. I get to do a bit of I get to do some colouring because I really want to colour in this thing rather than I've done, I've done the writing.

29:13 I remember those little bits like that. You enjoy them a lot more than what you, I guess you imagined as a teacher right now. I didn't sit there and going. I'm so pleased that my teacher kept us in rows today so that we had a more efficient way of looking at the board and like and learning with each other. It's like you don't value that as a kid. Even if you value it as a teacher, you're thinking well they will learn better in this. I didn't. I wanted to sit with my mates and like do some learning that way. I don't know. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And then when I think about secondary school, I think a lot more. I vividly remember a bit more and I think a lot more about how they acted personally. Like one of my favourite teachers at secondary school was Mrs Evans, and she was literally a cover supply teacher and she would teach me geography one week and she might be teaching me citizenship the next week. Yeah, maybe even French another time. Super strict.

29:54 Super strict, super strict, but so fair and so nice and lovely. And I think we'll talk about this, touching this a bit later on about how you can, you can absolutely be strict and be an amazing teacher. And I remember her, I mean, when I had her, I was like, cool, I know the boundaries. I know what I've got to do and I'm going to do them. And if someone else doesn't, well, that's our own fault. And she's going to make sure it's fair. I struggled with her as someone who wanted to break the. Boundary and be. Stupid all the time. So it's like it makes sense, like you're obviously better behaved. Exactly. And, and, but you might have needed that because I've heard stories from you in secondary school when you were just an absolute knob, basically, and it was like you needed someone just to be like, no, actually no. You can't just stand on the table and shout, you got to do something else. And I had Mrs Snyder, Mr Pugh, they sparked my love for history. Miss Van Gelder in maths, I loved the maths and she loved the maths and that kind of, I just flew off. I had her every single year all the way through school, just happened to have her and those like relationships that helped me foster a love for certain subjects. But thinking back to primary school then, because obviously we're, we're fundamentally for primary school and I know it applies to higher education and which by the way, we had in a review recently on Apple podcast, which is really useful if anyone wants to do that.

30:59 So it's about how she's in higher Ed. That's very useful. So going back to that kind of that idea of a vibe as a, as a person going through school, I think it's really important that we, we make sure children feel safe and enjoy school. And that's number one. And if we're thinking about how to be an amazing teacher, that is honestly right up there in a pedestal with them actually learning things. I want them to learn things. I want them to feel safe and I want them to be happy. And I would argue they're the three things that actually they drive every single thing I do everyday. OK, so thinking about who your favourite teacher was and thinking about my favourite teachers, I suppose the the next thing to talk about would be as a teacher, have you taken inspiration from them? Do they inspire how you teach yourself? Or is it simply just?

31:43 Well, that was nice, but I'm going to do my own way, 100. Percent absolutely, definitely inspired the way I teach because I do, I do, whether even if it's subliminal or not, I definitely think about how did why did I like school? What was it that made me like school? And a lot of it was that enjoyment. So I definitely definitely take inspiration from those people that I actually enjoyed learning from and equally inspiration for the people I didn't enjoy learning from because I think, right, I don't want to do that because kids like me, I didn't, I didn't enjoy that. And I actually didn't learn much from certain teachers because of that teaching style or whatever it was. So yeah, it definitely hadn't had a massive impact. But the my, my, I guess my question is that I don't know the answer to really is, do you think the system as it currently is right now, whatever the system is, I'm just talking about everything involved in how, how you can be a teacher right now.

32:28 Do you think it allows you to be like that teacher that you remember? Do you think it's changed? Are we just have we do we just have roast into classes because we weren't teachers back then. We were just on the receiving end. Do you think essentially, sorry I'm mumbling on here, but do you think the current system, it allows you to be the teacher that you really, really, really want to be? Yeah, I think so, because I'm more experienced now. I know what the end goal is. I think you need to know what the end goal is. You need to know what the end goal is in terms of where the children need to get to. And I think in the first one, 2-3 years of my career, I was very scared about being judged, very scared about people picking me up and stuff. And because that's not the way we do it here. But now I feel way more confident in saying, okay, well it's the way I do it. And I know children are gonna make progress and be happy. So maybe we can go through now what actually makes an amazing teacher and then trying to think about how it fits in the discussion.

33:17 So in terms of if you were talking to someone who's just finished their training or is maybe thinking about getting to teaching or even a couple of years in the job, and they just think, do you know what? I don't feel like I'm quite there. I feel like I'm quite good. I want to be an amazing teacher. I want to be someone who inspires kids. What would you say to them? Is your top advice to to being an amazing teacher? Because we've been told multiple times by parents you're you're an amazing teacher. And I know it's not nice looking at yourself sometimes, but like how good I am. But you're a good teacher. So what? What is it that makes a good teacher? What would you give someone as advice or wants to? Be sure. Well, reflecting on exactly that point, then, if I'm thinking, why have parents said that to me in the past, I think it is 100% of the time because I have made a really nice relationship with that kid.

34:01 I actually don't think it's ever really to do with the academics. I think that kind of comes as a result. But normally when teach, when parents come up to me and say nice things, it's because that kid really, really likes being in my class. And that's it. That, I mean, we've said this before, but that to me is the number one thing to, to work towards, to be a really good teacher. Because I think, I think everything else kind of stems from it. If you, if you've got that kid what like literally basically just loving being in your room and will just listen to everything you say because they respect you so much, they just want to be in your classroom. I think the rest of it is a lot easier to achieve. Then it's like, OK, now I can use certain strategies to get them to learn certain things. But that alone, do you think that makes you a good teacher?

34:41 Not alone, but I think it I think it's the biggest portion. Because I would say I can think of a handful of people who fits that bill. Incredibly popular, well liked, not the best teacher I've ever seen. Sure. And and and the the reason is literally. You can have that relationship all you want, but if you're not hitting the curriculum or teaching well or having a solid subject, knowledge of what you're doing or a good pedagogy, you can be the most liked person in the world. But the the kids aren't going to learn much. You can get Mr Beast in front of the kids, OK? They would be smitten. They would love him. Oh, my God, Mr Beast is my teacher. Mum, Mum, Mr Beast is the best teacher ever. Oh, he loves you. What a brilliant teacher you are. Oh, wait, you didn't actually know how to teach them this spelling rule. So he doesn't have to.

35:24 Spelling rule. Oh, actually, this progression in maths made no sense. So we didn't get the most out of their maths. Parents won't know that. Kids won't know that. They'll just be heaping praise on you. So what? You know, I want to be an amazing teacher. That that this is what I'm saying. Because are you an amazing teacher if you're just well liked? I don't think so. So what else do you need? What else do you need to come along? With that, well then, OK, this is where you can flip it completely then Away from both. Yeah. What to be a good you need to get good results then, don't you? Because I think what you're saying is I reckon I could give you loads of wishy washy things, but if at the end of it all, I didn't, I didn't act, the kids didn't learn stuff. Well, I think ultimately you would you could argue, well, you're not a good this is. What I'm trying to get to you, because if someone comes up to you and said, how can I be an amazing teacher, I think it would be almost irresponsible to leave out the fact kids need to learn lots.

36:07 That's that that is obviously part of being a really good teacher. If you want to be a really good entertainer, if you want to be a well liked person, that that advice is sound. But I think to be a good teacher, you need what you've just said, but you're going to need some other stuff too, because it I feel like I can be well liked in my class. I know my kids enjoy themselves. I've worked for the lunch hall and I've got my old classes chat Mr Prize. Yeah, no, you're right. You're. Right. But so so does it make me a good teacher on its own? No. Do you know why I feel like I'm a good teacher? Because they learn lots. As well, I think it's the catalyst. Let's let's frame it as that. I think being that approachable, friendly person, someone that kids want to be around like you've got you've got a personality that just attracts people and they just want to be around you and listen to you. I think that is like the catalyst and now you need the skills, right. You need the skill set.

36:49 For me, the next thing I think will probably be good pedagogy. So for anyone listening that doesn't, isn't in this world, pedagogy is basically just understanding of like teaching practise. So which embodies a lot of a lot of child psychology comes into teaching pedagogy. So I think a really good understanding is all the stuff you don't at university, to be honest with you. And you do pick up more afterwards. Really good understanding of how brains work, how kids brains work, how people learn and remember things, you know, ways to navigate the brain to to help people memorise stuff. All of those things about teaching. I think you need to have a good understanding of that as well. Yeah, like you said, you are right. Because if you, you can be as friendly as you want, but if you don't know how to how to deliver something in a way that's effective and children will remember it and you're not really teaching them anything because they're not they're not picking it up. Yeah.

37:36 So if if you. Struggle with that in terms of being a friendly, outgoing, bubbly, you know, if you struggle building those natural bonds with children, obviously, you know, working at that would be useful. Yeah, but can you still be an amazing teacher? I think you can be a. Very, very, very good teacher. Still, it's a weird one is I don't, I don't want to say I don't want to be too wishy washy here and say that like, hey, all of these things are great, but also you can have none of them and you'll still be amazing. Yeah, I mean, there's lots, but what I'm getting. At is, I think there are lots of ways to be an amazing teacher, sure. And and I suppose I know people again who struggle with building bonds for children like that in the same way, which comes naturally to me. But I think there are much better teacher in other ways because I think a lot of a lot of children out there react and respect what I talked about earlier, A strict teacher very much down the line of no, no, no, no, we're doing this, we're doing this.

38:22 You know what you're going to expect every day. Whereas I know for a fact, you know, you walk into my classroom, we might spend 4 minutes talking about the football yesterday, you know, and, and there are some children I'm sure through that 4 minutes who sit there thinking, Oh my God, I could be on with my work right now. You know, I could I know exactly what I've got to do when I go and do my lesson with someone else. That person might not have that amazing rapport and the unbelievable over the top and there might be people listening to this right now and just say I'm just not like that. I just don't have that ability to do it. But I still want to be a really good teacher. So what what should they focus on? You know what? First of all, let's. I don't think that's true, which I don't think. I don't think anyone doesn't have that skill set, like not complete. I think sometimes people think that there's a particular version of teachers, which is the only one where it's like they're the likeable teacher because they because they're silly and fun in the morning.

39:06 That's not true because you always gave me a good analogy. Then there are some kids who don't want that. Some kids like their teacher because their teacher is really quiet and will come in the morning. They'll just say hello, let's sit down and get our books out because they just want to read a book. So you can build a rapport in that. Relationship. I want to make it clear, yeah, because. I think it's so easy to go down the stereotype of the only version of this teacher that's really likeable and fun and great is the one that's like super like, yeah, let's put some news around one in the morning. We're going to do this fun little game. Everyone's going to have a chat. It's going to be super chill. This is what I'm trying to get at. Yeah, so. So. Let's break that. Stereotype a bit, I think. I think what's important is that you're a teacher that kids like in general, and not every kid is going to like you. It's impossible. But you are a teacher who tries to accommodate the needs of your children in terms of like their social needs, like you. You at least try to do something that makes it so they want to come and sit in your room.

39:55 Can you? Can you be disliked? And still be a good teacher for that person. It's harder, I think. I think it's harder. I think you can be a good teacher. I think you can be a good teacher. I've I've definitely met teachers over the years where I know, I know from the kids perspectives, they have a bit more of a negative opinion on them, but the teacher gets good results out of that class and the kids do actually learn. But it might be a little bit, you know, the kid might be thinking, Oh, I don't really want to be here. I'd rather be in that, that class over there. So I do think you can do it, but I'm quite reserved with this one. I, I, maybe I'm a bit harsh, but I, I guess because for me like defining what, what good teaching is isn't just about the results. So you're you're you're trying to make a. Distinction here. I think it's important to say to people, you know, exuberance doesn't mean well liked.

40:38 No. Like being over the top, being charismatic, almost being this amazing, easy to talk to. Wow. Yeah, we can have a chat about anything. I think that's important but that, you know, there are going to be more reserved people out there who can be amazing teachers, though. Yeah. But what I'm also trying to. Make the same distinction. Another way is I'm trying to say that being an amazing teacher doesn't also just mean really good. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say because I think there are some strict teachers out there who who don't have nice relationships for their kids. They get the best results out of their class. But I wouldn't say they're amazing as someone else because I'd actually say, well, do you know what though? You've missed out on some of the social needs. And to me, being an amazing teacher is trying to get a bit of everything, you know, obviously good academic results, but also the kids want to talk to you about their their real life and they want to share their problems with you.

41:19 Like that to me is like, now you're an amazing teacher. So that I guess that's the distinction I'm trying to make in my head. You're saying to me, are you still an amazing teacher if you get really good results out of kids, but you don't fulfil some a lot of their social needs? I'd say no, not really. I think you're still you're, you're fulfilling the role of the teacher from the academic point of view really, really, really well. But in my books, I I put people on a pedestal who whose kids want to want to be in their class the more and get good results like that to me is an amazing teacher. So that's what I guess what I want to clarify. OK, cool. A big thing when people talk to me, especially when they're early in their career, they're very worried about and I think it's legitimate, I want to know where you stand on this. Again, the context of wanting to be really good at their job, they're very worried about this is their subject knowledge. So there's this, you know, as primary school teachers, we teach all of the subjects, you know, whether in year four, let's say there's someone going to year four classroom or year three, you know, how, how much do you need to know to be a good teacher?

42:16 Because you know, you know, they're gonna end up in year six. It's very beneficial knowing what they need to do in the future because of that progression you're learning. It's for someone who's worried and thinking, OK, again, I want to be an amazing teacher, Hayden, how can I do that? Where should my subject knowledge be? What is the baseline for you, where everyone should be and what should we work towards as well? OK, so. Core curriculum knowledge is like the absolute baseline. So maths and English right for the year group or further? I personally think up up. To the end of your key stage, right, Realistically. So if you're in key stage one, you know, I don't think it's, it's great if you know up to all that, up to key stage two, key stage 3, whatever. But I think as long as you have a, a bit of a macro understanding of where, where you're sub, where those two subjects. So you're in year two, you should probably. Know year three, yeah.

42:57 Even though it's these key stage I know. But you should, yeah, realistically, I guess, OK. Think of another year ahead because we're talking about an. Amazing teacher. Now not just a big teacher, an amazing teacher. Knows that journey. I think of the kids and I've that's, I've learned that from experience personally over the years, the more I've had experience with different year groups, the more it has impacted how well I will teach in a, in a lower down year groups. I think actually I've got a much better understanding of the end goal now for the key stage and it will definitely change the way I teach something. So I do think an amazing teacher has a good subject knowledge in maths and English of their whole key stage, preferably up to key stage two. If we're talking primary school teachers here. I think that's a good baseline to have. However knowledge based stuff I just don't think it matters really when I say maths and English. Even knowledge in maths and English are like it's important but if you can Google it quite quickly and if you can like I don't. I wouldn't be annoyed if a teacher forgot what a determiner was for a few minutes and then looked it up and if they weren't teaching, what it.

43:48 Was if they went in the middle of a lesson. Obviously I wouldn't be like, Oh yeah, but but I think like the, the pedagogy coming back to that, I think, I suppose that's not really subject knowledge, is it? But, you know, knowing how to teach maths really well, yeah, requires you have a good vocab. Understanding requires you know where you're going. It's quite hard to teach something really well without having that journey yourself mapped out in your head. And what I always say to people is if we're expecting an 8 year old to go through this journey, through this module, absolutely as the professional in the room, we should have mastered that. We should, we should understand that completely. Great example. Great example of that. Classic one, everyone starts with this in teaching is and you can tell when someone's not teaching because they won't know. They don't always know. This is teaching kids how to multiply by 10. Sure. Really, really classic thing of if you have a good subject knowledge, you'll know. You'll know how to do it.

44:33 And I think a lot of people have good subject knowledge. I think you can ask a lot of adults how to times by 10, they'll know what to do. They'll know, OK, you'll put a zero on the end. Good, good, good knowledge of like the concept would be knowing that teaching children to put a zero on the end of a number is a really, really, really bad way to teach them how to times by 10. And we should be showing them how, how numbers intrinsically work in place value and all this sort of stuff. So I guess that the distinction I'm trying to make there is you could have a good subject knowledge and know that oh, in year four children learn how to times by 10, but that alone when it comes when it comes to working. With decimals, the reason we teach it in a certain way in year four might not seem obvious or year three, but we know in the long term because we have a mapped out understanding of that all the way through the key stage.

45:13 Actually, that's why we do it because when it comes down the road to year five, year 6, something will click much quicker if we have that really good. So an amazing teacher will have good. Subject knowledge, but also a good understanding of how to teach it as well. You know, they might know that naughty .7 times by 10 is 7. Cool. They've got the subject knowledge, but do you know how to actually effectively teach that to a kid so that they can answer rather questions as well? That's like a whole different ball game to me. And it keeps coming back to that pedagogy, that understanding of how to teach concepts to kids properly. Yeah, OK, I've got, I've got maybe. A controversial question here. Can an ECT be an excellent teacher? My gut feeling is yes, but I feel like you've got like the way you've asked it has made me think no, because we're talking about here. How?

45:54 You know, a really good understanding of the whole curriculum, understanding the journey between it, building relationships with kids, you know, working with difficult children, maybe working with a different set of class. I feel like a lot of the stuff we've talked about so far, if I was an ECT, I'd be thinking, whoa, OK, it's going to take me two, 3-4 years to really get all that experience under my belt. And I suppose what I'm asking is here, how much does experience come into being an excellent teacher? How much can we do quickly? How much can we kind of pick up from podcasts like this, from talking to professionals, from from having that kind of personality, maybe even the way you want to build that relationship with the children? How much can we do that in the first year immediately and be an excellent teacher? How much of it genuinely does though? Even though I hated it at the time, I felt like, oh, I've got to wait two or three years before I've already mastered this.

46:37 And I feel like I improved a lot in my first 2-3, four years. Whether that was confidence or experience, I don't know what where's, where's that line for you? You know, it's hard. It's harder to be an excellent teacher early, but can you still be an excellent teacher or do you really need an experience? I think you kind of nailed it there, I think. It's much harder, but I do think you can be in the bracket of amazing. Amazing is not going to be like an exact one. No, no, of course. I mean, it's going to be a big range of things that make you amazing. Like you said, you can be an amazing teacher for lots of different reasons. Yeah, I think an ECT can be an amazing teacher. Yeah, but I think it'll be very naive to think that an ECT wouldn't get better over time. I I, I doubt there are many teachers or if any teachers who after 5-10 years of teaching can honestly say I have learned absolutely nothing and I'm exactly as good as I was when when I started on day one. How much do you think you've improved as a? Teacher, since you qualified, so it's been nine years for you. Yeah.

47:30 What? What? How would you describe that journey of the quality of your teaching? It's better in terms. Of subject knowledge and concept knowledge. So I think I have a much better understanding of the whole curriculum now where I didn't when I started. I only knew the quick last teaching and to be honest with you, I barely knew. Well, you started in Year 4. Starting year four, now in year 6 exactly and I'd say it took me a year. Or two, to even really get to grips on how to teach the year 4 curriculum. Like really well, now I'm in year six and obviously I've gained a lot of knowledge of year five. I still don't know loads about year three other than just, you know, from what we've picked up over the years. I've never taught year three, but I do think I'm a better teacher now. I don't know, actually, that's a weird one. Maybe I'm just, I'm just, I'm more quickly, I'm more readily available. Like I can, I can pull things I need from my brain much, much quicker now on the spot. Here's the challenge, right?

48:13 If you asked me as a, as an ECT on the spot, you gave me 5 minutes to prep a lesson. You gave me a random objective I've never seen before and that's going to teach it versus now. I absolutely would blow my past self out of the water with that. I definitely teach a better lesson now, but do you think given something brand new? Completely brand new. Let's just say we invent something in the curriculum. I I've got a feeling ECTU would do a better job because more enthusiasm, more willing to put time in to prep it. Yeah, yeah. What do you think? Well, now you're. Going down like personally, no, I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering because no, but it's true, because this is what makes an amazing teacher. Is it your enthusiasm and love for the job Which which early in your career is probably as high as it will ever be? More of it then how important. Is that you know? Yeah, we're trying to build this amazing teacher here. I suppose the point we're getting to is just there's there is so many ways to be an amazing teacher, but we've talked about the core aspects of what we need and I'm not sure that the attitude to building relationships. I don't think I'm when I started, I built relationships with children and now I build relationships with children. I think that was a really strong point early in my career that I've always yeah, me too, me too. And I think.

49:16 That's really important. However, am IA better teacher now? I absolutely think I am. So no matter how good I thought I was as an NQT or ACT where others, we might call them now newly qualified, I think it's kind of undeniable to say that I'm not better at my job now. So I just look back and I think is it? Was it ever possible for me to be a top quality teacher? Could you? Now go and train your past self to be as good as you are right now within, let's say, a month. Yeah, I don't think so. I think, I don't think so personally. I think you just have to have done it. You have to have experienced a class. I've had really tough classes. I've had really lovely classes. I've gone into year three, I've gone into year five, I've gone into year four. I've done placements in year six. Yeah, that that experience building up, I would say me doing year three made me a much more patient teacher, much more patient in terms of I simply had to be so than 15 minutes to write a day in the world. Do you think someone else could have done that with that? Not you.

50:05 Someone else could have just already had that skills. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think what they would learn with experience is something different to what I learned of experience potentially, potentially there maybe with their subject knowledge would have taken longer to build up. Yeah, than my patience. You know, everyone's got a little something that they can kind of Yeah, a tricky 1. So in a. Nutshell really for me so far, I do think you're going to be an amazing teacher straight away. And I think a lot of EC TS are an amazing teacher. And I think of anything that, like you said, they're often more passionate, enthusiastic, and that that in itself might tip, tips you over, you know, being an amazing teacher more than more experienced people who have lost that enthusiasm and things. But despite having other skill sets. But I do also think that experience does matter. And over time, majority of teachers do become better teachers. There is a risk of losing stuff like the enthusiasm if we're accepting that that has a part to play in being an amazing teacher.

50:51 And we're also accepting that people could become less amazing by by losing some of these policies. Absolutely. Okay, yeah, we're one. Yeah. So being being an amazing. Teacher then we talked about how actually the non negotiables we'd say then are quality subject knowledge of what you're teaching, wherever that comes to the ability to build relationships with the children you're learning with. However that comes across, whether that's through being strict or laid back or individual to each child you've got you've got to be able to do that. Yeah. So and the pedagogy and the pedagogy understanding of how kids brains work exactly knowing how to teach. I think there's a whole bunch of stuff which which really is optional and I want to get this across to people right now where where doing it. You can be an amazing teacher and do these things, but if you don't do them, you absolutely can still be an amazing teacher.

51:37 It's not a prerequisite. And the number one thing I've always, always, always lived by, maybe because I don't like doing it, but also because I don't think it's very, very important, is a beautifully aesthetically pleasing classroom. That's a classic one. I love walking through a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing classroom. I am the first person to admire them. I think some of the effort people go into in their rooms is fantastic. I would never degrade someone for doing it. However, if someone came into my room and saw much less aesthetically pleasing surroundings and thought, oh, oh, he's not as good, I'd be guided. I'd be guided. And I think they'd be completely wrong. So I, I where do you stand on aesthetically pleasing classrooms? Yeah, I I think it's.

52:17 The one of the leading things for insecurity of teachers. I certainly remember feeling like that because like equally, you know, I wasn't particularly interested in, in the surroundings. I'd do it because you're supposed to, but I wouldn't. You know, we're talking displays here. Aren't we? Yeah, the colour, the displays and even that. Even just like the organisation of your cupboards and the way your boxes laid out with your books and your trays and things like that. Like you know, I've never been great at that, your peg labels, all that sort of stuff. I think yeah, it doesn't have much. It doesn't have any impact I don't think on any, not really. No, I don't think so. On the teaching. I think OK, everything have extreme. We could go to the other end and it's like you've got, you know, like hoarders. You get on like TV people. Yeah, but no, no, I'm talking. Let's ignore organisation and tidiness for a minute. I'm literally talking about spending two hours on an amazing BFG mural in your corner.

53:04 Oh, you're having a really aesthetically pleasing looking classroom compared to something where it's just put together. The colours don't quite match. Maybe we just hodgepodge something. Maybe we're being biassed because neither. Neither of us have ever been into that sort of stuff, so maybe we're being a bit wrong. I don't think it has an impact, but I'm willing to accept that someone else would come along and say it has just as much impact as you have a little bit of a laugh when them in the morning when they come in, them seeing that silly display, making them want to come into your classroom because they really they love seeing what you've done to it. Every every term, I think would be just as valid as someone saying, you know, one of the points that I think is really valuable because I happen to like doing well when you I remember when you in. ECT. I'd walk into your room and I would do the Riddle of the day. You'd put Riddle of the day on the board. One of your displays was the Riddle of the day and that's like a hook for the kids and that's to do with being a display. So there's something, there is something in that. And I guess what what moves on from that and I think has more of an impact is the organisation and the cleanliness and the tidiness of your classroom.

53:53 Because I again, I'm a self certified type B teacher, messy, unorganised, I don't know where stuff is half the time, never mind one else coming into the room. I absolutely think that organisation and cleanliness and tidiness is a real positive in your teaching and I think that's one of my weaknesses. But has it knocked? You off of the let's say you're an amazing teacher. Has it knocked you off of that title? I don't. I don't know. I don't, no. Longer be amazing if you I. Think I think you can absolutely be an amazing. Teacher inspiring kids, getting the best out of them with with a bit of a with a couple of post notes. When you're asking the wrong place. I don't think it's the end of the world. I think you can go too far. Like, I've had points before, genuinely, where I didn't know where my whiteboard pen was and I'm in the middle of teaching because I just put it down somewhere and a bit scatty. I'm going to help some kids.

54:35 I want to help them out. Oh God, where's the I can't, I can't see anything because I've got all these sheets from yesterday here and they're underneath there. So there's been points where, like, it would have obviously been better if I was a bit more organised. But again, I don't think those core tenets have had to be an amazing teacher. I think they shine through much more strongly than yeah. Oh my God, I've got a pile of papers on my desk. I agree. I'm imagining always like a pie chart, right? Now, like what? What you know the ingredients to be an amazing teacher. You don't need all of them in all of them. You need like, you know, 3/4 whatever to be an amazing teacher. And to me, yeah, the, the, the way your displays look in a classroom is a very small part of that pie. It's still there. There's a very small part to me. I don't think it's going to make much impact really. I don't think so. And it's at all. Right, it's at all I. Don't use them.

55:16 Some teachers use their displays and they and they have their kids actually looking around them all the time. And I do think that is down to your teaching style. I don't do that. So therefore none of my kids ever look around the classroom anyway. So it's almost like it's like self fulfilling. It's like, oh, I'm not going to make nice displays. None of the kids ever look. Yeah, they never look. It was the displays of it, right? Controversial question. OK, so we're winding up to the end here. I suppose we're covered a lot. Could you not once look at a child's book after a lesson in any maths, English, science, whatever? Could you not once look at their book after they've finished writing in it? No marking, no feedback. Just go on to your next lesson and teach it amazingly well and do everything we've spoken about, but you have not marked a single thing all year. Could you still be an amazing teacher? Yeah.

56:03 Yeah. And what does that say about marking? I think. It I think it says that marking. OK, I want to clarify this. I don't think you would be equal. I I think I think there is a there is a good possibility equal, equal to yourself who did look at the books every week. I think there's still going to be a difference. I don't, I don't think it like So what are you saying? It's better or worse? No, no, no, I'm, I'm saying. It is worse, but but I think it's so negligible that it's not going to knock you out of the bracket being an amazing teacher, but it has saved you a hundreds of hours to maybe do other stuff that knocks you even higher into this bracket. You know everything and give and take. I I think marking has a, a small, small place. I'll be lying if I said I've never looked in the kids book and not going, oh, I didn't realise they hadn't understood this or I didn't realise this and then I found out something useful from it. But I'd also be lying if I said that happened more than 1% of the time.

56:53 Yeah, because that's the biggest argument. I've honestly not really got much of A comeback to so I'd like to hear what you say to people who do say, OK, it's all well and good not marking. It's lovely. I'll get you some likes on social media and people love saying don't mark, but how on earth do you know what you kids can and can't do? Because we do assessments across the year if. You started saying to me and we don't do assessments. Then I'd be thinking, OK, there's got to be something summative assessment three times. A year is adequate to know that a child because I do think I know most. Of it just in the lessons anyway. So that's a big thing then? That's the point. You're assessing them during the lessons. What I'm trying to say is the things that you might. Miss in in the books, I think I'd I think I'd pick up most of them in one of the three assessments I do across the year and which basically counteracts they need to mark to need to mark. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So you're saying you're doing your? Assessment every day.

57:33 You're just not picking up a book at the end. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm doing myself. I'm spending six hours a day with these kids. Yeah, a day if it like, of course, I know intricately where each of them are and I think that's a characteristic. Of an amazing teacher you could say a name to a teacher like Oh yeah getting on really well in in maths did struggle with with column method and exchanging found that quite tricky can kind of pluck that information yeah yeah because because you've spent so long with them teaching it and you've adapted your teaching whilst you've been doing it knowing your kids then yeah is. Is that is a quality of an amazing teacher Yeah. Knowing your kids really well and adapting your teaching to. Suit them on the spot and having that malleability and again, I think kinds of experience. Yeah, I was not confident enough, I would say in my first year or maybe even 2 to kind of be like, oh, well, I've planned this lesson. But Oh my goodness, little Johnny, I'm doing, I'm doing what I've said because I'm going around and I'm making sure I know them really well.

58:23 But I'm too scared to change my lesson. So I'm going to just carry on doing it for a minute. I'm a better teacher now because actually the amount of times I've opened up a smart that I have planned myself, not even someone else and I've gone that's a bit naff. I don't really, I don't like that. Give me a whiteboard. We're going to ad Lib stuff. I'm going to model, they're going to practise it. We're going to make up a task in our book. And because of that, where it might seem on paper like I'm a worse teacher because I've not got this much slides to go off. And my gosh, you need your slides and a written detailed plan exactly how it's going to go. No, quality teachers adapt and change their learning on the spot. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. So, yeah, marking, I don't know, pointless. Yeah, I think it's. Pointless. Pretty pointless enough that I'd call. It you know I want to do this is cheeky. I'd never actually do this.

59:06 I want to go a whole year about marking at all and not tell anyone, go to the, you know, pupil progress meetings. But oh look, the data has done this, data has done that. Really, really hope and I think would happen is not much of A change. I still got really good data. And then I'd say at the end, by the way, I didn't mark at all this year and, and just see what they say, 'cause if if someone was like, oh, Oh no, you have to do that. And I'm like, why? Yeah, yeah. Ohh. Because. Because they. Because. Progress. I really hold up your progress. It'd be even better. If like there's a more of like a hitting home like you did that and also in all the time you save marking did genuinely really useful stuff for the school. So they're like wow, didn't did all these really useful things was great this year and at the end of it you go, oh, by the way, the reason I got through those things I didn't mark look, progress didn't go down exactly the same and we got all this other stuff done.

59:46 So what do you think about use of my time guys? Yeah, I mean I. Like that idea on paper, but instead what I might do is just show pictures of me playing with Rory because I went home early. Yeah, Yeah. What did you do your time instead? I've got, I've got my son at home. I was playing with him. I didn't need. I went to the pub. Actually, that's the thing. Here's a pint I had. That's the. That is The funny thing, to be fair, because I felt like. We didn't. You didn't even use the time you gained to do something else when you Nah because I already do hours hours. Actually in my contract. So yeah, OK, last thing then to wrap this up, I think this is super important. And I do feel like even though I was young and a bit of roast into classes, I felt like teachers back when we were at school were way less stressed. And and from what I've spoken to more experienced teachers now have been teaching 30-40 years. They just say the job now is incomparable to when they started off in terms of the amount expected from you. So I genuinely think, and I'd have this to anyone listening who wants to be an amazing teacher, it has to start with getting your own stuff in order, getting yourself in a good place, looking after yourself.

1:00:43 Absolutely. Because I think if you don't fix that and if you're in a bad place and you're stressed, that is always going to translate to your job. It's this is a hard job guys. Like we know it's hard and people training who've got in touch with me say training is hard. And I say to them, training, training is probably the toughest pick because you've got to do everything and train and write essays and do all this kind of stuff. So getting through your training and ECT honestly is so, so tricky. But it does get easier. And a big, big thing that helped me, I kept my personal things. We said it a million times, but I kept going to football. I went out with my friends at the weekend. I did something for me and I would honestly say most people, most teachers I look at who are going through a rough patch and maybe don't feel like they're doing as well as they can do, it's almost always because actually they've not got things sorted as well at home and with their own life. So I think self-care is so important to being a good teacher.

1:01:36 It might not be the obvious thing, but looking after yourself, Oh my God, it's the stepping stone. It's the it's the foundation to actually be in an excellent and that difference between stress and tiredness. Because I think, going back to analogy, I think I reckon teachers 34 years ago, we're probably just as tired as we are just as tired. But I do think the stress has gone up. I think, I think the all the accountability and all, you know, off stared and whatever SRT, whatever we want to put it down to, I do think the stress has gone up. So look, after the stress, It's OK to be tired. It's a knackering job. It's also extremely rewarding. But if you're feeling really stressed about it, something, yeah, you've got to do something about it. You've got to protect your personal time. And we've always said our advice to people has always been just go and talk to someone.

1:02:17 Just try, you know, you can't, A lot of people don't even bother talking to SLT because they think, oh, I won't be able, you know, they're not going to say anything. Well, at least try to talk to SLT, say, here's my problem, I want help. Don't go in, you know, with pitchfork because you get that backed up straight away. They're going to feel personally attacked. Just go and speak to them, see what they can do. Try and sort out your, your life outside of outside of teaching. So you've got a bit of time, like Dylan said. But yeah, look after yourself very, very important That that is what makes an amazing teacher. It is so. Yeah, guys, thanks for listening. That was our kind of round up there. Had to be an amazing teacher. We missed anything. If you think no, no, no, no, you need to have this. Guys, do you know what? You can get in touch with us. You can follow Instagram at Teach Sleep Repeat podcast. We'll put a link in the description and I don't think I've asked you yet.

1:02:59 Could you please leave us a review? It really, really helps us guys. We love reading those reviews. We love seeing those numbers tick up. So if you've got a spare couple of minutes and you want to win that cash prize. Don't don't know. Don't know, there's a cash prize. I like that. Hey. Because I think throughout the episode we got a bit more serious and I felt less and less like I wanted to kill you. So yeah, I know. Did you vote Labour? I guess what, guys? It's either come home or it's not coming home. I don't know which one it is. Maybe that can be the poll. Did it come home? Yeah. Yeah, we all know. We would never know. Because we live in the past. We're trapped in this moment, in the past. It's. Currently Friday. I mean whenever you listen to this, Oh my God, could you believe that header by Harry Kane to win the EUR?

1:03:41 That was amazing. Now do another version. Oh gosh. Can you believe? That young 16 year old who's now 17 because his birthday is on Saturday, which has already happened, that is called that, who scored that amazing goal for Spain and Harry Kane missed that header. That would have won. Geez. Unlucky boys, unlucky or all well done boys for winning the trophy? Well done. Delete as appropriate guys. We'll see you next time. See ya.