Ep 78: How Toxic Schools Use "Accountability" To Bully & Intimidate Teachers

0:00 Hey guys, quick one before we get started this week, Hayden, that's me. We've had hundreds, literally hundreds of new listeners in the last week or two. Amazing. Welcome to you all. And if you're an old listener, we wouldn't forget about you, obviously, our customers. But there is one thing, the number of listeners we have is quite a lot more than a number of reviews we have. So I'm going to do a little bit of begging, a bit of grovelling. I'm trying to do this very often. But before we get started for this episode, please, whatever you're listening on right now, can you go to the rating system, whether it's Apple podcast, Spotify, or anything else that you might use, and just leave us a review? It really helps us, doesn't it? Hey, what? Kind of review. Oh, oh, let's clarify this. Let me sync. Oh, out of the five stars, we would like to no, at least plant that seed in their mind. At least 4, At least five.

0:45 At least five. At least five out of four. Yeah, you can go more than that if you want, but at least five out of five. Wow. Thank you. We appreciate it. And should we crack on this episode? Let's do it. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Teach Sleep. Repeat. My name is. Dylan, and my name is Hayden. And we're back. Wow, I can see your brain thinking what should I say? What should I say? What? Should I do to say, hey Dylan? Hey, Dylan, Yep, I'm going to do your bit. How's your week been mate? Oh. No one ever asked me how my week's been. I'm so wasted in a few again. I kind of don't like the fact you've gone off script, but I'm going to have. Script. Script. As if we ever plan anything in these episodes. Come on. Yeah, but anyone who listens knows the 1st 27 words of this podcast are always the same, always 20. Seven or did you make that?

1:32 Up. I made that up. But Can you imagine if it is 27? Or should we count? Shit now. Ready. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Teach Sleep. Repeat. That's eleven. Yeah, my name is Dylan, 15. And my name? It is Hayden. 21 and we're back 24. And we're back with with another episode 27. That's what we say every time, isn't it? Anyway, now I've wasted enough of your time. My week has been great. I've got a few stories I want to tell you. Yes, please do. Obviously, for anyone who doesn't know who's a new listener, we are literally current primary school teachers. One thing, this is not at all anything we planned, but it's just coming to my head immediately. I never knew this was a problem or not a problem necessarily, but even a thing before I saw a thread, someone just posted on threads and said they couldn't quite believe the amount of people out there on like edge you space online, whether it's Twitter or Instagram or stuff.

2:27 Why do so many people pretend to still be teachers? And I was like, what? And and then I thought about it and the point that I'm making is there's so many like influencers and stuff out there who post stuff like, oh, back to school this September. That's a bloody and they're not even in teaching, like they've left teaching hilarious. Or they post like memes And it's like, oh God, that feeling when it's Tuesday, it's assembly time and you got to. And it's like, oh, you haven't done that for years. I tell you why. It's pretty bloody obvious, isn't it? What's that? It's because you want interaction or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. And obviously that gets it. But I never, I was so oblivious to it until I read this. And I was like, I'll keep an eye out for that. And then like. Over the next week on social media, I was just like, wait a minute, all of these people who post this stuff aren't actually even teaching right now.

3:12 When are we going to tell him that we're not? We've been pretending. We didn't even do teaching qualifications. He didn't actually fulfilled his career as a historian. My, my actual name is Mary Beard. The seventh. You don't know? No, anyone out there knows Merry Beard. That's who I actually AM. Fantastic and I work in film, radio and television. Are you Steven Spielberg? I am Steven Spielberg, except I'm kind of like the one from Wish. What I do is I produce a podcast. It's not even on the real radio. I produce a podcast called Teach State, Repeat. That's what I do. It doesn't pay very well. Though I'm going to call you the T Moon Nolan for an hour. The T The T Moon. Nolan. Oh, Nolan. Oh, here we go. I I combined that into one word.

3:55 What's a team of Nolan? A team of Nolan. I love a team in a a team. Christopher Nolan got the film No team. Team is is like Wish from Wish, isn't it? Yeah. Team is like the Wish version of Wish. Yeah, like it's even worse. What's Wish from Wish TV? I can't wait for the next iteration as our society descends into a complete. Brain rock. Good team move. It's like that's from Wish mate. That's that. Wish is from eBay and ebay's from Amazon. Like, come on, where are we going? And the and the thing we learn from this is don't spend your own money on stuff at school because you'll end up just on the bottom rung. Yeah, team is awful, by the way. Anyone of us has bought from Team Move, I wanna say that. What you have?

4:37 You have, haven't you? Yeah, I know. And I I I I thought, no, I have. I know you have to clarify that when I said only one of us knew, know. You have right? I didn't know what you said. I was laughing. No, I've bought from Team Move and I felt shame almost straight away. I was like, isn't this bad? And then I did some research and I was like, I'm never buying from team again because it's it's, it's essentially, isn't it like the Chinese, like Amazon? But I honestly have no idea. It's so cheap. And whenever anything's really cheap, you just have to ask yourself. Why is it so cheap? Ah, exploitation of. Yeah, alright, yeah, don't buy it from team. I'm never gonna do it again. Yeah, although I do now have. Or any shops for that matter. Any shops of any sort of kind other than locals also don't bother. Them it's horrendous.

5:19 Anyway, my week back away from saving the world back to my week. It's been good. I'm gonna talk about a lesson I had in a second, but as of recording today, I wanted to get your opinion on this because I don't know. I think I know the answer, but I don't actually. So I wanna know what you think about superstitions, because today that's my answer is as a recording Friday the 13th. And obviously it's like I was listening to the radio on the way to yours and they were like, oh, it's Friday the 13th. Oh, and I was just like, shut up. Damn, isn't it as you put your other hand on the steering wheel? A crow flies across me in the black. Cat zooms past. Do you drive under a ladder?

6:00 Why is that even here this? Is weird. Rd works. What do they do? Yeah, drive over a crack in the pavement. I'm driving in the crack. Oh God, yes, Do you? My umbrellas up in the car. It's so unlucky. Turn around and there's a table on your side and your shoes are on it. I grew up in a household to say that where where my stepdad was very superstitious. So all these kind of things were genuinely like rules of our house. It was just mental. No bloody ladders across my living room.

6:40 Don't do that. Honestly, one time or two times. I've got 2 quick stories for you so I'm sorry I'm hijacking, but one number one, brought some new shoes, school shoes came in, put them on the table brand new, obviously clean, absolutely fine to put on a table. And I got told off because you didn't put new shoes on a table. That's bad luck. I was like are. You talking about? Yeah, and the second time was the umbrella. Came here with an umbrella and I put it up as a joke, just like playing around with it. Put I put the umbrella down as bad luck. I was like what you talking about mental? So. So I think we've got the artist of migration. You're not remotely superstitious. I think it's so dumb. It's so dumb. There's a difference in there between, like, habits and maybe even manners. Yeah. And superstitions. If someone said it's bad manners to put shoes on the table, I'd still be like, they're brand new. Yeah, they're brand new.

7:21 But. Yeah, that is bad manners. You do. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you? Don't want to put germs on it, so I get it. But no, what I mean just another superstition thing. You'll know this because it happened to us when we had we had our babies, right? What do people like? Well, the people like and it's kind of different. It's. Gonna be those people listening who do this. By the way, I'm sorry we're gonna RIP into you. I'm gonna do it anyway. We're gonna do it anyway. But yeah, there's loads of loads of like ways ways to find out the gender of your child. No, no, no, no, no, no there isn't. There's one way to find out the gender of your child and that's through a scan or waiting until they come out. OK, there are lots of different ways. Old wives tales, they wait. Should we should we go for a scan and get a qualified professional medic to tell me the gender of my child or or wait for it? Should I we on a leaf of cabbage because. One about 5050 which?

8:12 I think they're about the same, but. I was really mean. I was really, really mean. This is so cruel of me. I should have done it, but I'm just. I can't let things go, right? Yeah, but Lauren's mum came around and they would do it. Lauren and her mum were just being really cute. They were being sweet. And I should have left it at that. Yeah. And they? Probably didn't actually think I'm. Sure, they didn't, but they were doing these wives tales and me being me, I was like, well, actually, no, these don't actually work. And I'm going to prove that to you. But rather than just being like, oh, that's sweet, like, enjoy that. It's a nice moment. I've ruined it. Yeah. And they were doing that thing where you, like dangler necklace. Maybe it has to be a cross. I don't know what. Oh, it has to be a cross. I don't know. No, no, no. It wouldn't work if it was like. Cross, I think it just has to actually doesn't. I think it just has to be something that can dangle. It has to dangle it over. Because otherwise it otherwise it wouldn't work.

8:53 That would work, yeah. It wouldn't work, the wives told me. Yeah, you have to dangle it over the then. Otherwise the old wives. Sorry, old wives and their tails. I read the. Tails, they told you. Have to dangle it over the belly right? And the based on the direction that it spins it tells you whether it's a boy or girl. So it's clockwise or Ant clockwise. Obviously it spins by itself. Oh, by itself. It spins by itself. Doesn't spin by itself. No, it does. Whether or not the child is a boy or a girl makes it spin either. Clockwise Ant clockwise. They were doing it and it was spinning a certain way, I can't remember what. Oh, it's a girl certain way and I was like I was like, oh, come on, guys, you're being serious. It doesn't work. They're like no, it does. I was like, oh, don't make me do it, don't make me do it. They're like, no, it does. It works like, oh, I'm going to then give me that hell. It dead still, dead still for like honestly 45 seconds. Oh look, hasn't moved at all because I'm not putting any input into it.

9:34 Oh, there you go, there's your game walks off both crying. They're not really, but you know that's I might as well have been. I've ruined their thing. You see, the ultimate version of this was different. This was after this. I remember you telling me. So we were all together. Yeah. You and I and our Laurens. And they were both pregnant at the same time. Yeah. So we got up, didn't we? A list of old wives tales, Right. And. And there were like, there was like 18 in a row. And there was like, well, we'll test it if this works, because if it works, obviously we'll all get the same answers. Every single. 1218 will be the same. Completely, absolutely split. Either way, don't remember what they were. And it was like, well, the cabbage turns green when I we on it so there's a girl in there. But also, I have got an itchy head so it must be a boy, Yeah? Oh, man, it was so silly. So and then the girls decided didn't know. I don't think they're doing it to spite us at this point. They were like, no, it does work. You have to take the average, you know, like it's the one which one most.

10:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah, is actually the one. I wonder what I said today. Invent wife's tales in that are wrong on purpose today for this game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They thought in the future there'll be people who empirically look at this and go for the average of all of the ones that we put. Together. Yeah, yeah. If they accidentally did, imagine, if they imagine they only picked the ones that all gave them the same result And we were sat there like because they were obviously like eight or nine that actually said girl. And I'd be like, that's annoying. Oh, did you rub celery behind your ear and it turned grey? It's a girl. Oh, you just got dusting ears, so you're. Just allergic. You're just allergic to celery. A rash in my ear. It must be a boy. No, no, you need to go to the doctor's. You're allergic to celery. What are we? Doing so, are you you superstitious at all? Yeah.

11:05 Absolutely. Completely. Yeah, absolutely. Friday 13th. Yeah, 13th. That's hilarious. I'm just gonna say one thing to you, OK 'cause you said you've got a story to tell. Yeah, I do. Yeah. About a drink. Yeah, I'm actually. Look, I was just thinking of it. Yeah. We've come to the same point at the same time because I was looking at your Pepsi. Yeah. So Pepsi Max for anyone's Pepsi Max. Pepsi Max. What if anyone from Pepsi Max is listening? Wanna wanna? Sponsor the podcast brought to you by Pepsi Max. We get sued or something. There are other drinks available that are low in sugar that are low in sugar and have maximum taste. Us toying with company will just crush us immediately we do something wrong. Teach Sleep Pepsi. No, stop, cancel, cut, cut, go, go.

11:47 Anyway, so for listeners, Dylan always has a drink precisely over here. I'm pointing if you're looking, if you're not looking, it's in a direction away from me. He puts it right there. What on this planet is not in a direction away from you? Anyway, he puts it in a place where I normally put my drink when I'm just working at this desk. And last week we recorded on, I think on a Friday, and then on Sunday or Monday, I think it was Monday evening. I just instinctively reached over and grabbed what I thought was my drink, the water that I'd poured maybe 10 minutes ago, and I drank. I don't know, you know, it was, it was a good like 100 millilitres, you know what I mean? It wasn't like a it wasn't a little drip. Wow, that's a couple of mouthfuls.

12:27 It was a chunk of water and I drank it and as I swallowed the last bit I realised. I realised that it was your leftover water from three days ago and it made me feel sick. For context, most people would be like oh that's annoying, kind of gone with it. Makes me gag now. Hayden doesn't even drink water that's more than an hour old and it's his. Like he just. I'd never drink out of your glass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If anyone had remotely touched it, would you? I'm one of those people. I'm sure I I can, it's just a. Straight, no, no, I think we've alienated half of that superstitious story, but we're down. We're back down to our audience from a couple of weeks ago. They're all gone. Yeah, they're all gone. But I do I, I do think people are either the kind, whereas like they don't care. They'll drink out of anything no matter who's drunk out of it or you specifically will never drink out of anything unless it's it's yours and anyone's lips have touched it.

13:10 You are not drinking out of that. Well, I've got a story that proves that I'm the second person on that list. I drink anything this this is horrendous by the way, so if anyone it's not I don't know squeamish is the word, but if you easily. If anyone's mature, let's come here for any serious kind of reason. If the superstitious chat didn't get rid of you, this will. So we went out for a night out in Portsmouth. One of my mates from work, I used to work in Asda, as we've said a million times so. We're already 10 years. Yeah, this is a long time. This is like, I reckon this is 12 years ago. My friend went to university in Portsmouth and it was his birthday and we'd worked at Asda when we were in sixth form at school. He'd gone off to university. He came back and did seasonal work, so I still knew of him and it was his birthday and we all went to Portsmouth.

13:52 A bunch of us from Asda who were around the same age just went down to celebrate his birthday. And in in Portsmouth there's a club called Tiger Tiger, so good they named it twice. And apparently I think it's a chain. There's a few in London and stuff, but a big huge club with lots of different levels and floors and rooms and like here's an R&B room and here's a country room, whatever it is. So we were we were on a night out. Imagining in a club with my hat with me if I'm going clubbing with my massive. Boots Yeah, Cowboy, pass me the Jaeger Barb actually speak now. Anyway, so I was having a drink, we're out, having a good time having a few drinks, and I put my drink down on the table, turned to talk to someone, had a chat, had a little dance, cool, nice one.

14:39 Just went to grab my drink again. Obviously just I knew my drink was there, so I just picked it up and drank it to my mouth and drank some. Stopped what? Looked at it wasn't my cup. It was a cup someone had thrown up in. Oh, Oh my God, that is the worst ending, that story. I'm not joking. I'm not joking. That was a real reaction. Like absolutely. Like I felt sick. Then yeah, yeah, I don't. I feel sick talking about it. I I feel so fringe right now. Genuinely, right, genuinely because I wasn't looking. I took the first look. I took the first sip as if it was just my drink. So I was like, I feel. Sick. This is disgusting. And I just went and I, I swallowed the first, Oh my God, that's true. I we genuinely, we genuinely have to stop talking because I actually think I'm gonna crop.

15:24 It's so disgusting. I need some water. So the thought of doing that? Tainted's eyes are actually watering now. Yeah, That is the that's probably the worst story that is revolving. That is probably the worst story of my life, genuinely. Yeah. Oh mate, I have no words. That is so disgusting. I can't believe. I didn't expect that. I didn't know where you were going with this. I was like, oh, it's just going to be someone's dregs or someone's like mixed beer with something. You were disgusting. Sick, sick Someone's sick, so they. Asked for it back, Drink, get me a new one. Turns out it was just Malibu and go. I just want. To say, oh mate, that is absolutely, absolutely revolting. No wonder you were. I'm gonna worry about telling that on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

16:06 Beforehand, Aiden said he wants a drink story. And I was like, I've got a horrible drink story. Oh God, that's that's right. I mean, we should probably move on because we're like 17. Years now. We will, we will, we'll crack up. Had a nice week. I want to talk in the future about RE first kid and kids and their fascination with it. I'm not going to go into detail now, but maybe if you stick around in a couple of weeks, we'll tell that story as well of that first RE lesson with your class where they're just completely unfiltered asking questions. Go on, you got. No, no, no, no. We'll go into it in more detail earlier, OK, The only I'll say, I'll say one thing quickly before we carry on. OK, go. Into it more detail earlier. Listen back, guys, listen back. There's one thing and it just cracked me up. Obviously very completely impartial in the classroom. Don't necessarily I'm not trying to influence what anyone says, but I I personally, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God and I'm in a church school. Then we teach Christianity and say Christians believe this and you're giving them all the things they need to know that people have different beliefs and we celebrate them all that. So disclaimer.

17:02 However, obviously I sometimes find things funny. So this one kid, I couldn't help it. I we were doing the creation story, OK. And we talked about how this is a story that Christians used to describe how they think the world started. That's what they believe, because there are some questions we simply don't know. Like we we don't know what was there when the universe created. We have scientific explanations that might be slightly different of how old they think the universe is and how long it's been or how things came to be. But Christians have this story where their God created everything in seven days and rested on the last day. Yeah. So we were going through this story very much of the in the, the situation of this is what Christians believe. And, and a lot of our children are Christians, obviously, because they're a Christian family. They go to Christian School, but lots of them aren't. And lots of them, lots of them don't believe in it or they're even in a different faith.

17:48 We've got some people from Islam. And so we're just, we're just basically looking at this story, but like, this is what they believe. Literally. Religious education, exactly. That should be taught exactly that. And I love, I love doing it because I love showing them what different people believe. It's really, really good to do with children. And anyway, we were doing a creation story and obviously God's at the start of it, honestly. And then on the first day it said God created the light and the dark, the day and the night. And then we're talking through and I was like, OK, so day one, Christians believe God created the day and the light. Day 2. And whilst I'm doing this, there's just this kid who looks really confused, like honestly, like really in deep thought. And that's a great thing about RE kids do get into deep thought. And she was just saying what? And she put her hand up and I was like, yeah, OK, go on. What do you think?

18:29 Because it's very open, lots of questions. And she went, right. So God, God created light. Yeah, on day one. So before that was he just sat in the dark. Kid minds. I love that he. Was so good, like was it just really dark? How did he? Yeah, he just sat in the dark. Himself and then another kid, so cute because kids do this. Obviously he, he's a Christian. He said he believes in God. And he went no, no, no, no, no, don't worry. God just created a little circle of light around him. He's a little circle of light around him the whole time. Yeah, that one. Yeah, that one. Yeah, but I just cracked me up. I just the the idea that, you know, you're just telling the story and these kids are really sat there going OK, do I do I think, wait, what? They're imagining, obviously. They're imagining God. Exactly.

19:10 It's hard to not, not to imagine something, a being, a being. Yeah. So they're just imagining as a person. But. There's nothing created yet, we just sat, sat there in the dark. Should I create light? Yeah, yeah, OK. Yeah, on his chair. He's already created chairs at this point. Sat there, it just crammed me up. Anyway, let's go on to this episode. We're going to talk all about how to actually keep teachers accountable, which is really important, but without being toxic. Please. Bloody hell, keeping teachers accountable is obviously really important. I don't think there's a single teacher in the country who thinks that we shouldn't have any accountability. But there's a, there's a theme at the minute of, you know, stripped back off, stared, give teachers these rights and stuff.

19:50 And we're on board with that 100%. You shouldn't be under severe pressure. But we do have to keep them accountable. We have to check if they're doing their job properly, obviously. So we're going to dive into now. I guess firstly, how are teachers actually kept accountable? So what are the things that we common ways they say, common ways that we might have that initially now and why they might become toxic potentially. Then we're going to spend the bulk of the episode talking about observations because I think that's the biggest one. I think if you go to a teacher and say the word observations, shadow would go through them. A lot of teachers. Everyone's got an observation story. Everyone we're going to, we're going to talk about some observation stories that you guys have sent in to us that we asked for. And then we're going to finish off by saying, so how do we actually do this then?

20:30 How do we keep teachers accountable without seeping into that toxic trait of putting loads of pressure on our teachers? How do we actually just make sure they're doing the right thing and help them? Yeah, one extremely well planned episode. It sounds great. I know, right? Looking forward to the first time ever. So let's just start off then. Let's think about observations in general and I guess wider just being held accountable. Yeah, not observations. So so observations is the first one. Yeah, yeah. Well, the obvious one. Is we're going to go into lots of these in a second, so I guess we can kind of skim over it, come back to that. But observations is simply just, you know, your you, your lesson, being watched and judged. But we know that is not the only way to be held accountable in a school, and there are some other common ways that we're just going to go through. So we're going to go through them and we're going to talk about, you know, how they're done toxically. Yeah, I guess so.

21:13 And and whether they cannot be done, that'll be interesting. We can we can have a chat go on our sides off right number the one, the first thing that comes to mind based on the last episode and our rant that you put on my rant that you've put online displays and just generally like just judging displays is what I mean by that. That is definitely a thing, isn't it? Like I, I know there are schools out there where someone will come around head teacher or whatever with a clipboard, a list of things like boxes to tick and they're just looking at your room and looking at your displays. It's like what missing the appropriate colour board for that one. What that one has not got four pieces of people work displayed. It's got three and they are from last term. Big fail. You know that that experience. I'm like, what do you think about that?

21:55 Is that keeping teachers accountable to their job? No, obviously not. And especially now it's hilarious because we're in this dichotomy at the minute of that existing in some places and the workload production task force saying we shouldn't be doing them anymore. So it's like, cool, well, but these shouldn't exist in the same universe. So I think we might be shifting away from that. I think a lot of the theme of today's episode will be anyone who taught in like the early 20 tens knows how insane this kind of culture was in school. So we're going to talk about. That OK, let's let's frame it in that mind, because we we taught in that time it was more like mid 2. Thousand. Yeah, it was. Like, you know, 20/13/2017 new curriculum. Yeah, Ofsted pressure was like worse than ever in like 2014, 2015, 20/16/26.

22:36 That era, I'm going to call it like the, the pressure era, I'm gonna make it up. But it was horrendous, genuinely. And I think a lot of people will be able to say, yeah, that was a horrible time to work in in schools because with so much trickle down pressure that heads were then being like, we don't really know what Ofsted want. But also, we're going to do absolutely everything that we think based on what we've heard on the Internet and what we've heard. From the school, at school down the road and Ofsted person walked past the display and said that's a nice display. We need to do displays everywhere. We must do them right now when you are going to do them in your own time. It was a horrible time to work in, I'm gonna be honest. With you, it was there were lots of things. Think about some more things. So displays was one of them. Just feeling that pressure of like someone's gonna come around my room every week and genuinely just judge me based on nothing keep of my display. And just on the finishing point there, I guess, you know, you're not actually testing whatsoever in this process whether displays are being used in a certain way.

23:23 Yeah, So you are literally seeing if they exist rather than seeing if what they're doing is useful. And that developed different. Remember that? I actually remember the time where it was suddenly like working walls were then really hot. Sure. So it's like, whoa, OK, working more. So all of us, you know, the tick box list changed because it was so meaningful before. They obviously just completely change it immediately overnight and it doesn't matter anymore. The old stuff and it and it changed to OK, I need to see it working more and then it was OK I don't just want to see it working more. I need to see relevant work from today on it. And if it's not there and and a story about that very quickly, you're going to be judged on it harshly. So what ended up happening I. Felt the need to in the middle of my maths lesson at the front of the room where I'm modelling good maths and the kids are practising it themselves and they're about to go and start their lesson. I would have to stop myself in the middle of my flow and these kids learning stuff. Oh, God, wait, stop.

24:07 Sorry, guys. I need to do what I'm doing here over in a really inconvenient space in my classroom. And my maths working wall happens to be. So just hold on for one second and watch me. And I'd walk over to the other corner of my room and no one can see me where I put up this sheet on my display board for mouse that can be wiped clean. Yeah, but wasn't it goes. Look over here. Now I'm gonna partition the number here because if I don't partition the number here, obviously it never happened. When someone comes in, they're gonna and they might come in. Yeah, See that? How on earth can I model work? And it's not on my working wall on my maths working wall. Like just get some teachers will use it brilliantly. Great. Do you know what I didn't? Because I just did a lot modelling on the board and it. Was fine. I'll tell you what it brings me to my next point, which is essentially the same point but a bit wider. Learning walks in general learning walk. I don't want your schools called them So what can they or now?

24:50 Use what is learning a? Learning walk is when SLTS or some of SLT or some whoever's monitoring will come around and not just looking at your displays, they're looking at everything. They will just come around your classmates. Not necessarily an observation like where you're going to get, where someone sits there for the whole lesson and writes down, but. It is kind of formal, isn't it? Because it's a, it's a. Planned thing. It's a plan thing. We're going to be walking around the school and this week or this day and we're going to focus on focus on hey, there are 42 ladies or one thing, you know, just them as well. Like I hated that time, but do you not think so thinking about that kind of level of toxicity? Anyone can imagine that kind of dread got almost you know that the heads coming round with the mass development lead during the mass session.

25:31 Is that inherently bad though? No, because this is the thing, right? Learning to me, the display 1 is just pointless to I'm just like just what? I shut up, whatever. Yeah, but the learning walk is. I get it though, because you know what? If we're holding teachers accountable, we probably should check in some form that like, the kids are facing the front. Yes. Just like really basic things where it's like, OK, we're going to patronise teachers. But we probably, there probably is a place for managers to like, you know, actually go and make sure, of course, that some basic things are in place that children put in the hand. They're not shouting out. They're not throwing things across the room and the teachers not doing anything about it. Like, I get it. Yeah. But I don't know. There was just something about the way it felt and all the time and. Well. It it was the culture of judgement rather than the culture of help and providing.

26:13 So maybe that, so that that was the biggest thing for me is I am more than happy for anyone to walk around through my lesson in my lesson. Come in, come and join us. Brilliant. If the attitude is right, you know, and and you can judge me as well. And I might not like it always, but you know what it doesn't? I don't have to like it always, as long as you. What you're saying to me is, do you know what? I did notice this. Yeah. And do you know what we're going to do because of it? I'm going to rinse you and make you feel awful and give you a bad grading and then tell you you're bad. Or you could just say, so do you know what? I want you to go and see this teacher who does this really well. What can I do for you to help you overcome this? It's the framing. There is a way. The learning walk itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's probably a good thing, but it has to be the framing has to be.

26:56 We'll come back to know more later because when we get to the bit where we're saying, OK, what can we do to keep 10 teachers accountable, I think there'll be a nice little link to that. But I tell you what, there's one thing in my mind, and I know it's in your mind as well. If something where it really sticks in my mind as being like horribly negative and toxic, right, of something that happened in the past. I'm not going to go into any more detail detail than that of a member of SLT coming round on a learning walk or whatever it was called at that. I don't know what it was. And going into classrooms and in the middle of the lesson, genuinely if they saw something out of place, like on a display that was maybe a week, honestly like a week out of date or it had like just something wrong on it, ripping it down in in the middle of the lesson. The teachers obviously just like sweating, trying to pretend that that's not happening and they're going to keep delivering the lesson really happy.

27:39 But whilst thinking, oh, that SLT member is obviously furious at me for this, for this, this insignificant thing. Do you remember that? Yeah, like and things being ripped off the walls. And why what I really want to say to this is that is absolutely pathetic, disgusting. And if anyone has ever done that before you check yourself because it's it's horrendous. There's no way around it. It is just absolutely abhorrent to treat fellow professionals that way. If you find something wrong like that, that you've just decided is wrong because of the things that you put in place yourself and these criteria you've made-up that are important, that actually no things need to be double backs on the backing because I've decided they need to be. They're not, so I'm going to RIP it off in front of the children is pathetic.

28:23 It happened. To me once do you know what it was? And it's stuck in my mind because it really effects you and it makes me hate that time and not like the profession at that time. It was it was term 2 and I still had a term 1 display up for my like afternoon. You sure? So my my, it just wasn't the right one. It was said term one. It still had all my term 1 stuff. I just haven't got around to putting up term twos one. Yeah. Because you were marking and planning. It probably was a couple of weeks in, like I'm sure everyone else had done it, but it was like going into my class mid class and then just like pulling that down to be almost like just reminding you've got to do the new ones. I pulled it down for you. It's like that's not, that's toxic, that's horrible. It made me feel terrible. And it's not reminding. A reminder would be they noticed that sent you an e-mail coming spoke to at lunchtime.

29:04 Yeah, yeah, that's reminding. Do you want a hand getting that down later? Yeah, I just. Behaviour like that is so disgusting and and this podcast is for calling out stuff like that. Completely. And I've, I've received messages from people honestly saying this exact thing, like ripping stuff down, feeling awful and their desire that they had more confidence back then. And this is what I want to say to people now who especially earlier on in their career or later on in their career, because it's a thing that I get. I, I, I, I see them a lot more than you do. The messages that we get from the podcast and we get a lot and they're a mixture of things. Number one is just saying thank you for calling stuff out, you know, really helping teachers, really nice messages. Then I also get some messages from people who write there saying what you're saying is great. But, you know, but you know, it's not my fault though. Like I struggle to say no sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

29:46 And it's it needs to come from the top down and equal. I'm like, yeah, it does. And this behaviour that there is nothing wrong with it. Seeing this behaviour or having it done to you and you feeling like crap, that's normal. That's a human reaction and it's not your fault. And when we sit here and say you should be calling it out, we, I want to make it really clear, we are not victim blaming here. Anyone who's been made to feel like a piece of dirt at work because of awful people doing stuff like this, it's not your fault. No, it's there. And it's, well, hard to call it out. Did I call it out at the time? Absolutely not. Did I say a thing about it? Absolutely. But you know what? Would that person have done it to a more experienced member of staff who they thought would call them out? Probably not. Yeah, they probably thought. And in Korea, I'm going to make a point moulding me. Yeah, I was exactly. I was, you know, a copy. Isn't it horrendous? But yeah, mad. And it just.

30:27 It's funny that that sticks to my mind, you know what I mean? It's like almost like causes. It almost makes me feel a bit anxious thinking about it. Yeah. No, but but you know what that person might say? That's why I did it. It's like, well, that's not how you control. I'll tell you what, it didn't make me do my displays. Yeah, it worked, but it made you do something pointless and not actually that helped the. Children. Yeah. It made me feel upset. And yeah. So anyway, new one books book lurks another way to be held accountable as teachers, haven't you? Looked I used to that again. I think this is anyone. So let's, OK, let's go from the macro level here. Let's zoom out. Yeah. Book looks in general, yeah. I can see why people might think there'll be a good way to keep teachers accountable. And I think there are some surface level things that if you open a skim for a book, there are some things you can take from that. Yeah, that you can praise or you can point out to people. I would like to see this instead. You know, you might look at presentation in general. You know, if you're three times into maths and more than half your class aren't presenting your work neatly and you can't read it properly, you might go to a teacher and say what we're doing for presentation is, and then a teacher might say, gosh, my class just can't hold a pencil. I do it every day.

31:29 I remind them constantly about, OK, cool, let's see, can we make a group for a presentation or handwriting or something? Can we help them? That kind of stuff. Cool. You know, we lead maths and we'd say, we say to people, do some mix up starters first thing, do them in the back of your book though. We're not because we're trying to be like control every tiny detail what someone's doing, but simply because then we can separate out the lesson learning, which has a clear procedure to practise work, which is different for every class. There's a reason behind that. We explained it, everyone does it. If someone wasn't doing it, do you know what I wouldn't do? Go in there and that there. But yeah, honestly RIP it out in front of them and then just leave it in the middle of the lesson. To a kid. Exactly. Do you know what I do? I go to see what you did. I'd go to that teacher and I'd say starters, is there a reason you're doing them in the front?

32:17 Is it better for your class? Is is there? Are you finding that it's just and they might go. I waste so much time with my young ones going to the back of the book, setting up a new date, doing a margin. It's just so much learning time. It's like, OK, cool. Well, let's think of a solution. Maybe you guys could do it on whiteboards instead, because that way I still get a clear progression. If I want to look at the books at the front, the children aren't getting confused because they're going from there. Lessons that are really heavily structured, but in between they're like doubling or practising edition. It's not random maths. Let's try and keep that. But you have a solution. You could do it in whiteboards instead. And you're like, oh, Brill, that's a nice one. And you know what? Does it matter that you've done it on whiteboards and there's no written evidence so that you've done starters? No, because I know you're doing them. Because you know what? I can drop in. And say learning did happen. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to throw this out there and say when we get to the end and we talk about how we can observe teachers, how we can keep teachers accountable, I am going to say there is absolutely no place for booklets whatsoever.

33:06 I think they are utterly, utterly pointless, genuinely, but only in a good system. It's funny. I think in the current system, definitely needed, but I think if you have the right way of keeping teachers accountable, you'll never, ever, ever need to look in their books. But again, how? Many times have you had a middle leader talk about having to do a book look and it being that they go I've got to do a book look, what should I do? Yeah, it's like, cool. As soon as that's the question, your time is not worth doing that wasted. It's completely you. Haven't got anything to look for. And I think, I think I wanna say right now it's come up in everything is tick boxing. Yeah, we isn't it? We used to get feet. So again, in this horrible toxic culture we used to work in back in the mid twenty 10s where it just felt like every teacher had a nightmare story. Yeah, we used to get feedback from book looks. So not only was it just a book look and maybe the head of years notices something, a theme and then can just say, oh, in general guys, you need to make sure no, no individualised feedback per person, but that individualised feedback would be sent in an e-mail alongside everyone else's individualised feedback.

34:07 So you could very easily see in pair, even sometimes in a table. Yeah. Yeah. Where it go? This class, this class, this class. And then literally a tick box of four peer assessments this week. Tick, tick, cross. Yeah. 4 self assessments this week. Tick, tick, cross. Yeah. And that person with the cross is obviously all dates underlined, all walks underlined. My gosh, straight margins. And it was like loads of things. Yeah. And this big old tick list, wasn't it horrendous? None of it. None of it was about the quality of learning. Yeah, yeah, all about the presentation. Because evidence of problem solving. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Don't. You don't need to look in the. You can look in the book all you want. Yeah, you'll see a procedure. You won't see the problem solving that went on in the child's mind to work out what to do. Just had to do extra work and cut out the problem, knowing that they didn't need to do this to stick it in the book as evidence.

34:51 So that's the one they were doing, which is a waste of time. Exactly. Oh, my days. Anyway, that's that's was free because we're spending ages on this. A couple more things then. So yeah, all tick box stuff, isn't it? Displays learning walks, looking at books, planning cheques in general, same sort of thing, but just checking people's planning. Right. You didn't write down what you were doing. In the task this time. Oh my God, did it though, didn't they? Oh, this column. You've not filled in the plenary. What you'll do? What are you planning to do for the plenary? I didn't do one, mate. No one's been doing them for 20 years. No one does a plenary. Can we stop pretending? Sorry. Plenary. Yeah. I was getting them out for lunch because we're 5 minutes late doing the task. Yeah, I finished my lunch. On the door stop. Sorry, I planned a plenary 2 weeks ago when I did and and we need to do this gift. But Sir, everyone's out for lunch that we need to do a plenary. A plenary because I put on the plan. So yeah, planning looks, picture sheets to evidence. We just kind of talk about that evidencing in the books that learning has happened because obviously you can't be trusted as a teacher.

35:42 You would have done absolutely nothing. You didn't do that. Unless there's somewhere in the book, nothing happened. Nothing there has another tick on the box. We can see that Mock Steads just encompasses all of the above. Yeah, mock Steads are basically learning walks on steroids, aren't they? Where it's like we're going to pretend to be Ofsted. What? The thing we all agree is awful. You're going to give me an extra 1? Are you joking? It's practise, practise. I don't. I don't want them to come. Model. Yeah. Any Simpsons references out there? We're gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna very quickly, I'm gonna lean in some Simpsons references, OK. And then, all right, just in the future as well. And if you see them, give me a message. We do love the So They Go model. Hopefully people love The Simpsons in general. They have no idea. Last one, obviously, obviously other than observations we've got more about is that people progress meetings now what do you think about that?

36:25 Just quick discussion. Yeah, people progress meetings for anyone not listening or anyone not listening, anyone not in school such like a teacher phrase, anyone not listening won't be knowing something here. If anyone not listening or listening who doesn't know what people progress meetings are, it is when a team or you will get together with someone with SRT and just look through the data and literally look at the progress children are making and and discuss the children. That's basically what a people progress meeting is. So do you think they're a good way of keeping teachers accountable? No, I don't think they're a good way of keeping teachers accountable. I think they're a really good thing to be aware of and to know. And as a professional, you might think, oh, cool, I'm going to focus on some of these children because based on where they were in key stage 1, they're lacking behind a bit and need to make sure their progress is good.

37:14 You want your child's progress to be good. Yeah. But in terms of in terms of keeping teachers accountable, it's really easy in a pupil progress meeting to fall into so many traps where it's completely pointless. And, and I've seen this before where people SLT, for example, would, would even say, oh, we know it's pointless, but, and it'll be like, you know, you're like, OK, for example, let's just say one year we had a story from someone messaged us saying SAT's data was, was, was bad. And they got a bit of bit of heat for it. Knowing though, through pupil progress meetings, knowing that these children were below average for the year group, for the year group in the whole country, right. So already understanding that. The cohort was. Already the cohort was lower. So even with making good progress, it would be completely acceptable.

37:58 Obviously that's how averages work. By the way, half of the schools in the country have lower than the average, OK. It, it doesn't mean half are bad because no matter what we do, they're going to be half the country who are below average. That's the nature of an average. So simply saying these are below average is not acceptable to judge someone on or say that's bad. So you already knew these children were going to be lower. They came through lower. The progress was excellent and then getting heat from progress meetings saying oh, they were low though, so we need to change something next year. So we are going to change something next year. We're going to change the cohort who are on average better so it, it swings and roundabouts. I, I don't think they keep teachers accountable very well. No, I think they can help your staff and SLT understand where the target might be or where children are. I think they're really.

38:45 Useful so basically I'm going to try and summarise what you said what they they can become kind of meaningless and not very good at doing doing doing their role when you start making comparisons that don't really mean much like comparing with previous cohorts pointless comparing with other classes almost on a level is generally quite pointless because that all children have different baseline. The only thing that is important like you said and I do agree is actually monitoring progress because most children do make us a fairly predictable trajectory of progress, right. And if you look at key stage one data or if there is any because that's. Obviously changing. Well, there's not at the. Minute yeah, or you just look at data in the past and you generally can find outliers and then you can start thinking OK, what's happening with this child like is some is it something external? Is it something we're missing? And then I think those are really, really useful but it kind of has nothing to do with teacher keeping teachers accountable, does it?

39:29 It's just doing the job collectively, like it's just doing the job properly. Yeah, so it's a weird one. That's exactly it. It's part of doing the job well, but it's not necessarily actually going to hold people accountable. It's, you know, a teacher shouldn't come out. People progress meeting thinking, oh, I got I got targeted a bit then because of my data. Yeah, it's like, well, OK. Have SLT fostered an environment where they can come and see what's going on in the lessons constantly throughout the year? Have they done nothing all year and then at the end of the year gone all mass data bad. What did you do? Sorry, did we not have we not all have the whole year like like what we doing doing this at this point? Yeah, I guess the accountability comes in once you've identified those things, then checking up later a couple of months ago, OK, we all identified this thing and we all said that we need to do this. Did that happen?

40:11 That's where it counts, where they didn't come. In and then it can even be one of two things either it did happen awesome or it didn't happen and if it didn't happen you go well what did you have in place? We did loads actually. So do you know what? These kids weren't going to move because you did loads already or you did nothing and you think we should have done something and it's OK, It is OK to call teachers out who are not doing their job. And I think that's that's important to say and. Again, what you keep saying we'll come to the end of this is like we know we keep, we teachers have to be held accountable obviously in some aspects. How do we do it? I don't think it's using all of the tick box exercises, or most of them anyway, that we just talked about. Should we move on to talking about observations? Because we really wanted to. We were going to do this whole episode on observations and we thought, no, we want to talk about other stuff as well. Why Dylan, you put when you take over, but you put something on threads about observations.

40:52 Tell me more because I haven't. Seen this. So this is simply I put a post out there because I know every single teacher. Like I said earlier, if you go up to them and say what's your observation story, you will get an observation story from them. A horrendous story of teachers being watched in a lesson. So observations for context used to be, or at least for us used to feel like a huge, huge part of the job that we're constantly looming over you. If you're an ECT, for example, you'll get an observation at least once a time because you're a brand new teacher and you have a mentor come and watch you. Or maybe a subject lead or an SLT will come and just you know, the point is they they should be able to come and watch you. Giving you feedback, helping you improve. You're learning. Exactly that. So observations are important. I don't, I don't want to get away from that.

41:33 Observations are really important, but the way they were done, I mean, Mrs. Smith had it right when she spoke on our podcast about knobservations. I think, I think we're going to, we're going to use her time here because there were just a bunch of knobservations where essentially either ran by knobs or the feedback was knobbish. OK, so it and it was just completely pointless. And I, I put a thread out there and I said, teachers, what's your most insane observation story? And I, and I told one of mine, I've got a few, but I just told one that I thought was quite vanilla, to be fair. And a lot of people probably in this book. Before start with yours. And then start with mine. I want to share and then share some, but I want you to think if you've got any as well. Yeah, I'll have a, I'll have a think whilst we do. This So my observation story was very simple.

42:15 I was a couple of years in at this point. I'd already had loads of observations, loads of targets set. This is in the era where observations were graded. Yeah, OK. So that used to be a thing as well, where someone would come in and be like, that was a lesson on the cusp. Of good, yeah or outstanding. You had the same off that labels exactly for you as a teacher. So as a teacher again, you might know your colleague got outstanding. Oh, you're an outstanding. Someone else got on the cusp of outstanding or the cloak gonna dangle that carrot there gonna try. I require improvement. I require improvement or I'm just good. Yeah, and it just created this levels in the school is awful. But anyway, we're in that deep in that era and the 90% of the feedback was what can you do better? I was just what's your next step? Like cool. Yeah, no, yeah, the kids did what The kids did some good learning by the way.

42:56 Let's talk about all the things that we need to change though. So it wasn't nice and and my feedback, we got through the nice stuff. It was a really good lesson. I remembered I put loads of time into it because that was the culture about them. It's a really good maths lesson about perimeter and area and the link between them because I had the high set maths group in year 4. It was really nice for the problem solving exploration got some feedback and we got to the bit for development points and they said development points. Now I couldn't think of any, couldn't think of any development points. So here's fix the tie. I didn't have any and I was like, oh wow, that's amazing. I'm chuffed and I go, so I think I might have to come back and see you again so we can get some development points. I was like, oh, the worst outcome, but you want me to do this whole thing again?

43:42 Yeah. Yeah. Just because obviously we need development points. Yeah. Yeah. So. And I was just like, that could have ended there. Yeah. And I remember being at the point, it was early in my career and I was like, OK, no problem, That's prepare and do another observation. 2 weeks. How sad is that? Imagine just living life like that in general and just not being satisfied with anything despite being completely satisfied. I'm completely satisfied with your performance. But I've been brainwashed into thinking that everything can be improved, which it can, I'm sure, because I didn't find it in that moment. I need to come back and find it another time rather than just being completely satisfied which I. Am or just accepting the fact that you can know everything can be improved, but there's a level where it's absolutely fine and. Good. You're doing your job to a really high standard. Crack on. Thank you completely. Yeah, that's mad.

44:23 Well, that I've had the opposite experience by the way. Just like a nice one. Yeah, I want to hear your one. Then I'm going to tell you the people. Well, just give you a nice one then. I'll go to a -1 in the future. But just exactly the same as you, right? I've also had an observation in my career where the feedback at the end of the day was literally, Oh yeah, it was really good. Actually. I couldn't. I didn't notice anything out of place. There was nothing screaming at me. I didn't really have any points for development. It was just a really good lesson. Cheers. Walked off and that was that was in a corridor, genuinely the end of the day from the head teacher. And I was like, oh cool, that's nice. But how did that make you feel it? Made me feel great. I genuinely felt great for weeks because I was like, oh, that's that's sick. Trust. Yeah, he drives me. Encouragement. More from it though. Loyalty. Satisfaction. Yeah. Satisfaction. Yeah, I was satisfied.

45:04 The head teacher was satisfied and that was it. And then I carried on doing my job thinking, oh, I'm doing my job to a good standard. That's really, really nice to hear. It didn't make me think, oh, I'm perfect now as I do nothing wrong ever. It made me actually think, oh, I want to continue doing that because that praise was nice and I felt really good. I'm going to make sure all my lessons are like a really high standard, you know? Oh, so anyway, let's go to some. Let's go back to some. OK, so there was a theme. There was a massive theme, and it was essentially very similar to what I said, right? There was a theme where people were just begging to put a development point, right? And they just needed to do it. So there was 1 here. This one, it not made me laugh, but I just I just thought how on earth could this development point, how could you actually have have done this? I don't understand it.

45:46 So I'm going to just find it quickly. It's to do with differentiation. Go. For it. And chunk instructors. I've got loads here, so here. Here's a good one. This one really made me laugh. I was told I needed to chunk instructions to give short, clear instructions because students weren't engaged. The instruction I'd just given after having this feedback, copy the sentence starter off the board. How could I possibly break that down any further? It's smart. So their instruction was copy this off the board now, Oh, kids aren't engaged. You need to chunk that down a bit. What classic case of just I've seen something that I think is not right. The kids aren't quite engaged. Oh, what can I make up? I know this answer, chunking things down is good to get kids engaged, but it was in the in the context of they'd already done that. And this was a theme I saw a lot of the time is almost people running observations, desperate to find something. 'Cause I have to just playing the game. Yeah, completely, but it would be the kind of thing where someone else here, but again very similar head of department asked me what grading I'd give myself. So that's a classic one straight, wasn't that? Yeah.

46:50 What would you give yourself? Firstly, yeah, we're in the era of grading. Secondly, it's like, well, I don't know, So what would you give yourself back in the area of grading? And then said she couldn't think of any targets of improvement. So you would have to come up with one yourself as the teacher and write it on the form. You don't need to have an improvement. Yeah, but every single lamp that was now I'd laugh it off. I'd be right. OK, what would you say? I'd let you write down and continue being excellent where I, where I need no improvement points, just something controlled. I'd absolutely do that because I've had anything to say about did you just come in and see a really good lesson? Because if you did, and you'll get annoyed at me now about this and what you're doing like you should just. I'm clearly doing the job to a high standard sharp. Right one here, I've got 1.

47:34 I was told that during the same lesson I was simultaneously too strict, but then also later on in my feedbook to motherhood and apple pie. The deputy head who observed me knew nothing about SCN choose choose to sit on a massive stack, which chose to sit on a massive stack of chairs and checked his emails throughout my lesson. Just genuinely imagine that when there's like 4 chairs and they're leaning a bit forward because they all lean. On the laptop typing stuff, I'm checking emails, not watching the lesson whatsoever and this person got in trouble for calling him a box too. Oh no, I love this. Whoever this person is, I love them. And she's. Finished off by saying I was being polite. I was like, think of what you could have thought of instead. Absolutely crap that's so. Funny. That's brilliant.

48:15 I don't have much to say really other than it's just hilarious. Classic hypocrisy. But if you hadn't, if you've not had it before, where someone's observing your lesson and it, they've clearly just been pushed into this to do it last minute and they don't really know what they're talking about. Dave, you've got to go do the observation. Oh, no. Is it me? It was you. No. What? What am I observing? German. I don't speak German. Thank you Tea as well. It's an ECT. Okay, I better think of seven things to tell. So there's one here, right? German lessons. This is obviously I think in a secondary school, maybe it's in primary school. No secondary school top set year 10 really good at German. They set for their languages held mostly in German, obviously because it's by a language specialist and they're top set. Students were doing extended writing in German, total concentration.

48:55 You could see their brains whirring around and smoking. Deputy head was watching as an observation. He didn't speak German and his voters on the lesson was as boring. That's boring. You don't speak German. Don't even know what they said. How can you? I might as well. I tell you what, if I went and watched the German lesson, I'd find it boring as well because I also don't speak German. Imagine watching a Japanese film with no subtitles and at the end being like that's rubbish. Plot was rubbish. I didn't know what was going on, so that must be an awful film. No, this was Parasite won an Oscar. Parasite. Great film. Actually, no very good film. It's a tricky one thing I feel like is there an element of would you be able to tell if a lesson was boring just by like body like reactions of the children you might have? A hint also, if a lesson was boring, do you think it's suitable for a deputy head to go boring? Yeah, no.

49:43 And also, I don't know, just look at look at the outcomes maybe like it's just, yeah, it's the lowest down on the list and all the kids are working hard and cracking on. It's like, well, it's obviously not boring enough because they're doing the work, so. So a couple of points I want to make and I'll link onto a story. Here is observations can suck when there are just vendettas in school. So there everyone knows, especially when you've got a toxic head. There are some people who are targeted and they have a target on their back. And, and one of the best ways that used to have not best, but one of the most effective ways you could put a target on someone's back, especially back then was through observations completely undermining staff who've been doing it for 30-40 years. Oh, they're quite expensive now, so let's just make them feel awful.

50:24 I have seen more than once in my career a teacher who has they dedicated their life to the career right going out in the worst possible way at the end of their career because they just don't fit the bill anymore. Things change and maybe they're just not as efficient anymore. They're older and and genuine. There might just be real reasons why it's just maybe tricky for them. They're not as maybe they're not as that peak performance like they were ten years ago. Who cares? Right there at the end of their career, they've dedicated their life to it and they've. And they're good in a different way. Yeah, they're good a different way. There's so much experience, but they've been forced out through this system of you can't just fire teachers. So I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll we'll make them have a mental breakdown or we'll make them cry. We'll make we'll just we'll just make their life hell yeah.

51:06 Through horrible observations and anything we can do that's within our realms and then they'll just leave and we'll get an ECT in Yeah, 100% cheaper. I've seen that happen. I've. Seen it happen multiple times yeah, it's horrible. It's horrendous. I've. Heard of it in loads of schools as. Well, yeah, yeah, it's horrible. And and it's it's disgusting because it's how you treat people. It's as simple as that. Like it doesn't matter. And you know what? If you go in in an observation and it's genuinely not good enough, you do have to breach that. And that's hard. That's hard for SLT to do. I understand that it's not nice to tell someone that lesson wasn't good. And I've seen lessons before that are amazing. And as mastery, I've seen lessons before and I've been like, do you know what? That wasn't great that there are there are five different ways that could have been done better. You didn't quite do this, but do you know, you just have to read the room. OK, So in that situation, for example, this SLT who you know, we've seen before who attack people knowing how that's going to affect the person, IE they're going to be crying, they're going to feel awful, they're going to go to go to bed that evening thinking they're a terrible teacher by the way, have to come in tomorrow and teach again in your school so that the class they've got, is that an effective way of feed like like just tailor it to them? No, it's.

52:14 Effective way of getting rid of them, that is it, yeah, it's the complete that was really. That was it. But it's the complete opposite of how we teach teachers to teach children. Yeah. So we take everyone into account. Everyone's different. You, you can, I can say to a kid, make handwriting bigger. And. Oh, yeah, sorry. And I know for a fact there's a girl I taught a couple of years ago. Who have I said that to? She really take that to heart. Yeah, she loves her right? In trouble. So I can't just say to her. Make Hamrites bigger. You know, that teacher that's been here for 25 years, dedicate their whole life to this school and I've done unbelievable amounts of work for them. You know, have they been absolutely amazing for 24 of those years? And we're a bit worried about them this year. Should we A, just go to them and and really praise them for their experience and all the things they are amazing at and just maybe help them with the stuff they're struggling with, but maybe there's too much change and they're just not keeping up with it. Or B just go in there and make them feel like absolute crap and get rid of them so we can.

52:56 Get someone new. Which one saves me 20 grand a year? Do we say bye to them? No. No. For some. Just for some. Yeah. Mental breakdown about it. Yeah. Yeah. That's disgusting. Should we do again next year? Yeah. Should. We do it until we don't have any. Experience, if you work and if you work in a school, you know, we are just like making up schools here. But if you work in schools that are like that, yeah, it's horrendous. And I'm sorry that you have to experience it and you know. And you might think we're being flippant. We're not. This is just how we cope with seeing horrendous stuff. And we've got friends who, you know, went through similar stuff. Yeah, exactly. I've known people, I've got friends, older teachers who literally finished their careers like that, and they've ranted to me about it. And I just think that's just mad. It's just disgusting. And we're here to call it out. We start this podcast to not be afraid of those kind of people, actually to kind of almost do our our younger sales a bit of justice where we were just, we just absolutely wouldn't have questioned these sort of things, wouldn't say anything about it and be like, yeah, we're calling it out. It's rubbish.

53:45 It needs to change. And if you don't think so, come and argue with us about it. But they they have power as well. And and there's last story here. Maybe I said there's loads. So anyone go to our threads. It's linked to our Instagram at teach seek repeat podcast. And then you can see all the replies. There's so many. This one is the ultimate version though of of just that vendetta. Almost. I had a head who hated me with a passion who was determined to fail me on my lesson observations at every opportunity. He opted to fail me based on zero planning gone into the lesson. Now at this point you might think OK well this is 1 sided. Maybe, maybe this person wasn't necessarily that good and the and the head was just being falling out. I challenged this by pointing out that I'd literally handed in my Lesson plan for the lesson that he observed me in.

54:26 So they couldn't possibly be 0 planning. That sums up that sums up the power people. They can just say stuff. So no, no planning. Sorry, I you might not have liked it, but there was planning. But now. Oh, but do you know what? Do you know what's easier for me to do? It's easy for me to say there was no planning and blame you than it is to look at the planning I don't like and help you into how to improve it. Yeah. So I'm gonna take the easy way out, which is just to make you feel bad. Put it all in, you ha ha, ha. Do it better next. Time a nice evidence folder I'm gonna get rid of you next year yeah building it up yeah whatever. Horrible. Let's move on from threads like that, Dylan said go and check out the others. I probably will as well because I haven't seen this. I was saving myself for this episode so. Do you have any stories? Yeah. Just one quick one that comes to mind. Just one. I've told you this before. I'm going to tell everyone else. Oh, I know.

55:08 You already know that you're going to go. It's like my go to story of like where I'm like, I come up with observation miffed. And then what on earth is this process, right? I Once Upon a time did a lesson, an English lesson got observed by a head teacher. It wasn't even our head teacher of someone else who came into the school to observe. I was doing it on similes and metaphors. And I genuinely like the biggest bits of feedback. There was a couple of things that went wrong with it. I'm going to focus on one of them. The biggest bit of feedback in that lesson was at one point in the lesson, I decided to spend 60 seconds, I reckon, getting the kids to write down the definition of a simile and write down the definition of metaphor and put like a little bubble around it. Because I, I believe there is power sometimes in getting children to write things down themselves and just rather than like giving them a sheet that says it that they can ignore and not process. It's like I'm forcing you for 60 seconds basically to process this information as much as I possibly can. Is there more?

55:55 Are there more effective ways? Of course there are. But in that moment I thought 60 seconds, this is worth it because I know I knew my set. Of course they do that and put a little bubble around it. They'll take pride in it and then they might remember what these things are and the feedback that was, I wasted too much time in that lesson. What I could have done was put the definitions on a sticker and they could have stuck it in that book instead. And it was. And the point being here I what, that wasn't like 1 little flippant comment. That was a huge piece of feedback that stopped me from being like, the next grading up was you wasted time. There are moments that lets me wasted time and this is the worst one. So it was 60 seconds. There was value in doing the thing that I was doing and we can argue about that. Maybe you know, maybe I'm wrong about that, but I felt there was value in doing that thing.

56:35 It's 60 seconds. Like what are you talking about? As if kids go, oh we could have put it on a sticker, could have pre prepared that straight in the book. They could have done half a sentence more by the time. So that that to me that that rings in my head all the time of like, what was that time here? I'm so glad we're out of that era. Well, I think what that summarises is the final point I want to make about observations is it's all subjective. Yeah, it is smart. There is, there are so many ways to effectively teach metaphors. There are. So there are so many ways to effectively teach basically any, any objective that you can think of. And when you're doing observations, you have to fit the school ethos. Sure, maybe there's a way that we do stuff in our school, sure.

57:18 But you know what? If you have written down in your plan, by the way, which you have to do for this, which is we can have another conversation about that, that you're gonna get the children to write this down. Because I've thought it through and I've made the decision as professional that I think this is gonna help them to remember it. You might be wrong. Yeah, Yeah, you might be. But do you know what? So what? We make mistakes all the time. That lesson is not bad. I tell you what. Yeah. It didn't ruin your lesson if it was a 20 minute chunk that was totally pointless. Can you do bubble writing and make it and colour in every part of the letter and make metaphor look really cool and like, make it? Yeah, that's. A different discussion, but the fact that it was 60 seconds, an insignificant amount of time in that lesson that I felt was used. What a stupid argument. What sat there arguing arguing for the TV in my time after school about this using Oh.

58:01 And and it's OK for them because once they finished, they got home, you've still got your market to do. It, yeah. And then I've got to replan this lesson or something like that. Yeah, anyway, right, we've done it again. We've got. No, that's fine. We're about an hour is episode, right? Like it's okay. We're an hour in though. So I think we should move on to the last chunk of this, which is okay, what do we do then? Because we are not sitting here saying like, yeah, get rid of all accountability. Just trust teachers. I don't think just trust and absolutely 0 accountability on any level. I don't think that's actually a good system. It's actively a bad. System, it's actively, yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it's our kids education. It's a very important job in society. There needs to be some accountability. So what is it then, Dylan? If it's not, if we don't like observations very much and we don't like learning walks and we don't like tick box exercises where they come up, what what do we like then?

58:47 Yeah, well, let's split it into two things. Things we can just get in the bin and things that are needed but are done wrong in a lot of places, you're in the bin, I'm in the bin. Things aren't going to bin. Tick box stuff. Just get in the bin. Just get in the bin. If you're going round looking at books as a book looks, get in the bin. If you're going round looking at books and ticking a box saying let me count how many peer assessments there were in the last 10 days, get in the bin. That there's there's no way of doing that, which is suddenly useful. Get in the bin. Just get in the bin. Doesn't matter. Is there any way you could look at a book individually as an assessment tool? Is there any way you could look at a book and there be an exercise that is actually useful for? Keeping yeah, I think checking what you've implemented recently very clearly, if there's a reason why, like we've said, when you justified your metaphors and your similes and stuff works both ways. I'm math lead and I've said okay, I'm math lead. I've justified why we're gonna do this change. We've all agreed on it in a staff meeting. I can go and check that that's been implemented, Sure. And then chase it up if it hasn't and just ask why and and go from there.

59:40 And things like feedback. I feel like if you're looking at a book, the only thing that's useful to me is, okay, I just wanna, I wanna find a kid who didn't get something. Yes, I wanna see in that book. I just, I just wanna see. Yeah, and even this is like flawed, right? I just wanna see based on our feedback policy of the school, whatever that is, did the teacher follow that? And and if not, is it because they gave verbal feedback or whatever? Do they need to write verbal feedback in that book? Absolutely not. I hate that. Just go and talk to the teacher. But I just that's all I've been looking at. Is our marking policy being implemented, implemented to help kids? Not is it being implemented tick box, yes or no? Is it helping children? That's what I actually want to see. So tick boxes, then Bing Bing. But but active, you know, encouragement, help and and checking to see if stuff's being done fine. And it's just the way you do stuff after I think as well as it makes a difference.

1:00:25 So yeah, I think, I think that's fine. They can get a bin. But there are some things we should just we should just keep. OK, So for example, drop insurance. It's kind of in with observations for me. OK, having a formal observation, fine. Don't grade it. Obviously don't grade it at all. But a formal observation to me is when they say, OK, next week we're going to come and watch you do maths. Yeah, OK. That to me is fine. That's acceptable for someone to say. You might have an agree, might have a argument of someone who says no, no, no, no formal observations whatsoever. OK. But I think that's fine to do. I think it's OK if you've fostered that environment of help and feedback. Yeah, as long as the culture is right. The culture is right then, then observations absolutely fine. OK, if you were a head teacher, would you do it though?

1:01:06 Yeah, I would do it and I think I would do it. And the reason I do it is because what I'd also do alongside that is I wouldn't let observations be the only thing that what the kind of the way I see the teacher is hanging on. Yeah, because it turned into formal observations where, gosh, this is my chance. This is this is when my head teacher is in my room. This is my chance to show what I do every single day. And it turned into observations were put in a pedestal and you put hours and hours into that lesson. And then do you know what? The rest of that week you do crappy lessons because you'd have to spend 10 minutes putting them together because you don't have time. What I think fosters a really good environment is as leaders is when you can walk through a lesson and be in a lesson at any point. And I think little and often is really powerful, definitely. So I prefer it. If I was an SLT member, I would be pretty much every day. I'd.

1:01:50 I'd go as far to saying this every day. I'd be disappointed if I wasn't in in a classroom every day. Yeah. Or at least once or, you know, twice or three times a week. And not to be in there and judge, but to see the kids more than anything. Yeah. Be there for them. Have a look. So. Oh, what are you doing today? Show me. OK. Do something. Continue fostering that culture to your teachers of. I'm friendly, by the way. Exactly. I will help you. Yeah. I'm not here to just make you feel like. And there'll be numerous occasions, more than half of the time in the classroom where I'd be in the classroom, say good morning to the teacher. Hey, how you doing? And then not say anything. To them ever again because I'm not there to judge them. I'd be in the classroom to show my face as leaders to the children to show I can help them with their learning and to show the teacher that I care about. OK, let's say you do that right and you notice something you do actually notice something that you think is like critically bad. You think, oh, this is this teacher is not following this really really, really important policy we've all agreed on as a school, right.

1:02:38 What would you do You're in the moment you're in there. I don't know. After I think it's like. The kids, the kids are all writing that book the wrong way upside down and they're not recording any of their main task learning. They're always doing on white boards every single day. There's nothing in their books. Yeah, what do you do? So that's like a long term thing if it's like every single day in their books and stuff. But notice that in the moment, if they're working on their books and they're still doing work, you'd have to judge if it's vital for the children right now. If it's a safety issue, you stop straight away. If it's an issue where it's like it's just not what we do here, but the kids could be justified in learning. Don't interrupt it. No, don't stop it. Don't don't make the teacher feel that way. Don't even take them to one side and quietly do it because the kids, that's the thing where put your hand up, but. Or miss are we, are we gonna underline our dates more today? Are we gonna do that like that? Passive, I hate that yeah, don't do that. Just wait unless it's a safety thing. Just wait and build that fast.

1:03:22 And you know what we've said a million times before build that ability because do you know how you can easily tell someone to improve is if you've told them 10 times how good they are or something. Yeah. So if if through doing this you go and you go and you just say I've had this before from a head I really respect my current head. I'll just say who's who's, you know, just said to me off the cuff randomly. I really appreciate that or you're such, such a good way of the kids. The way you spoke to the kids today, it was lovely or. I'd had one the deputy had just said to me before I would love my kids to have been in your class. That's such a nice you know what, what a thing to say to someone and and but is it not and that's not followed up immediately with and I want something. No, no, it was just like, thank you, like and got done, finished and you know, that is enough to make someone feel good. And you know what, if that deputy came out to me and said, are you doing the, are you following the spelling scheme? Because I don't.

1:04:15 I came in and you were doing something different. I'd be really confident. And you're saying, hey, yeah, but I noticed my kids couldn't spell Anne and that's not the spending scheme. So I just did a little thing or I'd say, do you want, do you know what? I actually haven't. What is it? But then I but then I feel like Tim, I'm letting him down almost. Yeah, because you built the respect. Built the respect and know he trust me and it is just something where you can take that on board easily. You know what with just think about us. I know you obviously very well, right? And yeah, yeah, you know pretty well. I know you better than you know me right now. Observations I, I genuinely don't think, if I think if you're a head teacher, I reckon within one year you would scrap them completely. Just knowing you and how your brain works. I reckon you do it thinking this is useful because I know even when we interview tutors, because we've been doing that recently. By the way, we're, we're, you know, for our tutoring company, you might have listened to our last episode. At the moment we're, we're, we're taking applicants for new tutors.

1:05:02 Anyway, I know that when we've interviewed tutors over the last couple of years, right? We have started by thinking we need them to do like a, a lesson. We need to watch them do a lesson online and whatever. And we've very much we've over the time we've, we've realised that hang on, we don't need to do that bit. We just need to get to know them. We need to know their experience and then we need to, once they start choosing, we can drop in a couple of times and just check. And I feel like if you're a head teacher, you would absolutely go down the route of, oh, I don't need to do less observations. I just need to get to know my teachers really, really well, drop into their lessons all the time, put in place like little bits of feedback as and when and and I will know exactly how well my teachers are teaching without having without having to observed. And I reckon that is what you'd do. Yeah, I think, I think I think that that is the that's almost a pathway, isn't it?

1:05:45 That that's where it would lead to. I still think, you know, if I got a headship, a lot of headship, but if I got a headship, I think I'd be like, cool. Well, I am. I do just want to come and see a lesson more than for 10 minutes, perhaps, but yeah, but I don't think you're wrong. I think that's very much something that could happen. Yeah. So, you know, observations, Yeah. In a way that just know your. Stuff. Would you have a limit by the way, if you did do a formal observations because I know that like we've worked in schools for a year or once a term or what would be your go to like off your head, right? Right now, 11A year, yeah, same. If I had to do that, maybe one a year. Really. What's going to change? Yeah, earlier in the year 1. And then if something was horrendous, more than one. But my point is, I'm in the classroom every day. Yeah, I don't need to do seven of those. I don't need no. Chance that's that they're in the same thing. Dropping culture is is my favourite. There's other things we can do though. We could, you know, some schools you can, you can hold teachers accountable by also talking to the children. You can just do people conferencing. Just get to know.

1:06:38 You can get to know the teacher through the way the children are brutally honest, right? We've done people conferencing in the past and it's so effective I find. Mr Stevens always talking about his personal life, always telling me a story. But you know what? It is a good way to know if the kids are happy and they feel like they're learning. I'll tell you what, that is a massive tick on your box that we're not going to be using another one. Peer observations. I thought this doesn't happen very often because what do you mean to get peers? By peer? I mean by teacher to teacher. So it's hard to do. I get it because I know I've been in schools before where they've tried this and it's just hard to get the cover right. It's hard to get people out of their class. But genuinely just like just going to observe each other and with a kind of mindset of, oh, you're just, you're just going to look for some good things. Yeah. Because naturally, if there's something a bit odd, odd, the teachers probably talk to each other and naturally about it because you're with each other all the time.

1:07:22 I think peer observation can be a really good. One and that frames it positively instead of saying you're doing this badly fix it what PR observations does is teach the competitive as well if if I go to a fellow colleagues lesson almost always I'm like oh I want to do that yeah they're. Doing something they're. Doing something bloody awesome. And I, I never did that. And you know what? If someone had said to me on paper, you need to do this now, I'd be like, get out. I teach really well. The power of seeing one of your colleagues interact to your children in a certain way or do something which is really good and you see the value in it and you see the children loving it. They're making progress. The teacher enjoys it. Do you know what? There's such power in that way. I've come out of lessons before and I've gone, I'm going to do that immediately. When I was training named Ralph Fran a million times I, I looked to her and I thought, I'm just going to copy you. When I, when I, I did some redirect ink stuff with English children in English who, yeah, sorry, phonic stuff who couldn't, you know, read and write properly. Yet I went to watch a Year 5 teacher do it, who'd been doing it for like 10 years.

1:08:21 Oh my God. I came back to my class for like 7 new strategies. My lessons were 10 times better straight away. That didn't happen because someone who's never taught phonics in 10 years came around and said, well, actually, I don't think you want a peer assessment In the end, that's completely pointless. What really helped me was seeing an expert do it. I'm a teacher who wants to be better. I saw an amazing thing I'm going to do those seven things and when it did them, my lessons were better straight away. I. Wonder how many schools are doing that. I reckon there are some schools out there who have absolutely got it right. They don't have formal observations. They have lots of drop insurance. It's a really nice culture. Teachers want to be better because it's a nice culture. They go and observe each other all the time. And it's isn't that such a powerful passive way of like giving negative feedback. Just imagine this right? You're an SLT who knows their staff really well and you, you've identified the staff and you think they never do any like meaningful activities any cleaner times. They never do anything with the timetables and I know, I know that class needs a bit more input and that teacher just they're just not really getting it. They do activity every now and then, but I tell you what, who is a bloody good teacher?

1:09:16 And they really just hammer the timetables in a fun way. Is that one over there rather than me going to that teacher that's. Chloe. That Chloe bloody? Yeah, she she knows. And. And rather than going to the first teacher and saying that your timetables aren't good enough, you need to improve them, right? What you do is you say we're doing peer observations this week. I'd really like it if you would go and watch this teacher. Is it because you think I'm bad multiplication? No, no, no. Out immediately. Yeah. I always go and watch this teacher. They're going to come watch you. And then I just want you to feedback to each other. Find 2 good things that you loved about the lesson. Have a little chat for 10 minutes. It's, you know. You don't even need to say do it yourself because it will happen. Yeah. Yeah, it will. Happen you don't need to because they're going to go to that class. They're going to be like, oh man, this teacher has timetables really well, like I kind of like that and they're even going to immediately implement that or that it's going to that's planting that seed.

1:09:59 It's going to eat away at their mind and when they do time stables, they're going to think, oh, that wasn't. Tell you what's good at that. I'm gonna go back and ask that teacher, actually. And it's just done the job for you. Yeah. I think peer observations are powerful. It's just very hard to get. So do that. Just. Yeah. To summarise, I guess, how can we actually keep teachers accountable without being toxic? It comes down to the culture. And don't be toxic. Number toxic, honestly that is number one and if you're in a toxic environment it's not your fault. Just know that OK, but understand your rights and what you should be able to do. Have drop insurance constantly get rid of that culture of fear that I can think of an SLT that I've had in the past where if they dropped in, I would be honestly on my tip toe, Oh my God, what's going to happen? And add other SLT that I work with where I'm like, come in. I'm glad you're here.

1:10:39 It's nice to see you. Come in and see my happy children. Foster that environment. Drop in, see them every day. Do an observation if you have to, but don't frame it in a way where you're going to find something wrong, wrong, wrong. Grade, grade, grade. Celebrate what's good. If you find mistakes, do you know what? Get teachers to help each other out. Go and let them see each other. Go and let them watch. But because do you know what? In a primary school there will be teachers who are better at teaching maths. Yeah, there will be teachers who are better at teaching phonics and reading and writing and German and French and geography and history. Arrange it and. If you're really unsure, go talk to the kids for Christ's sake. It's all for them. Go and find out what they think and how they feel. Because I tell you what, you get a lot of insight from the brutality of. Children and and have a Have an eye on data. Have an eye on data?

1:11:20 Of course you should. Yeah, don't. We'll go and whack it in the teachers face and say this data is. Awful compared to last year. Yeah, just simply look at data, understand what's going on, have a plan and through drop insurance and through being there the whole time. What's not going to happen then is you get to the end of the year, you go, oh, God, data is awful in this. Yeah. What have you done? It would instead be, well, I was. I came to Massachusetts all the time. I mean, we were really. You really weren't. All aware of that child that we think is slipping through the net of the data. I mean, but we've all tried something, so it must be something else. Let's try a different approach. Exactly. Yeah. Be positive, be nice. Right we'll finish there's another bumper episode bumper guys. We have honestly hundreds of new listeners in the last like week or two. So hello everyone, thank you so much thousands. Let's not reveal the the.

1:12:02 Real. We do this now. We notice it. Oh yeah, we end our episode. We've leaned because I go to click. Anyone what recording? We both feel like I need to go towards the camera. Anyway guys, thank you so much for listening. Please get in touch. Messages. I love messages. I love reading your things. Let us know what your school's like. And I love you, Hayden.