Ep 169: Listener Q+A: Exploiting Teacher Free Time, Missing Equipment & Trusting School Staff!

0:00 Hello everyone, Welcome back to another episode of Teach Leap Repeat. My name's Hayden. I'm. Not I'm not entertaining it. My name's Hayden. No. No, no, Gotta say it. You find I started. You gotta say it. I'm Dylan. Yeah. Thank you. And this is AQ. Here we go, Special. Here we go. It's not special, it's. A special Q&A that we do every single week. Messed up completely. It's always special. When you try and do something you're not trained in. Anyway guys, welcome back to another episode. Hope you're happy. I don't know where to go now because I've not been able to say my line. I always say. I thrown you are I think we're gonna straight into questions. See you and then we can just try and ignore the fact that you completely my day. Yeah, it's weird that I'm not trained in starting it. But you're not trained into any other part of the episode, is it? Is that how it works? Is it? Thank you. I'm only trained in complete and utter control.

0:43 I need autonomy to do the exact same thing every single week. Exactly that if you want to ask us a question in the future, however, you can go down to the description and join our WhatsApp community where you get access to priority questions. You can put in your form and we'll go through all of the good stuff. Hate them. Without further ado, one thing we need to mention, the very, very, very, very last chance to go to Instagram. If you're listening to this podcast episode on release day, go and enter because this week we're announcing the winner of our. Launch giveaway. Which is worth. 1. 1000 lbs Dream on, dream on, dream on, dream on. Well, well, well, you might win £1000 worth of prizes, right? Yeah, I've got a meme stuck in.

1:25 That way I can tell. I can tell. I feel good now. Yeah, that's everything released from the annoyance. So that didn't start. It really did look like you were releasing some sort of demon. Something was. Being released Wow 1000 lbs though 500 lbs of school vouchers for your school to get books and £500 worth of goodies for you. It's completely free to enter and it's to celebrate maths to the launch of our fluency and arithmetic platform, which we're really excited to be starting to roll out into schools. Hayden Yes. Do you want me to read the first? One or I'm going to read the first one. Because normally you read it, so you get to introduce it and read. I'm getting but I've been practising my reading obviously so I'm getting better. Here we go. This is an anonymous submission. I'm a trainee teacher with most of my experience in upper key stage 2 and love being able to use whiteboards for the children but no idea how to stop the constant drawing. What's your opinion on each?

2:12 He can't read. I can't read. What's wrong with me? He can't read. Carry on with me. Keep going. What's your opinion on giving each child their own pen at the beginning of the year as a as a right, right, It's too much better watching me. Everyone's listening and watching and it's too much. Pressure can I just say people listening as well. We have restarted this question twice before this because he genuinely. Can't read it. No, the first time there was a typo. OK, that's not my. That's not on me. Crack on me, that's not on you. You're the. Professional what's? Excuse me, Dylan, I'm asking you a question here. It's pretty serious. What's your opinion on giving each child their own pen at the beginning of the year as a responsibility for them? My previous school did this with their handwriting pens and most children haven't lost them, but maybe the allure of the whiteboard pen is too much. Well done. Can you please read out the emoji as well? Is that right?

2:57 You gotta start crying as well. What emoji is that? Laughing cry emoji. Okay, so I think this question does come in two parts. First part is like the constant drawing on whiteboards, which my goodness me, I can absolutely relate to. I really, as my career went on, my use of whiteboards diminished lower and lower and lower. And there were lots of people out there going whiteboards are fantastic for on the spot assessment and knowing where your children are right there and then and adapting. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, it's absolutely true. That is true. But you can do it without using a whiteboard as well. And I used to love whiteboards, don't get me wrong about the act of doing it, but it just became so much of an annoyance. Not only the constant drawing and the doodling whilst you're trying to talk. Some children can doodle and listen, I know before someone comes at me and says, well, actually it's good for some children, I know that.

3:40 Do you not think I understand that? But you? But you're also just ridiculous if you just ignore the fact that some children are distracted by it and therefore learn less, that also exists. And that was frustrating. So I ended up moving more towards just writing on paper. Like for example in maths, loads of assessment for learning, constantly getting the children to do stuff. I did it, I modelled it, they tried it together, they did it independently. Whenever they were doing it. I always did it in books, not only just because of the annoyance of the whiteboards and the running out of the pens, etcetera, but also because like books had square paper, you could learn any digits properly. It kind of gave it that prestige of let's do this properly and get it right. So I think there's lots of reasons. That's my answer. The first one. Well you also hate trees as well don't you? So you thought why do it on something? Or I can just wipe it away when I can waste trees. Listen, there's an eco argument for for for whiteboards. I agree.

4:29 Why do it on paper when you can do it on plastic? Yeah, yeah. He probably gets thrown away. Come on, Dylan. And the bends that run out constantly and you know what, every three days that'll fill the landfill, but it'll look good because not doing it in a book. So yeah, I don't know what the line is there, but I just, I got really frustrated by it. The constant drawing. It doesn't matter how good your behaviour management is. It does not matter. Kids will draw on whiteboards when they shouldn't. OK, so let me just get that straight to you right now as a trainee teacher, don't think it's a you problem that kids are writing on your whiteboard. No, you walk into any lesson in the country and the land and there'll be someone duelling on the whiteboard, of course. And when behaviour gurus come and say just silently take it off them and get them to stop doing it. Are you real? Like, like, thanks for that advice.

5:10 I did try that. I did do that. Actually, I've never thought of no. I've stopping them doing nothing I don't want them to do. I've never thought of stopping them. I've never thought of trying to make them not do the thing. Wow, thank you behaviour consultant, that's really helpful. It's like, come on, honestly. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop there. I'm just gonna finish with the first part of this question, which is about constant. Drawing. What about the pens then? So I'm. Throwing it over to you here cuz. You freak to me. Yeah, no, cuz you've spoke about this before. We've had discussions. I want to hear what you think about labelling equipment. For children, OK right. I genuinely don't know if like this is just a me problem or if it's a valid point so you can tell me, but I hate the whole like labelling of equipment and giving children their named pens or named whatever because I just find it's a great start. It's always day one, brilliant day 2. Already someone has lost their pen with their name on it. And then you've got to make the decision. You've just done a whole spiel the day before about how important is to look after it.

6:02 Now you're going to in front of the whole class, show them that I'm going to give you another one anyway, because I do need you to write. I'm always just like I just what's the point? And then they all the kids that would normally mess around and lose it and then like, OK, cool, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I'll do exactly what it's going to do anyway. It's just that my it's got a name on it and now my teacher has to waste time giving me a new label every single time they give me a pen and writing my name back on it again. Like it's just so annoying. Do. You not think, though, do you not think it does have, like, a positive impact on the whole, though? Like, some children might mess around, but sure. But like, you're talking about, like, literally losing pens. But I think what it does really well is people who are, you know, hitting their pen against the table, splatting it everywhere, breaking it, being silly with it, and then taking someone else's pen when their pen stops working. Yeah, it's harder to do that because, well, that person person's got my pen, it's got my name on it.

6:45 So like there are different ways in which, you know, equipment can get destroyed or lost or not used properly that labelling it could be helpful. I completely agree. There are obviously some pros to it. I've just found from my personal experience and I have tried it many, many times for different years, it's not worth the effort. Like I'll do it and there might be some tiny pros, but it's just not worth it. And it's hard to maintain when you've got a few of these little systems going on when you go, Oh yeah, I'll do this because that's nice and we'll label this and we'll have a table name for that. We'll do. And like we just have little things where you did it in the summer holidays, you'd like set it all up and then your midterm and you know, there's so many things to do. It was a bit like we used to have to put book covers on our books. I know a lot of schools still do that. I always found that a complete pain because if I didn't just pre prepare book 2 and the book 3 at the beginning of the year, all the covers put on.

7:28 There was always that time in the year where someone was like, oh, I need a new book right at the start of the lesson. You haven't got one with the cover on you got now. Now you got to do it after school or it was just annoying, the little maintenance things that I felt feel like as a teacher, we've talked about decisions and fatigue before and you know, option paralysis. You just got to cut some stuff back. And to me, this falls into that camp of it's a, it's a nice idea, but I can't be bothered to maintain that. It doesn't have that much of an impact. Just don't bother. I can't bother to be that good of a teacher. Yeah, literally between us, we've just stopped using whiteboards. We've stopped labelling things. Anything that requires effort is what we're saying. No displays. I'm going to stand at the front and you're going to bloody. Listen, when do you think I would do that? I just get my contract out kids.

8:12 I was too busy recording a bloody podcast about how I've got no time to do that. Yeah, that's my run. It's it's about professional judgement. Yeah. I think this falls under the massive umbrella in the middle of this to two extremes where it's like, what you talking about? You're a teacher. Of course you do this thing. Every teacher in the country has to do this thing. And then there's the other end, which is like, of course you don't do this thing. You're a teacher. What a waste of your time. It's ridiculous. This for me falls under that, that very grey area which is what a lot of people struggle with in teaching, which is that it is genuinely down to your professional judgement. It is genuinely OK if you do this and it's genuinely OK if you don't. And you might have reasons behind it. And that's where I think a lot of, I would say a lot of schools and management fall down is when they look at this grey area, which should be at the discretion of the professional teacher to decide what they should and shouldn't do. They look at this grey area and they decide for them. So for example, from the top down, imagine everyone saying you must now label every single pen you give to a child. And if a child loses 1, you can have two pens across the other. They can get enough 2 pens.

9:15 They have to use a pencil now. And every single time they get a new pen, you have to label it again. And you have to be constantly reminding them about that. I don't. Honestly, teachers, we don't need that micromanage. Yeah, I. Agree, And there might be teachers out there who choose to do it and it works for them. Let's not just look at that and go. Therefore, everyone must do it all the time. Because you know what? In that grey area, everything works for someone. So if the only criteria for what a teacher should and shouldn't be doing is that another teacher does it and it works, then we'll be doing everything. Yeah. So we have to cut back. Exactly. That's such a good point. Yeah, we'll just be taking every single practise ever. It'd be completely unmanageable if we're doing that. It kind of reminds me that it's like a very similar situation, but I just know you'll you'll get this as well of like when you get to a certain point in the academic year, budgets are weird, right?

9:58 And you have to and most schools will then be thinking it's coming into a new financial year, we need to wrap up this financial year and then you might have to get certain orders in earlier. Whatever. How are we going? To afford. Maths. I guess we'll just have to guess. Funny enough, I haven't even showed you this yet, but the next question. Is literally. I'll get to it in a second. Stay tuned. But there's been situations before across my whole career where I'm running out of pens in general, like handwriting pens or whiteboard pens, whatever it is. And I'll say I need more pens. And it's like, we can't get more pens yet. We gotta wait for the next budget. Now it's too late to order more pens. And I'm just always sort of thinking, OK, but what do you want me to do then? Like, I'm not the one with the policy of how these books look. I actually don't care. I'll do it all on white boards and thought, if you want, I don't do any marking then. So it's not an answer like, oh, I need more pens. Oh well, there's none.

10:47 OK, I'll go home then. Wait, can I see your books, please? Yeah, it's not been underlined in a purple pen. Yeah. That's not been, that's not been highlighted. In the orange Penny and I told you it's a school. What do you think I'm doing with the pens, by the way? Sorry, very quickly, just just letting you all know, school staff, that we will be doing a book look later about the use of worksheets that we've implemented. Also, there's no paper left for print. There's no Yeah. Yeah, and we're monitoring how much everyone prints. And we've got a leaderboard here and you have been printing more than anybody. Why is that? I don't know. Do you want to? Do you think I'm printing stuff for me? Do you think I've printed 1200 sheets this month for me to take home? I just love completing Roman worksheets. I just love it. I just love it. It's just for me. It's weird because your partner's teacher hasn't printed any.

11:27 Yeah, you think maybe I've printed both of us? Yeah. Wonder if it worked that way. One person in each year groups printed four times as much as something. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder why. Sharing it out. Yeah. Honestly stupid analysis of paper and resources. It drives me crazy. Right, come on, you had a maths question then. Yeah, this is really funny. It's anonymous, annoying. I want. To know it's good. I can guess, apparently you guys have started a new business dot dot dot maths goo is it? So come on then, what's your favourite feature so far and what's your favourite feature in the pipeline for the future? So a nice question. Yeah, a nice question hidden in someone just taking a Mick. That's my favourite. Maths goo. Maths goo? No, it's called Maths Zoo and we talked about it a lot and we're really excited about it. And guys, you're gonna, you're gonna hear a lot about it. I'm sorry, but I think it's gonna be. Don't be so powerful.

12:13 I'm not really. I'm just paying lip service. I'm not sorry at all because I think it's gonna be really powerful for so many kids. So maths in general, it's our fluency as a repetitive platform and the huge thing for us. And I'm going to talk about a generic feature, maybe you can go into detail about something, but I'm going to talk about in general because we've had this in the pipeline and build, building this for six to nine months. I think in terms of it becoming an idea. Then we met the right people. Obviously. You had our discussion on Monday with Sophie and Band about maths Soon. It's launch and it's been a while. It's been a long time coming. And in that process, the curriculum review was released and maths had such a heavy focus on how in the new curriculum and moving forward, children have to get the foundations right.

12:54 We have to have more of a focus on fluency. And that was what we've been saying for years and what we've been doing in our practise in the classroom for years, because we noticed a slide towards way more problem solving because of the new curriculum in 2014, which is a good aim to have. We need children to problem solve but like the curriculum review, as you said, too many children aren't securing the foundations, which therefore means they're not getting the quality problem solving opportunities because they literally can't do the maths in order to solve the problem. So we have to get the foundations right. And I love the link the curriculum review made with the outcomes for children 16 to 18 who are getting their qualifications in maths, which has a direct impact on their further education and their job prospects because you need maths that was being affected directly all the way down to key stage 1 where the foundations weren't being properly.

13:42 And what I will say about maths too is that it is literally about fluency and getting the maths right and getting the base knowledge and understanding of how number works and giving the teacher the power to understand what children can and can't do and implement quick interventions and get them better at maths early throughout primary school so that they can excel when they get older. And for me, it's easy for me to say because we're the ones building it and involved in it, But I can't express enough how I think this is going to be so, so helpful for so many schools up and down the country. Couldn't agree more I that the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Could we felt. I know we've said this before, but we felt so vindicated when this because we didn't know it was coming.

14:23 We genuinely had no idea the new curriculum review was coming out when it came out. Like not whispers, not six months before when we'd started building MASU or even 2 years before when genuinely when realistic, the concept was there in our minds. We just know how to sort of go about it. So when it came out, we were like, and it just completely aligned with literally everything we were doing. We felt like we're making that move. We we felt like we'd been quite bolshy to say, do you know what? Actually we need to nail fluency and get arithmetic and get processes right and get the kids doing the mouse. It feels, it felt almost like people. No, no, no, no, no, no. Mastery is all about and only about problem solving and reasons. I want it's not. I think it's just a missing people have misinterpreted. It well, it's an. End goal.

15:03 It's an end goal. Yeah, exactly. And people and, and I just think like we've said before that it's a great end goal, but the emphasis did dwindle away from the the actual fundamentals below. I'm not saying no one did it at all. It's just it just dwindled away a bit. The curriculum review actually said there's people are sort of rushing through or even just going through what they thought was a decent pace to get to the freezing problem solving. And the children were left with a superficial understanding of the fluency, the fundamental like literally how to do the processes. Oh no, it's been presented slightly differently. And then all their cognitive load was on that rather than the problem they're trying to solve. So kids just need to become way better at doing that. And it fell at the time, didn't it? A bit like all going against the grain, even though clearly that's what it was always meant to be.

15:43 Yeah, completely. And I think there's a couple of pushbacks that come from on Mastery in the new curriculum. And it makes sense people have these push backs, but I think there are answers to it. And the 2 push bucks are #1 every child should be problem solving all the time. And it seems as if what we're saying is against that. Like, yeah, problem solving is an end goal, we should get there eventually. No, no, no, you're absolutely right. We should be problem solving all of the time, but only in maths we're fluent with. So if you're a year 4 child, you won't be necessarily fluent yet in that year 4 maths. It doesn't mean you shouldn't problem solve. It means any problems that you're encountering or encountering or trying to solve should be embedded in maths that you're secure with from previous learning. So yeah, sure, we should always be problem solving, but only with things we're fluent in. So when we're in year 4, let's not give year 4 level problem solving to children who aren't yet fluent in the processes.

16:29 And the other thing is people say no, no, no. It's really important that we get a full kind of array of different ways of showing maths, right, Different representations. And again, what we're not, we're not saying that we shouldn't do that because a lot of the things that come out of our mouths are saying things like children get superficial knowledge. Like you said, they're shown 7 or 8 different ways of doing stuff or how it's represented, or it's in a parthole model, it's in a bar model, it's written in, it's written out for you in the column method, etcetera. It's in a word problem. What we're saying is that's fantastic, but it's kind of the worst of both worlds that have seen to have happened over the 10 years, which is people have become more aware that it's important and it is to show lots of different representations of maths. But then they're spending less time than ever on them. So what's happening is previously you'd only get one method, 80% of the children would get it and 20% would miss out.

17:18 And that was bad maths teaching because you should show children lots of methods of being more efficient or maybe even just a method they prefer with the end goal of they end up choosing what's best for them. So out of the seven different ways of going about a question, they might like 2 of them and use one more than the other, right? That's the end goal. But what was currently happening was you were shown lots of representations before you got really good at doing it. You were showing a bar model and then you were showing a parthole model you didn't really understand and how they worked. Your cognitive load went on. What the hell am I looking at? I can't even do the maths. That was worse as well. So what we're saying here is we need to empower the teacher to be able to go through these at a pace that suits their children and for them to become fluent. That should be the aim and you should not be worried about thinking I need to get to problem solving today on this objective. No, you don't.

18:01 That's what I want to make really clear. We are not saying that it's a nonsense going through all these different methods and that you shouldn't be problem solving, you should just wait until the end. Neither of those things are true. I agree. We're just empowering that first step, the fundamentals. So let's get we we kind of run. Off. Yeah, Go on. You. We didn't. Ask the question. So my, my favourite feature so far, the thing I look forward to when we're doing demos, which you can book by the way, and when we're showing people the product. My favourite thing I'm looking forward to like getting on the screen and showing them is our whiteboard mode. And I reckon you're probably thinking the same because I know you love this feature as well. Because in, in our whiteboard mode, essentially once children have completed completed a test and you've got your gap analysis and maybe you're going through the test with them. Not only will it show you as you're going through each question which children like how many children got it right, how many children got it wrong. So you've got that instant analysis right there of which ones you might want to spend more time on. That's.

18:45 My favourite feature by. The way is it? Yeah, that's so. Interesting analysis and the fact you can see overarching data for all the question types and all the children immediately. That's my favourite. And just, I'm going to segue slightly for a second because something I used to do for that, and I know this is powerful because I always used to value this so much. And to get around that when I was working on paper tests, I'd do anything I possibly could to gather the information whilst I'm doing a a weekly arithmetic test so that I knew which questions I should spend more time on because I wanted to go through the test immediately afterwards. I always wanted to do this thing, but I never quite had the tools to do it, which is why. It's powerful to do immediately isn't. It exactly right to give you that information. But on top of that, and it's my absolute favourite bit is the way we've built this. And the reason it's taken six months to get this this like framework underneath it belt is because we have broken arithmetic down into every single nuance of, of how a question could be shown or, or how a misconception could appear inside of a question.

19:34 And we've trained it to understand each of those misconceptions. So when I want to go for a question and I want to go through it maybe a couple more because I'm thinking, you know what, that wasn't enough. I need to make up some more on the spot. Sometimes you make up more on the spot. You actually miss the misconception. You miss the tiny nuance that the children weren't getting. What do you mean by the nuances? So what are examples of that? OK, So a really good example would be with percentages with my years 6 out on there might be a question in the test that was like 49 percent of a number and and loads of kids got it wrong and I thought I'm going to go through that one. And then I realise when I'm going through that, that it's because they're not using an efficient method that may be trying to find 40%, then they're trying to find 1%, then times by 9 put it all together. And really what I want them to do is find 50% and subtract 1%. And then if if I want more of those questions, we've built it so that if I Click to create another one, it will make another question with that same nuance. It might then make 79% of a number. So I can say, right, try this one because I want them to practise that new skill that we've just been learning. I don't want to now give them, if I put into a random number generator, right, it might come out with 25 percent, 25 percent, 17%, yeah, literally anything, right? And there's so many different types of percentages where I'd be thinking of if I had 25%, I would not be saying to the kids, find 30% and take away 5%.

20:47 That's not the same thing. I'd be saying that's a quarter that's a different. Thing. Oh, and if I want more of that, I'll keep the button again and. I'll get built that well, yeah, if 25% was a question, then we maybe you get 50% or 75% or, you know, different one like that. But anyway, I'm I'm rambling here, but the point is we've built it so that it will infinitely generate questions at the exact same nuance that you're trying to show the children within that question. Exactly. Or you've got options to widen it out a little bit. So let's say now you're happy with that and you think, OK, I'm just going to they get that little skill. I would just want to see if they're good in general with finding percentages for percentages of a. Let's see. And I can click a button to generate that. And then there's a third layer where I can go right to the entirety of the strand, which is in this case would be just finding any percentage. But there'll be some middle ground in between that.

21:28 The good thing I think about the bottom one is every now and then you'd still get your 39%. So you can be practising, practising and in 39% comes up and you just look at your class, you know, go on then and you want to see if they're replying. What we said earlier is so important for quality maths learning is children looking at a problem or looking at a question even at this level and thinking what's the best method, what's most efficient? What out of my toolkit that I've built through quality teaching that maths, who has enabled you to do? Can I now go to and think, OK, I'm actually this is going to get my question. It's going to get my answer more quickly and more accurately and. Another reason I love. I'm going off on one here. You can see I'm really into it because my I'm like glazing. This is what happens when you are talking about a product you built and you know it's good. Not every person who I'm going to take person, not necessarily teacher who is standing in front of children delivering some input to them.

22:15 Not every single person in a school is necessarily confident with looking at a question and a immediately bank being able to identify themselves what that nuance or what the possible misconceptions might be. So you might as a teacher or a teaching assistant or SRT or someone might be working with a group of children because you said they need, they need to be working on this, or I'm working on this with them and they might genuinely not understand what it was that they're not quite getting. And then they become the random number generator. They give them another question that's no longer that relevant maths suit. It takes that burden away. You can guarantee that it's going to be giving them the right nuance if you want the right nuance so they can practise this thing. Oh can you go and practise more of these questions? Literally just click regenerate and it will understand exactly why that question needs to be or should. Make a task for 10 questions for them to go through and you're helping them. Do you want to like about that as well? Because I hope you're listening, going. Yeah, but you just said the person doesn't know what they're doing.

23:02 Yeah, it's fine because there'll be a description as well. There's descriptions built in and it says this is this type of question at this level of the curriculum with this nuance. This is a column edition, adding two numbers together, different number of digits with exchanging the every single time you regenerate, it will do that. Because you might be thinking, oh, my child isn't lining up the digits properly. It's going to be different digits every time. Oh, my child is struggling with the exchanging. It's going to have exchanging every time. You don't have to sit down and think about it and generate it. It does it immediately for you. And we're going to have such an instant impact. And the thing I love the most about what we've built because it sticks with our values, which is that it is about empowering the teacher. The teacher saves time and is able to then spend more of it on the teaching of the child, and the outcomes for the children are better and the outcomes for the teacher is better and the outcome for the school is better because it's more consistent.

23:52 Absolutely. Oh anyway, thanks for your joking question. You know what, we'll answer the second part next week, which was what is your favourite feature in the pipeline for the future? Because I can think of it, I can think of a few. But now there's plenty, and you can book a demo and we'll show you exactly what it is down in the description below. Book a demo, Get your maths lead, get your SRT involved. Let's solve. Maths Dylan. I don't think it came across that we're excited enough about this thing. We've been building for time. Let's go to that next one. Next question is from Tom. What's the best thing a school's SLT could do to improve staff morale? Tom's not asked me any questions. He's not a bit quiet, shy one. I've not seen this guy. And the reason I put this in there just to be clear, because I know we've answered similar questions before.

24:35 I thought it would be really good to nail it down to the best thing because we've talked about morale in general and staff morale. So what do you think is the best thing a school's SLT could do to improve start morale? OK, the best single thing is a time and loop policy. And why are you laughing, Dylan? Because I've seen a note you've written here which says Hayden answer time and loop policy and I like ruining you and taking yours. No, go on. No. I'll let you talk about time and loot, then I'll pick one. Go on. So funny. I knew you were going to do it as well. There was a look in your eyes where I was like, I shouldn't have written this note on the. Shed sorry that note here oh Hayden answer. Oh, I'm out my answer because then you'll be panicking and it's a good answer. Yeah, I'm not panicking now, AM. I time and loop policy. Why? Why and what would it be? And what? Are they like sure.

25:16 So it's something we discussed long ago and I and I think it's so important. I want to bring it back. I think teachers time is taken for granted. We know that it's taken for granted all the time and teachers are expected to go above and beyond and do lots of extra things in their own time, including clubs. It could be a school residential trip, it could be a disco, whatever. And we got someone wrote in to us once saying what their school does. And I was blown away because I thought this so sensible and something I think everyone should do, which was a time in lieu policy. And basically they said that in their school, if you do something that is just completely out of the contract, like the three things I just mentioned, including a residential, right, in terms of it is just extra. And it's nice to do and you don't have to say yes. But if you do do that, you will build up some time in lieu that you can accrue over time.

25:59 And I think in their school it would. The policy was once you've accrued like a day, you can just take a day off basically. Or you can bank it up. Yeah. Exactly. You can bank it up and take a couple of days off, but but the whole point was it was acknowledged that they were going way, far above and beyond because we're all doing extra time anyway, doing marketing planning. This was on top of that. And when you did those things, you get thanked for it. Or or just renumerate it in time because it's a job. Oh, but it's for the it's a job. It is a job. Stop crying. Stop making people feel bad for valuing their own time outside of a job just because of what the job is. We talked about it again in the previous episode with Ben. He's come outside of education looking in, and he's just saying how it's so weird how this kind of this juxtaposition in Society of teachers, nurses, doctors all putting this pedestal, like, wow, really? Respect to professions, but they're not remotely actually renumerated.

26:50 Or it's like, that should be enough. Yeah, we've put you on this pedestal and we respect you. Is that not enough? And then they don't respect anyway, never mind get everything. Else it stops at the lip service, right? The lip service is the end of the respect. It's not even real. The word respect means nothing. Yeah, it's like it's not even real respect. I want to dive into your brain a bit more than and pick because like there'll be a lot of leaders listening and people message those about it saying sounds great. It's just not realistic, right? So I think firstly, I'm just going to address the realistic thing, OK? If it's not realistic, then it shouldn't be realistic to ask your staff to do all this extra stuff. Exactly. If it's not realistic to actually compensate them for their time, then I'm afraid, like in any business ever, it's not realistic for it to happen. OK. So that's the first thing done. But what I will push back to you and just ask for a bit more clarification is would you have a really strict set of things that are defined as above, the above and beyond?

27:36 So like you talked about marking, planning, et cetera, teachers in your school you're talking about wouldn't be occurring time in lieu because they did some marking after school past directed time or because they did a bit of planning at the weekend, right. So you're, you're saying no, OK, that, that is, that's encompassed in the contract, which is 1265 plus reasonable extra. My reasonable extra is this, this and this. Yeah. Where's your line? What? What kind of things would you see as on the side of occurring time or not? Firstly, I think the line is ever so slightly flexible. I just think the first point you made, which is do you need to have a set, like a set list of things? Absolutely, yes. I think as the school implementing this policy, you have to decide and tell your teachers extremely black and white, these are the things that you can accrue time in lieu for. And these are things that you won't accrue time in lieu for. And if there is anything else that doesn't come into those, we'll have a discussion.

28:25 Like I'm sure, I'm sure there'll be some on Monday that thinks of some, some obscure thing they're doing extra for the school and they say, will this accrue time in lieu? And as a reasonable professional, you just have to then have a discourse and say, OK, which camp is this more likely to fall in? OK, cool. This one now goes in the camp of yes, this is completely outside of your job. And this one now is another thing that will accrue you time, But that to me is completely essential. I feel like you can't really have this policy without having a very clearly defined list of these things will accrue time. These things won't accrue time. Otherwise you're going to get staff getting annoyed. You'll get staff who think they're accruing time and they're not and they're building up in their head. I've got this day off. I'm going to take next year for someone's birthday. Oh, actually, you haven't accrued any of that time. All of those things don't count. Like imagine how annoying that would be.

29:06 But it's, it's, it's, you know, it's vital and equally in the, in the, in the sense of fairness, right? If we go back to the reality of no one really has this policy. What actually happens is some people are just doing this stuff anyway and some people aren't. And we've always said, yeah, that's great. And, and not everyone's in a position to do these extra things, but the idea that it stops then and we go, so we just ignore that some people are doing the extra stuff and we give them nothing for it, right. It doesn't. It's just not fair. That's equally not fair to me. I'm like, what? Why? Why is that person doing all the clubs in residential? Because, oh, because they're young and they live at home and got kids. Yet, Yeah. And because we know that they've done it previously and we know they'll do it if we ask for a bit because they feel bad. Oh, so exploitation, yeah, As they get nothing, they get absolutely nothing for it other than lip service, yeah. No, cool.

29:46 And just because people always say like it's personal autonomy, they can say no, okay, Oh, right, maybe. But like, have you met people? Like it's just such a chronically online thing to say where it's like, actually, you could not just do that, couldn't you? I can think of so many people right now who are bloody lovely people who will always say yes to this stuff and then afterwards be like, oh God, I'm so stressed and what I've got to do it because of this. And, and sometimes you need a quality management. This questions about what can SLT do? SLT can take the reins of the morale and the well-being, not just thinking I'll get away with it. Oh, I know this person will do it across country at the weekend because I've always done it. Thank goodness the same three people always do it. Gosh, aren't we great? No, no, it's not acceptable.

30:27 And let's go to the end game as well of the autonomy, personal autonomy. Everyone says no. Yeah, just think about it for a second, OK, everyone's saying no. Now the kids get nothing. They get nothing extra. And then what happens is SRT will say something like what? Guys, we've got to. So I'm I'm, I'm making you now. Yeah. No, Also, no. Here's a rota for the cross country this weekend. No, no, you can't do that. No, you just need. That's not good for staff morale. Going back to the original question, what's good for staff morale is saying, oh, hey, guys, I really appreciate the extra things you do. And it's not just me saying it out loud, as, you know, virtue signalling. I actually care. And here's the policy in place. I can't renumerate you with money. You know how the budgets work. We are we. This is reality at the end of the day. What I can do though is renumerate you in time. So this is the policy from now on. Thank you to those that do extra. You don't have to do extra by the way. You just won't get this extra time. That's fine.

31:16 That's the baseline. If you are doing extra, you're going to accrue a little bit of time. You can take a day off next year or take a day off at some point and I'm sure there'll be some other little fine bits like you can't just tell me tomorrow I'm having a day off. You've got to book it in and it's got to be approved by SLT. That's all fine to me. There's also a problem there with who ends up doing the covering. Probably ATA, probably TA is getting paid a pittance. We talked about a million times before. So I think like the realistic side, this is what I'm getting to now. If the on the way of doing this policy right, there'll always be someone at some point saying that's not acceptable for me. OK, so that TA is saying, well, that's not fair. I'm getting paid a pittance to cover you. So you get a jolly, you get paid extra for doing more anyway. OK, cool. Can't afford to pay agency staff to come in or supply supply stuff to come in. We can't afford to do that. So we can't give you time. Actually, also, we got no money for overtime. OK, every single block if there's a block, every single way of ending up with this policy of teachers should be given money for their time, right or time back. That means that the thing shouldn't happen. It doesn't mean Oh well, I've tried there are blockades. Teachers give you time for free.

32:13 No, I'm sorry. The answer is if you can't do it, we have to at some point say that's the line then Otherwise, constantly people in charge get away with cutting and cutting and cutting and. Cutting and cutting and cutting. They get away with it because eventually. It just goes Oh well, it has to happen. Here's news flash, it doesn't. Oh, but the kids don't get across country at the weekend. Pay for it then. What do you mean? Like, yeah, that is sad, isn't it? And it's your fault. Yeah, you're you're not paying me to do it. It's not my fault. It's ridiculous. Oh, the soup kitchen didn't get any volunteers at the weekend. OK. What are you going to provide then for them? Why is it on me? Like, I agree. What are you talking about? It's such a rubbish eventuality, isn't it? And because because it's like, it's like striking, isn't it really that to me? And when you were saying that, I was like, no one wants to strike.

32:55 No one actually wants to take a like lose a day's pay or multiple days pay and not provide the children who they deeply care about within it with their education for those days. No one actually wants to do that. It's just that sometimes you have to make a point of like, oh, we don't just get walked all over though. Yeah, you don't just get what you want just because like, yeah. So it's a tough one. You've got to balance that with that with, you know, everything we said before, basically I'm. Going to have a really quick one for me because it's very, it's very simple. It's not a clear cut policy like yours. I think yours is good because it's a very clear cut thing. Mine is more about, you know, when I look at the question, what's the best thing schools SLT can do to improve staff around? Genuinely, it's just reinstalling that trust. And if I was to be really specific about it, what I would say is that when policy changes come in across the whole school that are specifically about teaching and learning and affect the classroom teacher, listen to their voice before you just implement things.

33:42 Because I can promise you right now that if you suggest something to your staff team and over half of the teachers think that it's a bad idea or won't work, it's not because simply they're resistant. Some people are resistant to change. Of course they are. And they might think a bit of gripe and a bit of a growl. If your school staff team are saying, guys, this won't work because it means we have less time doing this other everything you implemented last week. Well, I can't do handwriting every afternoon now because you just implement reading for pleasure every afternoon now. I can't make time out of nowhere. Just trust your staff team a little bit more to be the professionals that they are because they can just crack on and choose what's best for the kids. So I think increase that trust and just it's hard to let go of the rain sometimes when you're in charge. But yeah, just a little bit more. Yeah, just a little bit more.

34:30 That is an insanely good point in terms of like the passive morale benefits to that, because I can think we've lived it. Yeah. I have worked in schools where you don't feel trusted and it it totally decimates your morale and yourself worth and how much you believe in yourself. Impostor syndrome starts creeping in because you're not trusted. And when you are trusted, it feels good. It's such a good point, yeah. It's a, it's a something you can just do in general. And it doesn't have to be like, oh, but the budget restraint doesn't have to do budget. Yeah. You've hired quality staff, teachers, teachers who are trained in what they do. Just some. Just give them the leeway. They're not. What do you think they'll do? What? What? Honestly, we, we've lived it. We're an example of it. We worked in a school that gave us so much trust. I was so grateful for that trust. And I never felt like I was constantly being judged. There were certain things that we looked at and we looked at together, but it was always a conversation. This is dipping.

35:20 That's interesting. Let's discuss why. What can we do? What do you think we should do? Teacher who's with them all day and understands the professional right? So it's like we're all on the same page already. We don't need to be forced into it. Yeah, yeah, there's one bonus. One. I'm going to leave you this. We'll end the episode here. The last thing you can do for staff morale is book a demo for MASU, because I thought you're drinking there. Yeah, nearly spat it out. Is book a demo for MASU. Because if you get MASU in your school, ultimately teaching is going to be improved by our amazing resources. Their time is going to be clawed back from pointless admin tasks. Just unfold them on the spot and the children benefit it because it's a fantastic resource. So I just feel like that would, if anything, improves staffing around more than anything, wouldn't it? If anything, if anything, if anything, anything, I think if anything, not booking a demo is detrimental to your, to your.

36:03 Yeah, I think so. And it's a sign of actually, you know, we, you know, we need the trust in schools, guys, weakness. It's a sign of weakness if you don't book. Guys do it down below. Hayden and I are showing off this to everyone. We love it with our team. Book a demo and whilst you're here listening to the podcast, why not follow like subscribe rate? Someone asked me very quickly, I want to finish it. If you've got this far, please do this. If you're listening on Spotify, you have to hit the three dots, hit the three dots at the top of this page and it says rate the show. Someone couldn't find it. They asked me, I've been listening for a while and I want to, I want to rate. You ask us all the time. I want to do it. And I was like, oh, you got to go here. 3 dots, rate. If you're on anything else, rate rate, rate. I rate this episode goodbye.