Videos

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app A second year teacher writes in with a question most of us have asked at some point. When do you actually start to manage everything you have to do in a day? Dylan's answer begins with some bad news, and it sets the tone for an episode about workload, pay and what teaching is genuinely worth. ⏰ When does the workload become manageable? Dylan and Hayden pull apart the difference between getting more efficient at the job and simply deciding to stop doing things. Getting quicker at your slides and your marking helps, but the real shift comes from something harder. There is also a piece of advice from an old assistant head about people who want things immediately that a lot of you are going to want to write down. 📕 The three things Dylan would do as a head teacher A one in one out policy on workload, so nothing gets added unless something comes off. And then the big one, a school with no written …

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app A second year teacher writes in wanting to know when everything you have to do in a day finally becomes manageable. Dylan opens with some news she probably did not want to hear, and then turns it into something genuinely useful about the difference between getting faster at your job and quietly deciding what is no longer worth doing at all. That leads into what Dylan would actually bring in if he were a head teacher, including a one in one out rule on workload and a school with no written marking policy whatsoever. Hayden puts the head teacher's real fear straight back to him. If nothing is written in the books, how do you know any of it is happening? Then the big one, and the one Dylan gets most fired up about. Is it fair that ECTs get paid thousands less for a job that looks almost identical? Dylan thinks the entire pay scale is built on the wrong idea, and he has a full replacement in min…

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app A fully grown adult bellowing at a room of seven-year-olds. Dylan finds the whole idea a bit odd, and across his career the feedback he got most was how calm he was. So this one opens on a meaty three-part question: under what circumstances would you raise your voice, how serious does it have to be, and does it change from child to child or setting to setting? Dylan and Hayden separate proper shouting from simply controlling your voice, make the case for going quieter to win real attention, and keep coming back to the advice that shaped both of them, reserve the shout. Dylan also tells the story of the one time he genuinely lost it, defending a child who was being bullied, and why he'd want to handle it more calmly if he had it again. It turns into a wider chat on parenting too: holding the line, never making empty threats, and the underrated skill of picking your battles instead of fighting twel…

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app You've just been handed your new class, and the teacher passing them over tells you they were the most difficult group they've had in eleven years of teaching. So is that a useful heads up, or a label that's going to sit over the whole class before you've even met them? That's where Dylan and Hayden start this week, after a Father's Day McDonald's story that takes an unexpected turn. The first question comes from a year 1 teacher about to take on their fourth class, and it opens up a proper debate. Why does every class somehow become the trickiest one ever? Is it fair to brand a whole class when you hand it over, or should you just pass on the facts and let the next teacher make up their own mind? And the big one doing the rounds online, do tricky classes even exist, or is it all about the school environment? Dylan has a fairly visceral reaction to that one. Then things heat up. A listener has bee…

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app The government have announced plans for all children on free school meals to be given access to an AI tutor, which begs the question, are we already on the way to humans being replaced by robots? "Am I cut out for this?" It's a question almost every new teacher has whispered to themselves, and this week Ellie says it out loud. She moved from teaching assistant into a Year 6 class as a trainee, left very much to work it out on her own with no additional adults. The regular meetings and observations she was promised haven't happened, and she's had praise maybe twice all year. Now she's worried that if this is what teaching is, she might not be cut out for it. Dylan and Hayden take this one seriously, because the real question isn't whether Ellie is good enough. It's whether she should ever have been put in that position without support. It's a mailbag full of early career pressure this week, and a l…

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app The government have announced plans for all children on free school meals to be given access to an AI tutor, which begs the question, are we already on the way to humans being replaced by robots? "Am I cut out for this?" Ellie's message is the one that might hit hardest. She moved from TA into a Year 6 class as a trainee, was promised regular meetings and observations that never materialised, has had praise maybe twice all year, and is now quietly wondering whether she's just not built for teaching. Dylan and Hayden have a lot to say about whose fault that actually is. It's a mailbag full of early career pressure this week. One ECT is staring down phonics screening with an 86% pass rate hanging over them, daily interventions and constant mock screenings. Another has been asked to go for Year Group Leader in only their third year, before they've even changed year groups. Is that a vote of con…

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app Twenty-five years in KS2, and Kathy says teaching now feels like a battle she's fighting every single day. Her message opens this listener mailbag episode, and it's the one a lot of you will nod along to. Since COVID she's seen a sharp rise in SEND needs, behaviour, general apathy and gaps in the basics: reading, core writing rules, maths. On a tough week, around three quarters of her class aren't equipped for year group expectations. She's made big changes, leaning into more child-led approaches to actually meet the children in front of her, but that pulls hard against a curriculum that expects something else entirely. So she puts the question straight to Dylan and Hayden. What is the future of primary? Do the big decision makers genuinely understand the situation in classrooms right now, what information are they using, and are they ever talking to experienced, grass-roots teachers at the coalfa…

So you sit a sitting Education Secretary down, ask the questions teachers actually want answered, follow up when the first answer wobbles, and then the verdict comes back from you, the listeners. This week Dylan and Hayden go through the feedback from the Bridget Phillipson episode, and it was overwhelmingly kind. Listeners said the questions were clear and fair, that the follow ups kept coming, and that the show genuinely tried to hold her to account rather than rolling out the red carpet. But there's a but. A lot of you felt she dodged. The questions were sharp, the answers were not, and plenty of listeners came away feeling the big ones never really got answered. Dylan and Hayden sit with that uncomfortable truth and ask whether that's on them, on her, or just the nature of getting a politician in the room. Honest, a little cheeky, and a proper postmortem of one of our biggest episodes yet. 🎧 New episodes every week. Leave us a review if you enjoy the show!🔢 Want to boost maths fl…

So you sit a sitting Education Secretary down, ask the questions teachers actually want answered, follow up when the first answer wobbles, and then the verdict comes back from you, the listeners. This week Dylan and Hayden go through the feedback from the Bridget Phillipson episode, and it was overwhelmingly kind. Listeners said the questions were clear and fair, that the follow ups kept coming, and that the show genuinely tried to hold her to account rather than rolling out the red carpet. But there's a but. A lot of you felt she dodged. The questions were sharp, the answers were not, and plenty of listeners came away feeling the big ones never really got answered. Dylan and Hayden sit with that uncomfortable truth and ask whether that's on them, on her, or just the nature of getting a politician in the room. Honest, a little cheeky, and a proper postmortem of one of our biggest episodes yet. 🎧 New episodes every week. Leave us a review if you enjoy the show!🔢 Want to boost …

It is not every week you get to put the questions teachers are actually asking straight to the person in charge. For our 200th episode, Dylan and Hayden are joined by the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, for a wide-ranging and honest conversation about the issues facing schools, staff and families right now. We begin with the SEND white paper, 'Every Child Achieving and Thriving', and the proposed move from Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) to the new Individual Support Plans (ISPs). We discuss what this means for children with the most complex needs, the questions being raised about legal protections and the right to appeal, and how the reforms will be funded. From there the conversation broadens out to the wider pressures on the profession: Parental leave and pay, and how provision for teachers compares to other parts of the public sector and to other countries in Europe The falling birth rate, the effect of smaller cohorts on school funding, and wheth…

Two hundred episodes in, and somehow we ended up across the table from the person who runs the whole system. For the TSR 200th, Dylan and Hayden sit down with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, and waste none of it on small talk. First, the SEND white paper. The move from EHCPs to the new Individual Support Plans sounds tidy, but it could leave families without the right to appeal at a tribunal. What happens to children with complex needs when the funding does not follow? Then the part that stings any new parent on staff. Civil servants get 26 weeks on full pay, teachers get eight. That opens up parental pay, a dropping birth rate, the quiet saving fewer pupils hand the Treasury, and whether the real answer is cutting class sizes rather than closing schools and cutting jobs. And the big one. A projected 6.5% pay rise over three years that is not fully funded. We asked the Education Secretary directly where that money comes from, and who loses their job to pay for it. Hone…

"What's the biggest thing you two actually disagree on?" A listener has finally called out the I agree, I agree tic on the podcast and demanded a real disagreement, so Dylan and Hayden open this one by actually trying to find the fault line. Spoiler, the split between teaching staff and non-teaching staff in schools gets a proper airing, and it's a more honest answer than either of them planned to give. Then things get spicier. Should politics be explicitly taught in KS2? Not snuck in around the edges of PSHE, but on the timetable. The boys talk through whether primary aged children can genuinely engage with it, who decides what counts as balanced when every adult in the room has their own view, and what you actually do when a Year 5 asks the question you've been quietly hoping nobody would ask. Next up, draconian behaviour policies. Listeners have sent in the ones they've witnessed or worked under. The rules that humiliated children, the systems that punished kids for things they cou…

"What's the biggest thing you two actually disagree on?" One listener has clocked the I agree, I agree tic and wants a proper scrap, so Dylan and Hayden dig into the teaching vs non-teaching divide and find it's spikier than either expected. Then a brave question lands. Should politics be explicitly taught in KS2? The boys weigh up whether ten year olds can handle it, who gets to decide what counts as balanced, and what happens when a kid asks the question you really didn't want them to ask. Next, draconian behaviour policies. Listeners have sent in the ones that humiliated children or just made no sense, and some of these are hard to hear without wincing. A one form entry teacher wants to know how on earth setting could work in her school, and the lads have a proper crack at it rather than dodging. Plus the SATs week ask that will make every Year 6 teacher's eye twitch. Revising all afternoon for the next day's test, every day. Reasonable prep or completely ridiculous? And …