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"I've had my class for one day and I already feel so drained." A listener has picked up a class with a reputation, and the whispering, the fiddling and the constant low-level interruptions are already wearing her down. She doesn't want to spend the year moaning. Dylan and Hayden think she might have to, and they explain why that isn't the failure it feels like.
This is the first episode of the new weekly format: a bit of news, the best of what they've seen online, and then your questions from the WhatsApp community. (Jingle pending. Applications open.)
🏢 The big news
Teach Sleep Repeat is getting an office. Not a flat, not a house, despite what the comments section concluded. Dylan and Hayden explain why, after nearly ten years of running their tutoring business from home offices, a full year out of the classroom pushed them into it. Cabin fever, motivation, the "grass is greener" trap, and an honest admission that no combination of full time, part time, business and podcast has ever felt like the perfect one. Anyone eyeing the exit from teaching should hear this bit.
☀️ What to ask instead of "how was your summer?"
A Jen Foster (Good Morning Miss Foster) post prompts a proper conversation about the classic first-week recount task, the children it can quietly hurt, and the people online who think that's "woke nonsense". Dylan has a point about safeguarding that's hard to argue with, and there are practical alternatives, from a picture book to story dice.
📅 The holiday question
Keep the six-week summer, or go four weeks with two-week breaks at every half term? Both of them land on the same answer, with caveats.
🤖 AI lesson generators: are kids getting slop?
Dylan worries that "save time" is being pushed ahead of "is this lesson any good", and that generated facts still can't be trusted the way a peer-reviewed scheme can. Hayden reckons the gap is closing fast. Then Dylan catches himself in a contradiction about AI that a lot of us will recognise.
❓ Your questions
Is there anything wrong with sending emails at 8pm or in the holidays? (Hayden has thoughts, and a WhatsApp habit Dylan would like him to stop.) And how do you get through a year with a "low level" disruption class without losing your mind?
Honest, funny, and a proper first-week-back listen.
🎧 New episodes every week. Leave us a review if you enjoy the show!
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