Ep 163: Working With Difficult Colleagues, Toilet Drama & Questionable Celebrity Impressions

0:00 Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Teach the Repeat. My name is Dylan. And my name's Hayden in such a long. Bloody time since the last one, hasn't it? I. Haven't seen you. How have you been this last week? You. Have a nice Christmas. Do you know what? Because we've enjoyed. Christmas. Christmas that we've had because that's past now in time. We're the same thing as last episode. No. How would you even remember that it's? Been a week, It's been a long time. You've done in between. Yeah, Oh, you know, just Christmas and that was that Boxing Day. The Boxing Day was good when it's stuff and yeah, that was a nice Christmas. Merry, merry, merry, merry. One of them great time in that thing that's already happened. Definitely we have absolutely first question. Yeah, Hayden pod page off you go. This is from our podcast website. You can get the link down below or join our WhatsApp community.

0:42 Why not? You get the link there to submit questions or yeah, leave us a review. They could tell us in the WhatsApp community about all the Christmas things they've been up to Christmas. We have no, I don't care about that Christmas gift though. To me could be a review, couldn't. It Christmas, yes you could give do that, but it's already been Christmas is the problem. Oh bloody, we asked last week. Definitely not two weeks away. Still a bloody Christmas. Leave us a review. And not anonymous submission via our website. Not sure if this is the right place to ask a question for discussion on your pod, but here's mine anyway. Well. We well, we eventually found it, didn't we? Eventually found what? It not being in the right place, Yeah, it's not been in the right place for a while because we look at it, but but you can do that for sure. Weeks ago. Sorry about that. Weeks. That's nice isn't it Months.

1:24 I have an ECT in my department of two small subject in a high school with high levels of behavioural SENDSEMH which is social, emotional, mental health, deprivation and EHCP plans etcetera. A tough school to work in. My ECT is not doing well, their classes are unruly to say the least and little work is actually getting done by pupils due to poor behaviour. However, my problem is the ECT is not doing anything about it or trying to make changes. School and subject routines are not being followed, No use of seating plans, no following up of consequences, no following of any advice given from myself or the area ECT mentor. Just carrying on in their own inefficient way. One other point, when I first met the ECT and asked why they were becoming a teacher, the response was to make myself employable and now I think they just do not want to be a teacher. They were given the job as nobody else applied for the vacancy at the time.

2:14 What do I do with this? I would love to hear a discussion around this sort of scenario on your podcast, and I know what you're going to say. Yeah, I mean definitely, definitely inefficient, inefficient way for weird because it says ineffective. There's a weird way of reading that, but I'm not going to judge you on your reading. It worked. I'm going to. It didn't really did it because ineffective means something completely different to inefficient, but but it's fine if you think it. Worked you go. If you think it worked, that's fine. I don't think it works, but we can just pretend. Come on, don't hurt. Your feelings 9.5 out of 10. That's pretty good, really good, really good thought up here because quite often, and rightfully so, and I'll continue to do this, 99% of what we say is defending teachers. It's standing up for teachers, it's giving the teachers point of view. But let's be honest, there are some really bad teachers out there.

2:56 Of course that happens. We would be frauds if we said every single person who applied to you and then became a teacher is good. Yeah, that would be mental. There is no job inhumanity where you can say, yeah, 100% of the people are absolutely smashing it. Yeah, definitely. Of course not. And I think what we can do here is really zoom in on those people. So let's take this subset of teachers now who are ineffective, not inefficient, ineffective and an and you know, well made a separate point, but you can be inefficient and good at your job. It's a different thing to be effective. Just making that really clear that they're very different ones anyway. So ineffective you you've zoomed down on ineffective teachers and there's now you've got to look inside of that. And actually, I think being an ineffective teacher who's not get, who's really struggling, for example, I think you can still be a good professional and suffer from that. And what I mean is people who do listen to feedback, people who do try new things, people who do do the bare minimum of following at least the school guidance.

3:49 It sounds to me as if this person being really honest now is absolutely not helping themselves whatsoever and is a bad colleague. And it's by doing this, throwing other people under the bus as well. Yeah, I think you can. We talked a million times about the things you can do to help yourself. This is the minimum. And they're not doing that. Yeah, I'm actually really glad you separated those two things because I think it's, I would have just sort of talked about it and expected people to understand. But being ineffective isn't the problem, is it? No, like we're all ineffective. We're all ineffective in lots of ways when we started. Obviously other than that, and we talked about it on this podcast, we've literally said you're not going to be perfect when you come out of your training years or even a few years in. You've got to work on things. But there's, but there's a minimum though. But this, this goes bit when I say you can't be effective. Absolutely everything, always there is a minimum level though, which is like following the school's policies, following up on consequences.

4:37 Exactly. They're not even doing that. Like, so this is where it's a problem, I think where, you know, if you're doing all of those things and you're still ineffective, we need to find ways to support you and help you. Yeah, I they would get to the point with this person, I'd run out. I run out of patients very quickly. And I'd say, well, I don't care then. And ultimately, this is just going to sound like I've never said this before in the pod. This is why capability meetings and processes exist, right? Because we do have to accept that there are going to be, even if it was 1% or not, 1% of people who are not suited to the job. Yeah. And it is ultimately a high stakes job. It's the education of the next generation of children. Yeah. We can't just be like, oh, we've got to protect everyone. And they chose to, they chose to do this career.

5:18 So we have to just pretend that they're not terrible at it. Yeah, you're right. And it sounds really horrible, but you're right. And I want to be really clear. I'm talking about this subset, not just anyone who's ineffective, because if you're ineffective and you're actively bettering yourself, that's a different kind of fish. We're not talking about you. We're talking about people who are rocking out like this example, ineffective. And they're not remotely care about it. They don't want to do anything about it. They don't care. They almost acknowledged that, yeah, it's a job. I don't care. I'll get paid, I'll go home. Couldn't care less about the kids, couldn't care less about betting my practise. They get a rough, they get a rubbish deal and it makes your life worse. Yeah, as well, colleagues. When you're in a team of two, yeah, such an impact. I can imagine that it's so tough. I absolutely agree. Because I think, yeah, look, we speak a lot about doing your job and going home.

5:58 And I can understand why someone on the surface might listen to both our points here. I think maybe we're being hypocritical and what we've said for a long time. Yeah, do your job and go home. I want to stress like this is very clearly someone who's not meeting the minimum. Require not doing the job. They're not doing the job. You can't do your job and go home if you don't do your job 1st. And it sounds as if little things like not following up on consequences, not following any advice. Like who do you think you are at that point in your career? Like, I was an open book as a student. Like, jokes aside, I was joking earlier about like, I did everything. Of course I didn't that I went into school with bags and bags of energy and enthusiasm for the job. And my. I said this a million times. The thing I was thinking of is I'm going to look at effective teachers and copy what they do. Yeah.

6:39 And that's that's that is that was like, because you're interested. Exactly. I could distil down what I did as a trainee to that. Like, I went and I saw people who were amazing at doing what they did, and I tried to copy that. And over time I developed my own personal style. Look, we've acknowledged it. Let's actually try and answer this question. What does he do? What is your actual advice to this person right now? They're in this situation. Their colleague is useless. Yeah. What do you do? I think you have to put your head down, do what you're doing, get that right. I assume in this situation you're not sharing classes to do what you can with your classes. Raise it with SLT leadership team because that is part of their job. A big part of leadership team's job is to account for the fact that across your whole staff team, you can have different people on different levels of capability. This is a problem.

7:25 It needs someone stepping in with a formal plan to help them out and if they don't do the very, very reasonable things you ask them to do. I'm not talking about a toxic capability plan which they can never reach. And it's just using an excuse to get rid of people, which we see all the time and call out correctly. But capability plans can be quite good and helpful if they're helping someone to become more capable of what they're doing and actually supporting them and giving them advice. And if they continue to not meet that basic level that we all accept of a teacher's job through that capability plan, then you go through the formal processes. That's why they exist. I'm not saying capability plan shouldn't exist. I'm saying they're exploited by bad leaders to get rid of expensive staff and and put things on people who don't deserve it. But do you know what?

8:08 There are some teachers out there who need a capability plan, who need to be told actually they're not doing what they should be doing, who need to be bettered, and if they're not bothering to even try themselves, go for that process. I. Couldn't have said it about myself. I meant to that, Yeah. So good luck. Because it's tricky. It's a horrible. Really hard. Because it, because it feels horrible, even just talking to SLT about it, you feel like, oh, I'm grassing someone up. Like is that there's that intrinsic feeling of not wanting to do that? Well, no, not when it's affecting you though. Yeah, but you've got to, you've got to do it. You've just got to do it, those processes and you don't have to. I like, I feel like teachers often like to step into the I've got it. I've got to take this burden. I've now got to be the SLT and have these tricky conversations. No, you don't. If you want to, you could maybe have a conversation with them from colleague to colleague and say that you're really affecting my life in this way, this way, this way. I'd appreciate it if you'd work on these things.

8:48 I'm not, you're not doing it. It's like it's making my left half and I just wanted to be straight of you and tell you you can do that if you want. You don't have to. You can just go to SRT and and let them do their job because their job is actually involving that. Absolutely. Teaching is not for everyone. No, it's not. No, it's as simple as that. Where do you stand on teachers who use the toilet during a lesson? Poor time management, not taking their breaks when they should, or completely fine. Can be all of those things can be could be poor time management. I don't know if you did it, you know, if you know you have a routine. Well, I'll people have a routine weed like you could maybe just think about it and go for a week before at break time. But also I've been in situations where I need the toilet in lesson. It's not because I was probably time management. I just I'm a human being and maybe I drank more like what? It's just, it's just, it's not even a thing. It wasn't your control, was it?

9:32 Yeah, like there's an element of that. But drunk more. But in terms of ultimately, like, of course it's completely fine. That's mental. Like what do you mean is of course it's completely fine for someone to go to the toilet for two minutes. Yeah. Do you think? 3 minutes capability plan. I don't know. Yeah, I find this really interesting because again, I'm. I'm it'd be very easy for me to say, yeah, everyone all the time should be able to go and do whatever they want whenever. Yeah, sometimes actually just wait if you're, if you're capable of just waiting, yeah, just wait. Like, yeah, sometimes you need the toilet. I need the toilet right now. I literally need the toilet right now. So I'm just going to wait though, because it's not desperate. I was desperate and I had to go. We've. Had a week to go since I last recorded. It's crazy you've left it. This long, but I think sometimes you have to just say to someone like, can you wait, though? Yeah, yeah.

10:17 People might listen to talk. It's so rude to those people who I'm not talking about the people who can't wait. They can. I'm not talking about those people. Like when we've, we have in our classes very often toilet passes for children who have medical needs to go to the toilet whenever they want. Yeah, because I've got medical needs. I'm not going to say to that child, well, you can't wait. So no, they can't. They literally can't. They've got medical. If you're a teacher in that situation, same thing. However, me personally, I always let kids just go to the toilet when they wanted because they're children. They're kids. So it's, again, any kind of comparison between the kids and the adults. I think it has to work both ways. How many times have you heard? Yeah. Well, the dress codes for the kids, not for me. I'm an adult. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is for the kids, not for me.

10:57 It's that. Yeah. It works both ways, though, as well, where we give leeway to the kids because they are children. We don't have to give that leeway to every single adult in the world because they're adults. They're at a different point in their life. So yeah. Do you know what? Sometimes if I'm thirsty in a lesson, I haven't got my drink. I don't go and get a drink. I'll wait, but you don't get what you want straight away all the time. If you're capable of not doing something, it's better for you in the flow of the lesson to keep it going. I'd never got halfway through my input be like, oh, I need a toilet right now. Bye. I didn't wait for a moment where it's quiet at least. I think there's just ways around this where it's not just, I can imagine the answer that maybe like in a charge, the moment a teacher might be like, yes, always. You should always be able to do everything you want all the time. And if you're bad at your job, you shouldn't be on capability. You should be able to go to the toilet whenever you want to. Yeah.

11:39 Well, do you know what? Sometimes, no. Just get over it. Yeah. Just wait for a minute if you can. No, I think. Yeah, that's just a better version of my answer basically, which is all of those things. Much like every. Answer yeah, yeah, I just say something and you just refine it. Yeah, but it's true, though I, I honestly, I do agree. Like I do ultimately think it's fine. Yeah, But equally there is a scenario where it's like if someone who didn't have any reason to do it was just going to the toilet midway through math every single day and didn't go before. I'd be like, can you just, can you just go to the toilet before and and just avoid the situation? It is an hour lesson. Or just wait like an extra 20 minutes. Like some of the kids will literally just wait 20 minutes as well. Like, yeah. And in that state, and I think in that situation, I think it's fine to say that to that person. Yeah. And equally in the same school, we've got the one member of staff who has been to the toilet 2 times this year in class.

12:21 It's fine. I'm not going to mention anything about it. 2 times. They clearly just really needed to go those two times. Yeah. Otherwise they wouldn't have done obviously do it every day. Like, yeah, it's just, it's a weird thing that we even have to. Yeah, completely. Yeah, whatever, whatever. You mean the next one? OK. If you could start a new school trend, what would it be? Oh, OK, so it's like a kids done like the 6-7. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about the trend where they oh, I'm going to listen to the teacher and do what I'm told. Oh, it's now cool trend. That'd be a nice one, wouldn't it? And I'm going to listen to instructions the first time and just do it. Oh. That trend would never kick off. That'd be a great trend. Never pick up. Can you imagine that? Just ripping through the classroom? Like, yeah, let's do what we're told. When we're told, Oh my God, it's so cool, yeah, Anyway, the. 6-7 thing. Take the 6-7, Yeah.

13:02 They take that element of it and it's. Podcast Hayden no one can actually see Yeah, that's true. Honestly, people only listen. Yeah, we could watch it Video A. Lot of people watch this. Spotify wrapped top 5% of video podcasts in the whole of Spotify. That is pretty sick. Pretty good. That's really sick. Actually pretty good. Love that flex. So let's do it again. Yeah, Yeah, following the instructions first time. Yeah, that's my trend. I don't know. My trend would be the trend of passing it on. And that's my real answer. Yeah. I love to instil this idea of passing something on and not expecting something back yourself all the time. I like that idea personally. Why? He's way grilling. No, I'm just thinking it's just a nice one. I was thinking like toilet dunks, bring back toilet dunks. What's the trend? You get your mates and you dip them down the toilet, you know?

13:44 You would want to bring that back with. You bring back the bring back the old days where we just a bit of harmless fun in it, a bit of harmless fun with your merely arm when. Teacher back a room threw bored rubber at my head. Never didn't me any arm. I think it did. I just think it might have done you some harm just listening to what you were saying about stuff. It did. I think it did harm you quite badly actually. No, but. Still bringing it up. The pass it on thing. I love that idea of doing something for someone else. And the idea is that, OK, Then you pass it on to someone else. You do a good deed for someone. Eventually, if everyone does that, eventually someone will help you. And it's just this idea of not expecting immediate gratification all the time. Yeah. Oh, so. So I finished all my work and I behaved really well today. What? What treat do we get?

14:24 You don't what you don't get a treat doing. You're doing the bare minimum. But if you just have this idea of helping people out when they need it, they'll come back to you someday. Kids would love that trend. Actually should start that. What's that? That's delayed gratification. Yeah, they'd love that. They famously love it banging straight on TikTok. Let's order this trend. Pass it on, baby. Okay, right, the ice bucket challenge. You happy there? You go. Thank. You. Thank you. Yeah, in the middle of the trend on him. That's it, right. Next question, I'm moving on. I'm a class teacher and I've always struggled with my handwriting. Over the years I've had to unlearn and relearn joined writing multiple times, and as a result my handwriting is particularly poor, especially when writing on the board. Because of this, I tend to avoid doing displays that require neat handwritten work, and I worry that my board work might affect students learning. Do you have any practical tips or strategies for teachers like me to improve legibility?

15:12 All got there. I'd I'd take my time or work around this challenge in the classroom. I think it's a fantastic question to raise because a lot of teachers I know are quite self-conscious about. That so deep insecurity. Isn't that how I'm writing My my advice for the, you know, worried about displays? Not do, just don't do displays. That's my advice for that. Don't certainly don't do handwritten stuff. Yeah, don't worry about that at all. Literally just stop doing it. Just just do that. Yeah. Yeah. Also, my, my big advice would be if you struggle with your handwriting, what advice would you give the kids? Right. So I think about what I'd say to the children if a child was really, if they were really struggling with legibility and could barely read what they're doing. What I always say to the kids is slow down, don't join it. Let's get the formation of the individual letters right. I'm going to be this patronising to a natural adult. No, of course, but but what I take from that exactly is saying to someone, don't worry about joining it if you're really worried about what it looks like on the board, etcetera. Children are exposed to unjoined handwriting 99% of what they read.

16:11 They don't need perfectly joined up handwriting on the board to understand that they have to do a joined up handwriting. OK, they're reading their book, it's not joined up, but they they should be spending most of their time when they're exposed to words in a book. So don't worry about that. Don't worry about you doing beautifully joined at handwriting on the board. I refuse to believe that that's important if you're doing discreet handwriting lessons. When you're modelling it. When you're modelling it and you're modelling how to form a letter or maybe how to form a specific join, well, do you know what in that respect? You can also practise it yourself. And if you're expecting 8 year olds to practise it, you can practise it too. Start right down and do it that level. In general, don't join up your handwriting on the board. Just focus on each individual letter. Just make it legible. Like, and it sounds ridiculous because the questions about legibility, but I feel like the issue of legibility is around.

16:56 I'm thinking of seven things at once and it's not legible. Just think about legibility when you're writing. Just think, can I recognise and see those letters individually? I'm not worried about joining it up. I'm not worried about the speed. I'm not worried about anything else. Just think start of legibility and go from there. And you know what, there is also just a threshold where, and this is with children. And I don't know why we wouldn't apply this to adults as well where it is just a barrier. Agree. Like there are some children where it's like this is too hard for them. Maybe they're dyspraic or dyslexic, whatever. And you think, well, maybe not. And it's just genuinely too hard for them. And we'll use other tools that have a laptop or we'll use other things. There is a point where as a teacher, we don't just, we can't just all be held like, oh, 100% of teachers prerequisite the job. You have to be able to write on the board.

17:37 Yeah, OK. Like, well, you know you. Do have to be able to write on the board? No, because you can do it other ways. You can use tech If you've got a smart board or something else to display your writing and you're just trying to get across writing. I understand in the discrete handwriting lesson. I do get it because it like that is the entire. Yeah, but even even modelling and stuff, live writing it is much quicker than typing and stuff. But I guess I'm pushing back here because I think what you have to do in that respect is just everyone accepts that you haven't run into bit and messy. That as long as it's legible. But let's say you go into the NTH degree here. Sure, right? And someone's actually, and a teacher's actually like dyspraxic. Yeah, sure. And literally. Can't do it. I'm like for those people, I'm like, we can't just say to them, yeah, you just got to go over and do no, you're like, you can't because they they can't. I'm just, I'm just acknowledging that there is a threshold. And you never know, like this person writing in might be at that threshold and we just don't know it. And I want them to think like, oh, they have. To all.

18:20 All I meant with that was like, I want to, my handwriting wasn't the most need in the world, but I still wrote on the board. And sometimes the kids went, what does that say, Sir? And I just told them, do you know what I mean? Like I wouldn't want it to stop, but but the things, the benefit of me writing live and modelling on the board far outweighed every now and then the kids not being able to read it properly. So all all I'm saying is like, that is a that is a really, really high threshold for me to say to someone, don't write in the board. A huge, there's a huge range of what's completely acceptable to write on the board. And because I was the same, by the way, my my handwriting on the board was dreadful. Yeah. And often people will be like, what's that say? Does that say look or go? I'm like, it's like no one, nowhere. Near you like I don't know. I've forgotten what I wrote there because I was in the zone, in the zone. But yeah, try not to.

19:02 I just think, try not to try to beat yourself up about it. It's like it's not. Of course it's an important part of teaching, like modelling things, but it's not the most important part. And there are ways around if you really need to get around it. There are other ways that you said. Yeah, cool. Join handwriting is great. And if you can model it when you're writing, cool. It's really not imperative though. Like you can still get the learning points across by not by not doing that one thing. Yeah, definitely. Like it's not that important. I agree. I agree. Hopefully that helps you. Yeah. Next one. I have a confession. In my classroom, I keep what I call a pig draw filled with sugary snacks and filled with pigs there. Were pigs. It's really good. And sweet for those moments when I'm stressed.

19:42 It's my go to coping mechanism during tough days. Is this OK or should I be worried about the habit? But also just for fun, if you had the draw like this, what would you keep in it? This is a fun one for the viewers, for the listeners and the viewers. I always imagine right now you've got Dylan in your head. He's opening his drawer. We all know everyone's thinking it. What's in there. It is lots and lots of whispers calls. 54 of them. 54. One for each week of the year and two extra because it's great Christmas. That's just happened. Christmas. Yes, because you ate those extra 2, didn't you? At Christmas last week, in between the recordings. And I definitely didn't say 54, thinking that was how many weeks were in a year and halfway through realised that was two weeks off. That's really funny. OK, yeah, what would be in there? Whisper Golds for sure.

20:24 Crisps, cheese and onion Walkers crisps. Whisper Golds. You love them. Oh my God, you know. I love crisps. There's a crisp Advent calendar. Everyone's advent's over now, obviously. Yeah, of course, because we know we finished it because we're recording this after Christmas. There was a crisp Advent calendar. I had skips. Why didn't you get it? Don't know it should have. I can't believe. Anyway, you're a crisp fiend. So the question is, is it OK? Should I have worried about the habit? Honestly, if it's like if it's a real habit that's like daily and you do it all the time, it does become a worry. I had it. There's my job share Amy, who I did my part time job share with towards the end of my career. I did 3 days. She did too. We both worked full time in Year 5 and she was the head of Year 5 before this. So we both had our own children and our own families. So before that we were full time Amy. Amy was my head of year.

21:14 And every single week in PPA, right? Every single week about fail between US and and the whole team, we would bring in like 6-7, eight share bags of 6-7. Yeah, something like that. A share bags of like chocolate sweets and things put them in the middle. We'd do our PPA and we would rinse through all of them to the point where one of our team in there in in that year at Christmas as as a gift to the whole team, made this big box like wrapped it in wrapping paper, filled it with, you know, like when you shred paper and it's got like. It's like a nest. And filled it with sweets And the point was like every PPA, you just stick your hand and get a couple sweets out in the middle. That's great. The assistant head, he used to walk around used to come in when he knew it was PPA there.

21:56 And he was like, what treats we got then because it was like a thing that we knew and it was nice and it was fun and it was once a week and it was all good. I think you can do that for like as a general thing, but when it's like a when it's an actual coping mechanism. I'm awful with food. I'm I'm the same as what you describe me basically and I know it's bad and actually I do think it should change like I don't know what do you think I. I think that's exactly it. We, we don't, I don't know that this person's situation if it for you, it's just this fun little thing and you have and you, you limit yourself, you have on or chocolate bar a day. It's just your thing you have on your break. Who cares? Do what you want. It's your. But if you look at it yourself and think this is a problem I have and I have a really bad eating habit and me having a drawer full of sweets is something I can control and probably shouldn't do, then you probably shouldn't do it. You know what I mean?

22:40 As simple as that. Because you're coping rather than maybe trying to solve the reason you feel you need to cope. So that I always find the coping mechanisms personally. You do realise after like the 4/5 time that I'm gonna keep doing this? Because the reason I'm doing this has nothing to do with the actual sweets or the crap I'm eating. It has to do with the situation in my life that I'm not addressing. Addressing face on and fixing. So yeah, I mean, jokes aside, I think everyone has a little snack piggy drawer, don't they? Like I I think anyway, maybe they don't. Ours was just our cupboard, wasn't it? Yeah, we had the big teacher cupboard and it was. I was just always something in there that I'd go anything. And you just knew sometimes that I wanted to pick me up. Yeah. But if, you know, I I struggle to, to control it.

23:23 So, you know, not having that drawer would have meant that I didn't do it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So actually that's basically the long one. I I found that mid lesson I'd say oh kids I need a wee everyday go out for a wee. Didn't do that really. I went to my cupboard snuck in there 5 minutes about 5 minutes reasonable 84 pack of whisper golds came back out. You can do that every single lesson of a day. It's remarkable how much you can eat. That means to this, this and taking the edge off something and it's like, it's like people like pretending to smoke something and it's like it's, it could be anything. It's just like a glue stick or something. Imagine doing that with Whisper Gold. Someone will make that. If you want a WhatsApp community, I can guarantee you. But after Christmas, which is now because that's. When we record already happened. In the WhatsApp community, if you join it someone I guarantee you will have made that.

24:05 Image. I want a picture of me in a classroom, like burnt out, like scruffy tie, shirt untucked, and I'm pretending to have a drag on a whisper gold. Yeah. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, this is tough. This is tough. This one guys. No stress. You know you know I know exactly who's going to make it as well. So we'll. See right next question. How does one learn to enjoy marking answer right now? There's a lot more to this question, but let's. Yeah, don't. No. OK, seriously, let's go. Whenever I try to mark, all I feel is terrible. I feel bad that I joke now. Yeah, yeah, sorry. All I feel is terrible that children aren't getting it. And when kids see marking, they aren't responding or caring because there is simply not enough hours in the day. I know I'm probably being harsh about myself, but I just find marking such a demoralising part of teaching. Even live marking hasn't helped.

24:55 It's interesting one, because it the way you've posed this question is that is, is less about the act of marking to me and more about the fact that it makes you feel rubbish that there's children getting so much wrong, right in terms of marking. So to me that that screams like, OK, maybe maybe it's a maybe it's a pitch, right, a lesson thing. Maybe it's a Let's review the lesson and. Maybe, but maybe. Not like. Maybe it depends what you're in because hey now, let's be real now, no matter how much teaching of writing we did, every single time I marked writing, I would have the same thought. That's just like, Oh my gosh, these kids can't do it. And I wasn't wasn't pitching anything wrong. I wasn't teaching bad lessons but just the system itself. Almost expected too much of the kids sometimes. That's fine. Did you know what I was thinking?

25:35 I was thinking maths. Maths was my go to. I was like, I think if I was daily, everyday teaching. Yeah, I actually used that maybe where part of the answer. I used the marking to constantly like make sure I adjust my pitch constantly make sure I like I almost had like a whatever the invisible threshold in my head of if it felt like way too many kids were getting like maybe even the core concept wrong that lesson, I think, right, OK, something's gone wrong there. I need to reteach that lesson. I need to do it a different way. I need to pitch it down a bit because I've gone too high. And I keep doing that until I found that in the marking, I wasn't getting that dreadful feeling of, Oh my God, no one can do it. So that's one tip I guess you could use is just to use use that feeling to reflect on your practise. And if it is a subject like maths, maybe it's something the next day you can think, right.

26:16 My aim today is to when I'm marking it, it's not feel like this. I need to get the pitch right. I don't know that maybe that's it. That could be part of the issue. But if it's English, like you said, sometimes it's just accepting the bar is ridiculously high. And with English it's like a never ending goal of, Oh yeah, you've got to master these 52 different 52 weeks in a year, 52 different writing techniques and you're 6 and it's just impossible to do. So it's just a little wins and it's a tricky 1. What it depends what you, what we're trying to get our marking in general, what we, what we're trying to get out of marking #1 you know, where your kids are academically, you understand what they can and can't do #2 the children are getting feedback of that and they understand themselves what they can and can't do. Right. What you've described here, whenever I try to mark, all I feel is terrible children aren't getting it.

26:59 And when the kids see the marking, they can't, they don't respond or they can't care because there's not enough time. Yeah. So, OK, in that respect, in both ways, we're not getting what we actually want to get out of marking. No. So we have to address, in my opinion, at that point, what's the point, right, If all that's happening is the kids are getting them wrong all the time, OK. If that's just repeatedly happening again and again and again and again, that's not useful information. No useful information would be seeing that pattern, adjusting what you do, changing how you do it, and then seeing a change in the marking at the end, right? Marking is a means to understanding something. So you change your practise, you're doing the same thing over and over again and just feeling demoralised by it. There is genuinely no point marking. You might as well just not do the marking because there's no point.

27:41 You're not getting anything out of it. So I think what you said there about changing maybe what you're putting into your lessons or your pitch or your delivery as a result of what you see when you're marking might then end up with the kids getting more right, which might then make you feel better at marking. What what about the second point? Because I didn't read it again. I was. Oh, yeah. There's another point here, which is when the kids see the marking, they're. Not responding to it. So this is my second point here where I said about the two things we want from marking 1 is as the teacher understanding that information and doing so accordingly, which we just expressed. Also there the kids getting feedback. Like that's an important part. I think there's a million ways kids can get good feedback and understand what they are and they aren't doing. And one of them is written marking and there's a place for written marking. But again, even if you dive into those situations where written marking can be helpful for a child to know where they are, which I think is a small percentage, you can do a lot of oral feedback and live marking, etcetera. But if you're zooming in again onto, well, even when I'm doing written marking and I'm sat there putting my time and effort into it, there's no time built in for the children to actually see that feedback, understand where they are personally and maybe what their next steps are.

28:42 Again, the process of marking is pointless. You're doing something for no reason. So unless you're going to have the whole picture, I can completely understand why you think marking is a waste of time. And I'll tell you what, if it continues like that, you will never learn to love marking because marking has a very, very, very, in my head, distinct role in education where it enables you to do other things that help the children. If it's not enabling you to do other things, whether it's for a cramped timetable and kids don't have time to do it, or you're just giving negative feedback, negative feedback and then you feel bad about your teaching, what is the positive outcome of the marking process? Yeah, it doesn't exist. It needs to change. So yeah, exactly that. The hint here, what when you say how can I learn to enjoy marking?

29:24 It's you have to look at the entire process of what the marking is doing. Marking will only become enjoyable or something you as a teacher you find valuable is if the end goal is improved because of it. This situation, there's no improvement in the end goal. I agree, you're gonna be in a rut. So just jumping on what you said as well, something this person maybe could action and do in this situation is if you're finding the children aren't responding to is written marking or doing your thing is a waste of my time. This is pointless because it's not built in or because they're just disenfranchised by it because they're getting so much wrong all the time, which is a separate thing you can solve. There could just be another approach to the way you mark it. It could be, I tried this once and I thought it worked really well with the class I had at the time, which was they were equally disenfranchised and they were quite a low ability class and they were just struggling I think with that negative feedback have maybe having a lot of it in their life before.

30:06 And I just stopped writing anything in their books and I wrote it on a sheet of paper for myself instead. And I gave them verbal feedback the next day. And again, you have to build that in. That's not something you can just do easily Willy nilly. You do have to think about the the structure of your time and your lessons for that, but it worked really well for that class and I ended up ended up just becoming like a more formal thing. I just had this whole class feedback sheet that I wrote. I think that's quite a big thing anyway. And I just wrote down some bullet points and notes of what I wanted to feedback. And it would have been what I would have written in their books. But rather than them completely ignoring it and getting annoyed about the fact that I've written something in that book because they think that's bad. I just went up to the next day and just did it in a nice way and spoke to them. And maybe I didn't get around everyone, but getting around 4 out of 20 if I had a smaller set and giving them some personalised feedback was better than writing in 20 books and zero of them getting anything out of it. I mean, four's still better than 0. Let's look at that analogy right now. 4A day out of 20, Let's just say 4A day, you get around everyone in the whole week. Yeah, right.

30:53 Whereas the other option is you're writing 20 comments. You're writing 100 comments across the week, and no one's getting anything out of it. Yeah, there is one that is far better. And you're absolutely right. Writing in a book, I found you miss the nuance. They're children. Yeah. Sometimes they would say, what does that mean? Another time they'd read it and take it as a negative when actually I was just saying fix this, please. Yeah. Because one way you can streamline your marking, and I did this a lot, was just be very blunt. Basically one word, you know, you could say something like cap, check, cap check, do this. And it was always something to do, to improve because that, to me was the most important part of the. So they. Start attributing writing with. Exactly. So I was starting to do, oh, this is bad. We're actually I was just saying no, we're just improving it. Maybe sometimes it wasn't even fixing, it was improving. But to them, every day it was fix this, do this, do that, and it wasn't as much.

31:38 Wow, aren't you amazing. I got around that because as a teacher, I'm very positive, full of praise. I never let a day go past where a kid wasn't praised for something. But I'm just saying, cool, well, let's just do that in general then. Verbal feedback's the way to go. And again, it's this. What is your end goal? Too often in teaching, marking is seen as a thing that teachers do. There's no more thought put into it. Why are you marking? Because I've got that's what teachers do We mark. It doesn't work. I'm marking it. But what what is the actual point of marking? Because if you're not getting that it's broken, it's wrong, it won't work. And I want to, you know, just reference this because at the end they said even live marking hasn't helped. So they have, it's not like they haven't tried any approach. But I think just through this conversation, I, to me, I'd say it's just a fundamental issue with the children's understanding of what the marketing process is and how it benefits them, which is clearly in a very negative way from the school you're working or what, how whatever's happened up to this point. They clearly have a very negative approach to what what, what it looks like when a teacher or someone writes in their book and gives them feedback. And I think you're, if you want any improvement of this, you're going to have to make some fundamental change, I think. Which can be really tricky to do as a teacher when you're in a situation situation where the school has a strip market. Exactly.

32:49 You've got to go to them. You've got to, if that's the case, you have to bring that conversation to somebody else. If you're lucky enough to have that freedom, then explore it a bit. Like really try and change it up do. You know what I used to do, genuinely just do it and then deal the consequences after. Yeah, yeah. So in that situation, if you think if an inkling of you is like, they're not going to like what I'm saying, they're not going to listen to me saying this. They're just going to think I'm moaning or not doing my job properly. It's so frustrating. Just do it for a week. You know your kids. Just do it. You know your kids better than anyone. Try it for a week. Try verbal feedback. Try and just get a list. Don't write anything in that book. Don't disenfranchise them. There's no time for that. Cool, I won't do it then. That's my option. I'm just going to do it because someone, an adult might walk into the room, pick up a book and back. Where's your marking? Do you know what, Joe? What?

33:29 My marking is up your fucking ass. All the. Kids are right there, you know, and even like just spend sometimes. I loved it. I know you did it as well. I did a lot just being like really honest with the kids about have a 10 minute pep talk with them and save and acknowledge the fact that you recognise that they get disenfranchised and disheartened when they see feedback in that book. And tell them how you're going to change it and what you're going to do differently and how it's all positive and your goal is this and that Like those little pep talks sometimes alongside actually doing the fundamental change can make a significant difference. And it is negative because you're. Crap. Yeah, don't say that. But it'd be, I'd love for you to write back in like if you try any of this and like, you know, even if it's a couple of weeks or a month for sometime in February, which is a month away from now when we're recording this.

34:14 No, this has been released in the end of December, you idiot. Which I know, which I know, but yeah, no, really, thank you for writing in because it's probably one of those things where you do it, like you said, it makes you feel terrible and it's sometimes be hard even just saying out loud because it makes you feel rubbish. Legend. I love. I love, you know, people who are just in in search of the truth. Yeah. And it doesn't matter. And they understand that maybe what they're doing is not necessarily the most effective thing in the world or, or they think this isn't working for me and they want to know how to make it better. They're the people I want to work with and talk to. They're the people who inspire me to get better at stuff because they're not just thinking. No, what I do is always right. It's not. No. It's just not. Definitely. Yeah. Thank you very much. Let's go to the last question. How many celebrity impressions can you do?

34:56 God's sake. What's the obsession with celebrities? We're we're we're clearly a showbiz podcast now. You do any? Name someone I don't know. Can you do one? Have you got one on top of your head? But it's not really a celebrity and it's quite niche. But I, I just, I'm fascinated by the way that this person called Jordan Peterson told us. Jordan Peterson. Yes, I can. Go ahead of Jordan Peterson, but like, let's not talk about all of the things he actually maybe talks about. But he does. His voice sounds like Elmo. Como como. I can do Elmo because Rory watches the Aslan Aslan. Go on, dude. Jordan Peterson. I'm Aslan, I'm doing Aslan. I'm your teaching assistant.

35:37 Aren't I the best? Jordan Peterson, it's like coming, but I can't do it because he talks like he said, he says a lot. It's a lot of. Maybe answer that last bit like that's Jordan Peterson. How would you? How do you What's a good way of marking? Doing it depends what you mean by marking. When you ask me, what would you change? You've got to really think about the cognitive dissonance that's allowed in that question. What do you mean by marking? Are you a marker? Are you a marker pen? I don't think so, buddy. Got to define change. Listen, what do you mean by change? Because we're all changing all the time. The metacognition of the changing and these actual scope of what you're asking me to do, it's just ridiculous. You need to have God in your life you've ever watched. You need to tidy your own bedroom. If you ever watched Jordan Pearson, that's such a good impression because you've nailed like how he also avoids questions and like just unfix them in a weird way you. Mean by a void?

36:28 What do you mean by not answering the question? I am answering the question what do you mean by how? Oh God, what do you mean by that? He's he's turned into Jordan Peterson now. What's your 1? Mine's rubbish. I don't know. Hey, Scooby. Hey, Raggy. Scooby-doo an impression? The most busy a celeb. Why are you scooby-doo saying Hey Scooby, I know Scooby. What do you mean by Doo? Is it the verb or the noun? I don't know. Raggy Jordan. What do we do? Gooby snacks. Is it a celeb? Is a celeb as much as Aslan is a mythical? Region. Oh my goodness me, I tell.

37:11 You you do quite good, Keir Starmer. Do I? Yeah, I think you got his. Yeah. Okay, wait, okay. Right, we've got to ask the question, what are we doing with the people who need to do the thing? When we're out with the people right now, the number one thing that people need to do with education is to understand that the teachers are the people who are the people in charge of the children, and the children will be the people of the future. Your best 1 is when you're in, you're talking to Mr Speaker about the budget. This is from this is from this from something I was saying. This is someone online because it's like could they have to say, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, just the other day I was walking down that way. I was walking down the street with my father, my father, the tool maker. And just the other day I was just thinking to myself, what can we do for the future?

37:57 Oh, God, yeah, Mr Speaker, just the other day. That bit, Mr Speaker, just the other day, that line, complete nonsense. I can't wait to listen back to this. And they were all one out of 10. Impressions, yeah. Yeah, in our heads, we, I'll. Be honest. We are. You've done back here. You've done back here in the past. Oh, really? That was Yeah. I think Jordan. I think Jordan Peterson got on. Your head a bit too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not really celebrities, are they? Any of those people not really like? Yeah, probably thinking. Like on a pedis. Andre, you know, real celebrity. No one Real. No. Wait, just give me one minute, right? Not one person listening to this podcast celebrities. Not one person for Peter. Andre, sorry, I'm singing Mysterious Girl. No one for Peter is so funny.

38:44 Oh my goodness. So when you ask me the name of football and I just, I just don't know. I'm the same as celebrity, you know, I am like I'm just not the fact. Don't care. The fact footballer, you say? Michael Owen and celebrities say Peter Andre. Yeah, you are living in 2003. Yeah, you just haven't yet. And Scooby. Doo if I say celebrity to you, who's the first person you actually think of? Like Alan Carr. Alan Carr, Jonathan. Because I have celebrity traitors. Yeah. I just think of those kind of people. Peter Andre. Andre. Yeah. He's so funny. Big celeb, isn't he? Yeah, Well, well, was maybe in the past. Yeah. Yeah. Should I, should I push you for any more impressions? So you go. If you can think of anyone then I'll give it a go. You know, I'll always I. Want you to go. I want you to do an impression of me. Of you well people say we sound. Alive, I know, so it should be quite easy. Go on. Maybe it's what you're saying, which will be the impression here. Go on, do an.

39:25 Impression. OK, All right, Dylan. Yeah. I just want to say the thing that you're saying. And actually, I'm. What I'm going to do is I'm going to re say the thing you're saying. And then the problem is you said it in such a stupid way. Isn't he such an idiot? Everyone Isn't Hayden such an idiot. I'm from up north, though, and occasionally I say words like this. You're an idiot, mate. Keep. Pathetic. That was terrible. Terrible. It sounds nothing like you. No the content. Was all right the. Content was right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. I just. You've got ahead of myself. Yeah, that was. Couldn't wait, Couldn't wait, could. You. Yeah, I feel better. Couldn't wait to wait off my chest. I really am. It's a real shame. Well, guys, we had a great. Anyways, haven't we waggy? Well, it depends what you mean by Christmas. I mean, if you're not a Christian Pagan, then what are you?

40:08 How can you celebrate Christmas? I think it's time to finish them. We've recorded back. I mean, sorry, we've recorded this one episode just now. Yeah. And I think it's time to leave these lovely listeners, Yeah, to go about their day, post their post Christmas Day. The next time we we we are in your Feeds podcast be the start of a brand new I was going to say academic year. No losing my. Mind, just a year. It's a brand new year, the standard year. Yeah, Term three guys. See you then leave us a review. And happy New Year also leave us a review.