Teach Sleep Repeat

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Bridget Phillipson is out, Lucy Powell is in, and most teachers could not pick her out of a lineup. So this is the crash course. Moss Side, state educated all the way, a year reading chemistry at Oxford before she walked away from it, a family full of teachers, and her own children at the primary she went to herself.
Then the harder question. Does "her mum was a headteacher" actually count as experience in education? Dylan is not having it. And should working in a school be a flat prerequisite for the job? Hayden lands somewhere the internet will hate, and Dylan surprises himself by agreeing with him.
Her record is plain to see. Anti academisation, primary SPaG tests called ridiculous, league tables and Progress 8 taken apart. Dylan makes a prediction about how much of that survives contact with the Treasury.
Sceptical, hopeful, and worth a listen before you make your mind up about her.
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Seven sessions. That is how much rehearsal time one Year 6 team was given for their end of year production, after leadership insisted English and maths carried on every single day. Hayden, who has run more than a few of these, has a fairly clear view on where that ends up.
That question from Izzy opens the episode and it goes well beyond jazz hands. What actually happens to the curriculum in production season, what the other seventy odd children are doing while the leads rehearse, and the uncomfortable truth about the one person quietly working every evening to make the whole thing exist. Dylan and Hayden talk about what schools could reasonably offer that person in return.
Then it is school trips and enrichment, where Dylan gets properly wound up about the maths behind the latest pay award and what the people asking for more enrichment are actually funding. There is also a question about what you cared about as an NQT and have since let go, PPA from home and why it should always be a choice, and the summer holiday debate that returns every July like clockwork.
Honest, funny, and exactly the episode for anyone limping over the finish line.
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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 mind.
Plus Tom asks which school rule would cause complete societal collapse if applied to adults, and the pair finish with an honest, surprisingly nuanced conversation about private schools, class sizes and privilege.
Honest, funny, and a bit spikier than usual once money comes up.
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Under what circumstances would you actually raise your voice at a class? Dylan reckons he can count his genuine, lost-it shouts on one hand, and the single time he did it properly, defending a child who was being bullied, still sits with him years later. He and Hayden pull apart the difference between shouting and simply being heard, why going quieter can land harder, and the old staffroom wisdom to reserve the shout.
From there it's a full mailbag. A Year 5 teacher heading up to Year 6 wants honest talk on transition, and the lads don't quite agree on when taking your class up is a gift and when it really isn't. A trainee asks how schools can make every adult feel like a learner, ECT and veteran alike. Then a question about education after a change at the top sends Dylan off on the politics of vibes.
And the one that gets him. A soon-to-be dad and middle leader asks how to balance school with fatherhood. Dylan does not make it through dry.
Honest, funny, and with a proper lump in the throat by the end.
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You've just been handed your new class, and the previous teacher's parting words are that they were the most difficult group they've taught in eleven years. Helpful heads up, or a curse you carry all summer? Dylan and Hayden open with the tricky class handover, why every class somehow becomes the trickiest one ever, and whether tricky classes even exist or it's all down to the school.
Then it gets spicier. A listener is made joint subject lead with no TLR, no extra time and no choice, and Dylan has strong feelings about doing free leadership work, including what he would actually say to the head. After that, a teacher reckons some colleagues just don't want to work, which sparks a proper chat about change fatigue and what negativity really means.
There are anonymous surveys that are anything but anonymous, and an Ofsted question about who speaks up when it counts and who stays quiet.
Honest, funny, and a bit fired up by the end.
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