Rustout is the hidden twin of burnout, hitting lecturers, academics and teachers, when work is busy but meaning and challenge are missing. In this episode, host Paul speaks with Dr Sabrina Fitzsimons (DCU) about her new research, along with Dr David Smith (RGU), into rustout, its impact on teacher educators and universities and what leaders can do to tackle it.

The study of 154 participants showed nearly two thirds reported moderate to high burnout. But the findings also revealed something more: “underbeing” corrodes confidence and identity, administration crowds out meaning and the “safe pair of hands” can often get trapped in low-value work.

What you’ll learn

• The difference between burnout and rustout

• Why underuse of strengths damages motivation, wellbeing and belonging

• The admin trap, workload pressure and how it drains meaning for teacher educators

• Signs of rustout that go beyond “quiet quitting”

• Rustout has patterns over time, especially around the seven to nine year mark

• Immediate practical steps to avoid or reduce rustout - job crafting and protecting time for teaching, research and innovation

• What leaders in education and universities can change right now to avoid rustout and support wellbeing and growth

Read more

• Sabrina and David's open-access article (Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Nature Portfolio): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-05543-y

• Sabrina and David's piece in The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/feeling-unstimulated-and-apathetic-at-work-you-might-be-experiencing-rustout-260837

Find out more:

• Dr Sabrina Fitzsimons (DCU profile): https://www.dcu.ie/researchsupport/research-profile?person_id=14582

• Dr David Smith (RGU impact page): https://www.rgu.ac.uk/rgview/impactful-research/7834-learning-about-the-fascinating-and-scary-world-of-incels

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and why rustout matters

00:53 Burnout vs rustout

03:31 Optimal stress and genuine challenge

11:51 The admin trap

15:21 Underuse, identity and agency

18:39 Rustout or quiet quitting

19:04 Patterns over time in academic roles

27:42 What leaders can change now

30:31 Healthier systems and incentives

34:42 Job crafting and strengths

36:10 Spotting rustout early

37:36 Wrap up and next steps

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a colleague and tell us one small change that would improve your week. Your comment might help another educator feel less rusted out.

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Room 101 - What We’d Banish from Teaching

From minor irritations to major frustrations, Hannah and Lucy, the Ant and Dec of the Education World, chat about the serious and the ridiculous. No topic is too niche or too well-trodden. Whether it's forced fun, motivational mug culture or the tyranny of laminated displays, nothing is off-limits.

But these aren’t just throwaway complaints. Each “banishment” reveals something about the work policy and professional contradictions teachers navigate daily. But don't worry, there's the usual joy and sarcasm and a hefty dollop of discomfort.

This week’s chat includes:

❗️The performative culture of positivity: Why teachers are expected to be relentlessly upbeat, and how this can obscure real burnout and discontent.

❗️The ‘edu-celebrity’ phenomenon: A look at how social media amplifies certain voices and ideas, and what gets lost in the noise.

❗️Unnecessary admin and data demands: Why some policies and processes feel designed to tick boxes, not improve practice.

❗️Tokenistic well-being initiatives: Candles, cupcakes and “wellbeing Wednesdays” that don’t touch the root causes of exhaustion.

❗️Misuse of research buzzwords: How terms like “evidence-based” and “resilience” are often stripped of nuance when rolled out in policy or CPD.

❗️Professional guilt and perfectionism: The unspoken pressure to always do more, be more, give more, even when you’re already running on empty.

Despite the rants (and a fair bit of laughter) this isn’t an episode about cynicism. It’s about reclaiming the right to critique the system without being labelled as negative or ungrateful. It’s about naming what isn’t working so we can start imagining something better.

Hannah and Lucy discuss the small pleasures that still light up the classroom and the moments of solidarity that keep people in the profession. And yes, they share what they’d absolutely keep in the world of education, the practices, ideas and values that still feel meaningful.

Whether you're a teacher on your lunch break, a student wondering what staffroom life is really like, or just someone who loves a bit of smart, compassionate chaos, this episode is for you. Come for the rants, stay for the honesty and maybe start making your own Room 101 list.Follow us, we're worth it:🔗 Website🔗 Spotify🔗 Instagram🔗 Bluesky🔗 X (Twitter)#leadership #education #teacher #school #schoollife #inspiration #support #podcast #video

What the Lionesses Teach Us About Teaching, Reflection, Resilience and Real Change

Hannah and Lucy turn their attention to the Lionesses, England’s fabulous women’s football team, fresh from their historic victory at the 2025 European Championships. But this isn’t a chat about sport. It’s a conversation about what everyone in education can learn from a team that’s rewritten the story on leadership, resilience and visibility.

With warmth, insight and the occasional moment of exasperated laughter, Hannah and Lucy explore how the success of the Lionesses challenges some of the long-held assumptions about authority, teamwork and identity, not just on the pitch, but in the classroom.

Every wonder, who gets to lead, how systems try to co-opt success stories or how celebrity translates to school?

The conversation revolves around:

❗️The difference between visibility and empowerment: What happens when institutions celebrate women's achievements without changing the conditions they operate in?

❗️Performance versus authenticity: How sport and teaching reward polished performance but at what cost to wellbeing and sense of self?

❗️Leadership that looks different: How the Lionesses model a collaborative, emotionally intelligent approach to leadership and why that matters in education.

❗️Resilience redefined: Moving away from the stoic, suffer-through-it narrative and towards a more relational, supportive understanding of strength.

❗️What we cheer for and why: A look at how public narratives around “winning” and “success” can silence more complex, uncomfortable truths.

Drawing on their own experiences as teachers, Hannah and Lucy reflect on how these themes play out in their professional lives. They talk about visibility as women in education, the pressure to be “always on” and how difficult it is to make space for real rest or emotion in a culture that celebrates grind and grit.

But there’s hope to be had. In the Lionesses’ victory, Hannah and Lucy see more than a feel-good moment. There's possibility, potential. A different way to lead. A different way to show up. And a reminder that joy, solidarity and strategy can coexist, even in systems more often designed to wear you down than raise you up.

Whether you’re a teacher, a school leader, a student teacher or someone simply trying to stay grounded in a high-pressure world, this episode offers an invitation to pause. To think about what kind of stories we’re telling. To ask: what are we really modelling when we step into our classrooms, meetings or staff rooms?

This isn’t about finding all the answers. It’s about to ask better questions.

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#leadership #education #teacher #school #schoollife #inspiration #support #podcast #video #teacherpodcast #educationpodcast #teachingreflections #Lionesses2025 #educationandsport #teacherwellbeing #schoolleadership #educationinspiration #classroomculture #resilientteaching #womeninleadership #teachervoice #staffroomchat #UKeducation #teachinginIreland #educationreform #teachinginEurope #teacherburnout #realtalkteaching #teacherresilience #classroomidentity #lecturerpodcast #educatorsupport #emotionallabour #educationwins #teamworkinschools

The Hannah & Lucy Show | Summer Survival, Teacher Burnout and What Actually Matters

As the school year draws to a close, many educators are running on empty. In this episode of The Hannah & Lucy Show, Hannah and Lucy talk candidly about what it means to actually rest over summer - not just physically, but emotionally and mentally too.

This isn’t another “how to be productive during the holidays” episode. It’s a space for reflection, honesty and kindness. They unpack the quiet toll of burnout, the pressure to make the most of time off, and the strange mix of relief and inertia that often shows up in those first days of the break.

Together, they explore what it means to:

• Recover without guilt

• Reflect without turning it into a project

• Move slowly without needing a clear plan

• Let summer be summer - even when that feels unfamiliar

Lucy shares how writing has become a low-stakes way to track thoughts and feelings, while Hannah reflects on why transitions - especially endings - are rarely clean, and why trying to force clarity too soon can backfire.

They also speak honestly about the social side of summer: how it feels to go from all-consuming term-time intensity to suddenly having “free time,” and why being alone or disconnected isn’t always the same as being rested.

This is a conversation about the soft skills we often push aside. Slowing down. Listening to your own needs. Choosing rest over reinvention. Not because you should - but because you can.

Whether you're a teacher, student teacher, or someone who works in education and is feeling wrung out, this episode is for you. It doesn’t offer solutions, it offers space. A reminder that rest isn’t a reward, it’s a right.

👩‍🏫💬 Single-Sex Schools, Safeguarding & Safe Spaces

This week, Hannah and Lucy are back after whirlwind weeks of OCR championships, youth conferences and one very public stumble on stage. But it’s not all travel tales and heatwave woes, today’s conversation tackles one of the more controversial issues in education: should boys and girls be taught separately?

Prompted by a recent Ofsted ruling against a grammar school in Kent, the episode questions the role of single-sex classes in the modern education system. Were the school’s curriculum practices outdated or genuinely beneficial? And what happens when girls are expected to perform while boys are given a pass?

Lucy draws on her own experience of attending an all-girls grammar and reflects on whether it truly served her. Hannah offers a different angle, sharing how she’s adapted her curriculum to reach boys in art and food tech, and how separating groups—at least occasionally—might offer both respite and results.

🏫 Topics include:

• Why girls often outperform boys in co-ed settings

• Whether girls' quieter success masks a lack of challenge

• The impact of school structure on confidence, competition and identity

• How subject choices reflect gendered expectations

• Male teachers and PSHE: are we still squeamish about periods?

• Why both boys and girls need safer spaces—and where that leaves non-binary students

• Whether tailoring texts and topics to boys or girls is helpful, harmful, or both

The conversation is packed with classroom anecdotes, curriculum critiques, and the kind of candid humour that makes the show so popular with teachers across the UK. There’s no simple conclusion - both hosts admit they’re torn - but the episode shines a light on the messy realities schools are navigating when it comes to gender, learning, and behaviour.

👂 Listeners can expect:
🗣️ Honest reflections from two educators with different school experiences🎒 Real talk about safeguarding, student dynamics, and unconscious bias🎭 Banter, boldness and moments of unexpected karaoke📉 Stats and reports, including data on attainment in single-sex vs mixed schools📢 Critical questions for staffrooms and SLT to consider, especially around equity and curriculum design

From influencers' shadow in the classroom to the power of protest art, the conversation blends warmth with weight. The hosts don’t pretend to have all the answers but they do ask the right questions.

🎓 Who should listen?Teachers, TAs, school leaders, parents, trainees, and anyone interested in the changing shape of education. Whether you’re reflecting on your own school experience or shaping policy today, this episode offers stories, data and food for thought.

💌 Have a story or opinion? Want to be a guest? Drop us a message - because education isn’t one-size-fits-all, and the conversation’s just getting started.

#TheHannahAndLucyShow #EducationPodcast #UKSchools #GenderInEducation #Ofsted #TeachingChat #StudentVoice #SingleSexEducation #CurriculumDesign #SafeSpaces

Summary
Paul and Shaniqua take on three big questions that educators face:

🔍 What is practitioner inquiry and does it actually work in schools?We hear how teachers might use research to improve their practice, but also the reality: time pressures, accountability, and the challenge of making local findings matter more widely. Shaniqua shares how partnerships with universities could make the process both meaningful and manageable if it’s done right.

👩‍🏫 Why can’t we agree on what great teaching looks like?Bruce Robertson’s TES article sparks a smart, honest conversation about what counts as good teaching. Is engagement enough? Does consistency matter more than creativity? Should every teacher be free to teach their way or is a shared foundation essential? Paul and Shaniqua explore how flexibility, feedback, and humility are at the heart of powerful practice.

🎓 How should we leave schools well?Whether it’s retiring, moving on, or saying goodbye at the end of the year, departures matter. Especially for the children. From public farewells to quiet exits, the duo reflect on why endings should be thoughtful, respectful and personal. Shaniqua opens up about how pupils react to change and why goodbyes deserve time, care and sensitivity.

🍌 Banana TimeThis week’s light-hearted moment includes a Federer quotation, a high-risk classroom game (“How well do you know your teacher?”), and some priceless guesses about what Shaniqua might do with her holidays. (Spoiler - they involve Spain, St Lucia, and maybe a political career.)

🔗 Highlights

• Honest reflections on teacher autonomy and the pressures of CPD

• A sharp look at the tension between freedom and consistency in teaching

• Gentle wisdom about transitions, endings, and why every goodbye counts

• Plenty of warmth, humour and quotable lines from both guests

📌 For Educators, Trainees and Teacher EducatorsWhether you’re just starting out or decades in, this episode offers insight into how we grow, how we teach and how we leave. A perfect listen to close the summer term.

Teaching Matters host Paul Hazzard, is joined by John Gibbs on today's show.

First, they examine the importance of spatial skills in learning, drawing on new research that highlights how these abilities underpin everyday tasks and academic success across subjects like maths.

Source article: How to boost children’s spatial skills - and their maths performance https://shorturl.at/FV75u

Further information about Emily and her work can be had here: https://youtu.be/f0kggEEmGjU?si=6uXOI8iMlWmcEv9k

https://www.surrey.ac.uk/spatial-reasoning

Emily is on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-farran-b36b90232/

Conversation turns to the challenges and opportunities education faces in a rapidly changing world. Paul and John reflect on how schools must adapt to technological advances such as AI, while balancing well-being and curriculum demands. They also consider how tradition and resistance to change impact the pace of educational reform.

Source article: How education must adapt in today’s rapidly changing world https://shorturl.at/VZrNQ

Finally, the discussion explores the complex and often overlooked role of love and relationships in teaching. Paul and John unpack what it means to care for students professionally and how this affects classroom dynamics, student engagement and long-term impact beyond academics.

Source article: What’s ‘love’ got to do with teaching? https://shorturl.at/JDT89

This episode offers thoughtful analysis relevant to educators, student teachers, teacher educators, and anyone interested in the evolving landscape of education. Topics include policy considerations, personal narratives, and ethical questions, making it a rich resource for deepening understanding of modern teaching.

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Getting Through the Summer Term
Hannah and Lucy tackle the chaos of the summer term with humour, honesty and practical ideas. From outdoor lessons to sponge dodgeball, teacher burnout to report hacks, they share stories and strategies to help you survive (and maybe even enjoy) the final stretch.

🧷Staff Room 101 – What Would You Ban?This recurring feature hits its stride here. Between the two of them, Hannah and Lucy would eject:• Compulsory staff parties• Teaching days after trips week• Making teachers work the week after leading residentials• Teachers hiding from sports day• Banning pupils from prom for vague behavioural reasons

For every teacher wondering how to stay afloat—this one’s for you.

Theory Matters Podcast | Incel Identity,Adolescence, and Education with Dr David Smith

We welcome back Dr David Smith, lecturer at Robert Gordon University, to examine the shifting landscape of inceldom — a phenomenon increasingly shaping social narratives, educational discourse, and youth identity in the digital age.

David positions inceldom within a complex web of mental health concerns, groupthink dynamics, neurodivergence, and online radicalisation, all contextualised within a broader socioeconomic picture of precarity, inequality, and disenfranchisement.

Drawing on his research and current thinking, David explores how psychological vulnerability, digital platforms, and masculinist ideologies combine to create echo chambers that entrench self-perception, breed resentment, and normalise misogyny. The episode examines the role of media representations, with particular focus on the Netflix drama Adolescence and its impact on public understanding. Is such a series a tool for raising awareness or does it risk oversimplification and sensationalism?

Paul and David discuss the merits or otherwise of showing the drama in schools as advised by the British Government.  David presents a nuanced critique, recognising its dramatic power and narrative resonance, while challenging its evidentiary foundation and pedagogical value. He argues that rather than viewing inceldom solely through a security or criminal justice lens, we must acknowledge it as a pressing public health and educational concern.

The episode raises significant questions for teachers, parents, and policymakers:

David’s insights draw attention to the broader sociopolitical terrain from which inceldom emerges. With reference to economic deprivation, rising NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) rates, and intergenerational disillusionment, he argues for macro-level interventions: investment in youth mental health, targeted support for vulnerable groups, and curricular approaches that address not only SRE but emotional wellbeing, digital media literacy and the psychology of belonging.

This episode is not simply a conversation about incels. It is a discussion about identity, adolescence, education, and the systems that either support or fail young people during critical stages of development.

Viewers and listeners working in education, psychology, youth work or social policy will find this episode particularly valuable and it serves as a thought-provoking entry point for anyone seeking to understand the intersecting crises of masculinity, technology, and disconnection that shape modern life for many.

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This week, our global panel tackles the most controversial education stories making headlines:

• Why fewer kids are moving—and whether that’s actually a crisis

• The risks behind Bridget Phillipson’s plan to defund journalism degrees

• Whether mixed-ability teaching works better than streaming in today’s schools

Featuring:🗣️ Dr. Rachael Jefferson (Australia) – PE & pedagogy specialist🗣️ Lucy Neuburger (Portugal) – experienced teacher & education consultant🗣️ Shane Leaning (China) – expert in education & school leadership🎙️ Hosted by Paul Hazzard

UK education podcast, journalism degree cuts, mixed ability classrooms, PE in schools, streaming vs setting, education policy UK, education podcast for teachers, teaching matters podcast, Bridget Phillipson journalism, podcast for educators