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A teacher writes in asking if it is genuinely acceptable to eat biscuits and drink sugary drinks in front of children. Are teachers supposed to be role models when it comes to lunch, or can you have whatever you want in your packed lunch and not feel bad about it? Dylan and Hayden have thoughts.

Then a listener has been trying to get Dylan and Hayden to answer this for ages. Is teaching the most ethically dubious job in the world? Photocopying copyright violations, Disney Plus being streamed in classrooms when the licence says not for public use, the list goes on. Are teachers all walking around breaking rules constantly without realising?

What is the quickest you have seen someone start teaching and then quit? A listener once knew an ECT who left by the second week of term. Dylan and Hayden swap stories.

There is also a properly nerdy question about teaching publications. Does anyone still read the TES? Are the union magazines just bin material? Recommendations for the actual good podcasts, websites and reading for teachers who want to stay informed.

Plus the SEND support staff question. What is the value of lived experience versus a formal qualification?

And the most important question of all. What classroom item is the first you grab in a zombie outbreak?

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For about twenty-five years, the dominant message in teacher training has been clear. The research says mixed attainment is better. Setting damages confidence, harms low attainers, and widens the gap. Then in April 2026, the EEF published a study that complicates all of that.

Nine thousand pupils, 97 schools, two years of data. The finding: pupils in mixed attainment classes made roughly one month less progress in maths than pupils in sets. High prior attainers made two months less progress. And the team that produced this result is the same team that gave us most of the evidence against setting in the first place.

Dylan and Hayden get into what the study actually found and what it did not find, what they were both taught during training and whether they still believe it, and the honest classroom experience that the academic literature tends not to capture.

They also make the strongest possible case for both sides before landing somewhere honest. The mixed attainment argument does not collapse because of one study. The setting argument is not vindicated either. But the conversation has shifted and anyone working in secondary maths right now deserves to know how and why.

Sharp, properly researched, and the kind of debate that should be happening in every staffroom in the country.

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A teacher is getting emails from a parent at 10pm most nights with an expectation of a reply before school the next morning. Their SLT's advice? Just manage the relationship. Dylan and Hayden have slightly stronger thoughts on that.

Then unannounced learning walks, two-line feedback emails with no right of reply, and the working wall that was too busy one week and lacking evidence of learning the next. How is anyone supposed to win? Dylan and Hayden get into why this kind of observation culture does more damage to staff than it does good for children.

A listener writes in to defend SATs, and wants to know if they are in the minority. Every other year group does end of year tests. It narrows focus. It prepares children for formal assessment later in life. It can be done badly but that does not mean scrapping it entirely is the answer. Dylan and Hayden take this one seriously rather than just nodding along.

And following on from a recent video arguing that memorising specific facts is pointless, a listener pushes back properly. Is there still a case for children holding knowledge in their heads? Where is the line between rote learning that builds genuine understanding and rote learning that is just performance? Dylan and Hayden try to draw it.

Four great questions, four proper answers.

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England just made the school phone ban statutory. From this autumn, banning phones during the school day is not just guidance schools can choose to follow. It is the law. So why are so many headteachers saying it does not really change anything?

Dylan and Hayden get into what the new law actually means in practice, why 99.8% of primaries already had a phone policy before this legislation existed, and whether the legal change makes any real difference to what happens in a classroom on a Monday morning.

They also take on the pushback. The parent who wants a direct line to their child after pickup plans change. The Year 10 art student photographing their sketchbook. The kid with Type 1 diabetes whose phone is also their glucose monitor. The argument that banning phones in schools is the politically cheap alternative to actually regulating the platforms doing the real damage.

The teacher case for this is strong and Dylan and Hayden give it a proper hearing. The daily grind of phone policing, the bullying that follows kids into lessons through group chats, the playgrounds that genuinely went quiet and then got loud again in a different way when phones disappeared. But the Birmingham study that found banning phones in school did not improve sleep, mental health or grades also gets its moment, because the evidence is more complicated than the headlines suggest.

Sharp, honest, and right in the middle of a live news story.

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A wellbeing lead has introduced a shout-out wall and free fruit in the staffroom. The teacher who wrote in knows exactly why staff morale is low, and it has nothing to do with bananas. Dylan and Hayden are firmly on their side.

Then a Year 8 student tells a teacher to f*** off and is back in their classroom grinning thirty minutes later. Every other kid in that room clocked exactly what just happened. Dylan and Hayden get into why pretending that is an acceptable behaviour response is damaging for everyone, including the child.

If you were education secretary, what changes first? Dylan and Hayden both take a proper swing at this one and the answers might surprise you.

A parent who genuinely cannot grasp how far behind their child is, despite months of softly softly conversations and now more direct ones too. What do you actually do next?

Can reading for pleasure even be taught? Or is calling it that just setting everyone up for a miserable experience before they have even opened the book?

Honest, direct, and a lot of fun from start to finish.

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The government just announced the biggest shake-up of school food standards in over a decade. Ice cream is gone. Fruit juice is gone. Deep-frying is banned outright. And every single main meal now has to come with vegetables.

Dylan and Hayden get into what has actually changed, what the old rules really said versus what people think they said, and whether any of this will make a blind bit of difference if schools do not have the kitchens, the funding or the enforcement to back it up.

The free school meals debate gets a proper run out too, after the Green Party called for universal free meals for every primary and secondary pupil in England. London already does it for primaries. Does the rest of the country follow? Or is targeted support for low-income families the better use of the money?

Plus their own memories of school dinners, the very real postcode lottery in quality across English schools, and whether there is any point writing better rules if more than half of schools were not even meeting the old ones.

The consultation is open until 12 June 2026 if you want to have your say.

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A teacher writes in saying she had to be talked out of going into work while ill by her own partner. Not because she wanted to be there, but because calling in sick felt worse than just turning up. Dylan and Hayden know exactly what that feels like, and this one opens a conversation about why sick days in teaching are genuinely broken.

Then a headteacher has announced that all staff are being moved to different year groups in September, nobody wants it, nobody was consulted, and the latest anyone will find out where they are going is the day before the May resignation deadline. Suck it up or leave. Dylan has a view on whether that is acceptable leadership.

There is also a really interesting question about why children's happiness drops so sharply between primary and secondary school, and what secondary schools could actually learn from the way primary works.

The reports question will resonate with anyone in the final stretch of the year. A teacher has been told by leadership that AI cannot be used to help write reports under any circumstances. Dylan and Hayden discuss whether that policy makes any sense, what you can actually take to your head to argue the case, and how to get through reports without losing the will to live.

And the one that might hit hardest. A teacher in their thirties, single, renting, cannot save a penny. Loves the job but is financially stuck. At what point does staying in a job you love become genuinely irresponsible?

Honest, funny, and right on time for this point of the year.

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Dylan watched a video this week arguing that Year 6 teachers should be paid more than everyone else. It sparked a conversation that goes much deeper than pay and gets to the heart of something that genuinely makes Dylan furious: what SATs prep is actually doing to children.

This one is a deep dive. They cover the Year 6 pay debate, whether SATs boosters are ever justified, and the tutoring company elephant in the room. But the real heat comes when Dylan talks about pulling kids out of PE to sit in a dingy room doing a SPaG paper. He has thoughts. Many thoughts.

There is also genuine practical advice for Year 6 teachers in the SATs run-up. How to keep kids calm rather than transmitting your own stress to them, why communal breakfast on test morning works, why you should be telling the kids the toilet procedure, and why familiarising children with test paper format from September is not the same as cramming.

Dylan also makes the argument that the pressure of SATs week is a Year 3, 4 and 5 problem just as much as it is a Year 6 problem, and why leaving it all to the last two terms is a choice the whole school makes together.

Passionate, honest, and genuinely useful if you are in Year 6 right now.

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It's a Q&A episode and this one gets spicy. Dylan and Hayden tackle the big questions sent in by you lot, and as always, nothing is off the table.

First up: why are teachers the biggest hypocrites in the world? (Spoiler: staff meetings. You know what you're doing.) Then, a brilliant listener question about summer born children and delaying school admissions, a policy more parents should know about, and one that sparks a genuinely fascinating discussion about school readiness, birth dates, and whether skipping Reception is ever the right call.

Then Dylan goes full Dylan on independent writing assessment. If you caught his recent post and weren't sure what he meant, or if you were one of the people who completely misunderstood it, this is your chance to hear it explained in detail with zero apologies. What counts as independent writing? Why does it matter how we assess it? And why is passing off teacher-supported work as independent a problem the whole profession needs to own?

Plus: the hardest half term of the year (Winter 2, and it's not even close), whether it's better or worse to have a teacher-parent in your class, and a highly important discussion about dream child-free days.

Funny, honest, and never dull. This is Teach Sleep Repeat.

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Another Q&A episode and this one has plenty to get stuck into. Dylan and Hayden answer your questions on some topics that clearly struck a nerve.

First up, a heartfelt question from an ECT who has been quietly doing an entire subject leader role under the guise of "shadowing." Dylan and Hayden call it out for exactly what it is, and offer some genuine advice on how to advocate for yourself without burning bridges.

Then things get warmer. The boys share their career highlights from inside the classroom and it turns out the moments that stick are never about data. Think handwritten notes from kids, a half court basketball shot that somehow went in, and one girl who ran across a shopping centre years later just to say hello.

There is also a brilliant discussion about phones in schools and whether Ofsted should be marking a school down for a single student having their phone out. Plus, a slightly awkward question about SLT leaders who have their own private fridge and kettle so they never have to enter the staffroom.

They round things off with what they have genuinely enjoyed since leaving the classroom. Turns out, not feeling absolutely exhausted every weekend is quite nice.

Funny, honest, and never dull. This is Teach Sleep Repeat.

🎧 New episodes every week. Leave us a review if you enjoy the show!

🔢 Want to boost maths fluency and arithmetic in your school? Book a free Maths Zoo trial at www.mathszoo.org

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