Britain has a new government but what does this mean for education and for the happiness of teachers? This week we look at the education headlines from the Labour manifesto and give our thoughts on whether they will improve the happiness of teachers, parents and students. Is it necessary, for example, to recruit 6,500 new teachers (a third of which will, statistically, leave in the first five years) when we have more than enough qualified teachers to fill all the vacancies - they’re just not choosing to return to the classroom. Surely retaining excellent teachers and encouraging returners should be the priority? Schools should be mandated to offer shared parental pay at the same amount for men and women, as the civil service does. We give our verdict on the six main promises of the Labour party. We go beyond the manifestos and examine what the Department of Education is offering to improve retention and returning rates. We were both pleasantly surprised to learn about return to teacher advisers but, clearly, more needs to be done to advertise this service, rather than focusing government advertising budgets on new teachers.

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In this week’s Break-time Banter, Roxy reminisces proudly on the question her Year 10s set a visiting member of the House of Lord.

In Get in the Bin, Jenny chastises political parties for headline-grabbing promises on recruitment when the real issues that need fixing are teacher retention and how to encourage returner teachers.

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Links to relevant websites mentioned in the show:

: Find out more about returning to teaching and what a return to teaching adviser can offer

: Find out more about Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher Project and how they can help retain teachers that have become parents.

It’s our tenth episode of season 2 and we finally managed to get our former colleagues, Bonolo and Sarah, on the show. We all worked together in a growing school, building the Humanities Department and we all look back on those years as some of the best we’ve ever had. So, what makes a good department? And how does a good department make happy teachers? Sarah speaks persuasively on the importance of sharing in a vision whilst Bonolo praises shared planning that allows for everyone’s own creative inputs.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, Roxy remembers the first time she met Bonolo. It was at the interview and they both thought only one job was available and they both took VERY different approaches communicating to one another!

Sarah and Bonolo couldn’t decide who got to do the Get In The Bin so, in the spirit of good teamwork, we let them both do one each! Sarah throws micro-management in the bin , whilst Bonolo throws all his previous INSETs (in-school training for the non-teachers out there!) into the bin. Don’t get us wrong, he loves CPD and thinks INSET done well can be inspiring. Just don’t get him to do an ice-breaker….

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Our ninth episode talks about our proudest teaching moments! As a teacher you go into the everyday not expecting to have moments that you remember for the rest of your career but as you have so many interactions it is bound to happen. So as we have both been teaching for 15 years or longer it was bound to happen and we both get a bit emotional speaking about our proudest moments so far and what they mean to us. This was prompted by an interview question that a friend told us about and we thought it would be an interesting topic to cover. We are excited to hear about your proudest moments too so please hit us up on the socials and let us know.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, Roxy talks about when praising teachers on their achievements ends in a flash mob of singing and ended up being quote a cringe worthy but very funny moment!

Get In The Bin comes from Jenny who doesn’t like it when teachers don’t get praised at all from the senior leadership in the school.

Lots of amazing organisations were discussed in this podcast. Please see the links below:

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Jenny and Roxy

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Our eighth episode talks about a very popular topic at the moment - smartphone use in schools. It has been in the news as well as a hot topic for teachers and parents alike, not only thinking about kids using smartphones in school but them using them at all up until the age of 14. Talking about the idea of a smartphone free childhood and how this supports a childhood filled with outdoors, exploration rather than screen time and potential exploitation.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, Roxy talks about the lesser expected incidences that arise when children are allowed their smartphones in their bags at school: the call to prayer coming from a child’s smartphone in the middle of a Religious Education lesson!

Get In The Bin comes from Jenny who takes umbrage with secondary schools that insist upon students having smartphones.

Lots of amazing organisations were discussed in this podcast. Please see the links below:

Smartphone Free Childhood - https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk

PAPAYA - https://www.papayaparents.com

Delaysmartphones.org

Research about number of notifications within a lesson - https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ay16vi/a_teacher_had_her_students_turn_their_phone/

LSE research - https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/health/screen-time-why-we-cant-stop-checking-our-phones

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Email the show: [email protected]

Our seventh episode of season 2 focuses in on what makes a good lesson. We both agree that while there are common elements to what makes a good lesson, namely a loose structure that engages students and checks in on their progress, a good lesson comes in many forms. Teachers need to be given the freedom to teach in a way that suits their creativity and their personality. What certainly doesn’t make a good lesson is when senior leaders or academy chains insist on a formulaic approach.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, we hear from Jenny about outdoor lessons and her love/hate relationship with the laminator.

Get In The Bin comes from Roxy who forcefully argues against formulaic lessons in which each teacher is forced to do a five minute low stakes quiz at the beginning of each lesson.

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On this podcast we have a special guest, Roxy’s husband, Dan! Jenny was under the pump with a cake making emergency and we thought what better than to have a discussion about teaching with two teachers that live together and have been married for 10 years.

In this episode we dive into Dan’s 20 years of teaching and how he has gone from being a professional rugby player to an assistant head with everything along the way. Dan has had many different experiences in teaching and has a lot of ‘stories’ to tell and with input from Roxy as they met in a school they discuss how someone long into the profession can still be a ‘happy teacher’. Dan does speak about a dark time in teaching where he was not so happy and his mental health was massively affected.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, we hear from Dan and typo’s in his BTEC sport lessons and how sometimes as teachers we cannot hold in our laughter either.

Dan also provides the ‘Get in the bin’ talking about how his research from the book ‘The teacher and the teenage brain’ https://amzn.eu/d/c9ljl17 has really made him think about the ‘one size fit’s all' CPD approach.

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We’ve had a very special guest on episode 5 today! We’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Rebecca Leek, who has been a SENCO, a headteacher, and an executive head amongst others. She undertakes school reviews and provides advice and mentoring to school leaders. She has also just finished writing her first book on school governance. There was so much we wanted to speak to Rebecca about but we narrowed it down to diversity in education, what good governance of schools looks like and how permaculture (look it up!) relates to running a successful school. In short, permaculture is about sustainable living through working in harmony with natural ecosystems. Rebecca beautifully applies this theory to schools. She persuasively asserts that if head teachers looked at the range of existing talent they have in their schools, rather than trying to change everything and creating conformity amongst staff, they would have a happier, more sustainable school.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, we hear from Roxy who tells us about the time she got tongue-tied around a headteacher and ended up having a five minute conversation with her about cheese.

Our guest, Rebecca Leek, provides this week’s Get In The Bin.

Find out more about Rebecca by following her on X or visit her website at www.rebeccaleek.com

Follow us on: @thehappyteacherpod on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, and X.

Watch us on YouTube at: http://youtube.com/@thehappyteacherpod

Email the show: [email protected]

Our fourth episode of season 2 discusses how both Jenny are Roxy put a worth on being a life long learner. When we worked together middle leader training was all about being a life long learner in education (links to retention in previous episode - you need to invest in your staff development beyond ECT and tokenistic gestures/one size fits all training ).

Jenny speaks about her being the Chair of the Board of Governors and just signing up to Coaching Level 5 CVP and Roxy speaks about just completing her NPQSL and why that is something that she enjoyed and saw worth in.

If you’ve got into teaching for the right reasons, you love learning so your employers should be giving you opportunities to learn.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, we hear from Jenny and learning on the job especially when it comes to the pronunciation of words!

Get In The Bin comes from Roxy and why even now Roxy loves to learn with others in the classroom rather than online where everyone has their cameras off.

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Our third episode of season 2 discusses the teacher retention crisis. Roughly 35,000 teachers leave the state sector every year and 27% of those leaving are women aged 30-39 (that’s people like us!). Despite what the media and the government might say, we don’t have a recruitment crisis, we have a retention crisis. And money alone isn’t going to solve it. The average leaver experiences a 10% pay cut but also a 12% cut in working hours. What’s more, 20% of secondary teachers take up part time roles after leaving the profession. What these statistics point to is that teacher profession needs a reduction in workload and flexibility to be truly embraced by every headteacher in the land. Without these two, the crisis will never be solved.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, we hear from Roxy about the move her colleagues made from PE teaching to train directing!

Get In The Bin comes from Jenny who throws away job adverts that only offer full time contracts. Her Go For The Win is a simple one: offer all roles with flexible contracts. If a role truly requires five full days of in-school work, offer it as a job share, as well as a full time role. If you don’t, you’re missing out on some excellent staff.

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Watch us on YouTube at:The Happy Teacher Pod

Email the show: [email protected]

Our second episode of season 2 is all about boundaries and saying no. If saying no feels a bit too hard for you, why not use Jenny’s tried and tested phrase: “I’m not on that committee!”. In all seriousness, you are allowed to say no. Requests are only reasonable if you are given the time and capacity to carry them out. We discuss the different ways we have established boundaries but check out our socials for further tips.

In this week’s Break-time Banter, we hear from Roxy about the joys of school coach journeys and what happens when a child has a glass of milk and a Milky bar for breakfast beforehand.

This week’s Get In The Bin comes from Jenny who throws away the phrase “reasonable expectations at the discretion of the headteacher” from job contracts. Listen to this week’s episode to see how Jenny would do it differently if she were headteacher.

Follow us on: @thehappyteacherpod on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, and X.

Watch us on YouTube at: http://youtube.com/@thehappyteacherpod

Email the show: [email protected]