Teach Sleep Repeat

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app 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 shoutin...

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 scho...

🧮 Free for school staff: generate arithmetic worksheets in seconds at tools.mathszoo.app The government have announced plans for all children on free school meals to be given access to an AI tutor, which begs the question, are we already on the way to humans being replaced by robots? "Am I cut out for this?" Ellie's message is the one that might hit hardest. She moved from TA into a...

Use our FREE worksheet arithmetic generator here: tools.mathszoo.app Twenty-five years in KS2, and Kathy says teaching now feels like a battle. Her message kicks off this listener mailbag: a rise in SEND needs, behaviour, apathy and shaky basics since COVID, and a class where the majority aren't equipped for year group expectations. She's gone more child-led to meet them where they are, bu...

So you sit a sitting Education Secretary down, ask the questions teachers actually want answered, follow up when the first answer wobbles, and then the verdict comes back from you, the listeners. This week Dylan and Hayden go through the feedback from the Bridget Phillipson episode, and it was overwhelmingly kind. Listeners said the questions were clear and fair, that the follow ups kept coming, a...

Two hundred episodes in, and somehow we ended up across the table from the person who runs the whole system. For the TSR 200th, Dylan and Hayden sit down with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, and waste none of it on small talk. First, the SEND white paper. The move from EHCPs to the new Individual Support Plans sounds tidy, but it could leave families without the right to appeal at a tribun...

"What's the biggest thing you two actually disagree on?" One listener has clocked the I agree, I agree tic and wants a proper scrap, so Dylan and Hayden dig into the teaching vs non-teaching divide and find it's spikier than either expected. Then a brave question lands. Should politics be explicitly taught in KS2? The boys weigh up whether ten year olds can handle it, who gets to...

🔢 Sign up for a free Maths Zoo demo right now and get your school using it before the end of term. Boost maths fluency and arithmetic across every year group, completely free trial, no strings. Book it at www.mathszoo.org 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 l...

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...

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...

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,...

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 happe...

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 diffe...

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 move...

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...

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 a...

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 yo...

This one's a bit different. Dylan and Hayden go through the classic one-liners that teacher haters love to fire off online, rate how much they actually boil their blood (on a scale of nought to 1000), and then properly take them apart. From the all-time classic "those who can, do, those who can't, teach" to "you only work 9 till 3," from "I pay your salary so you l...

Another Q&A and this one goes in some unexpected directions. Dylan and Hayden tackle your questions with their usual mix of genuine advice and complete chaos. First, a story that riled Dylan up before the episode even started. A new parent going back to work was told by their head teacher to stop helping with the baby at night so they could get more sleep for work. Dylan and Hayden have some t...

This week, we chat to Mr Hobbs, an English teacher in secondary school based in Cardiff. We talk about secondary teaching, decline in reading, positive masculinity and much more! Follow Mr Hobbs here: https://www.instagram.com/mrhobbsteacher/ Book a free demo for MathsZoo now and see how we can help your school smash maths! www.mathszoo.org Join our free WhatsApp community for Q&A submissions,...

A secondary history teacher writes in asking how to support a Year 10 student with very low literacy when reading is basically everything in their subject. Dylan and Hayden tackle it head on, and the advice is genuinely useful whether you are in primary or secondary. Then burnout. Not the headline version where you suddenly collapse, but the quiet physical signs teachers often explain away for mon...

👉 Sign up today at www.storyzoo.org Chelsea and England centre-back Levi Colwill comes on the podcast — not to talk football, but to explain why he is personally funding free access to over 1000 ebooks for schools across the country. Levi launched his campaign with Storyzoo on World Book Day and hundreds of schools signed up within days. In this conversation he talks about his own on-and-off rela...

We are back answering listener questions on all things teaching! This week we cover residentials, TA exploitation and behaviour charts, amongs lots of other things! Book a free demo for MathsZoo now and see how we can help your school smash maths! www.mathszoo.org Join our free WhatsApp community for Q&A submissions, polls on future episodes & links to the podcast first: https://chat.whats...

With another unfunded pay rise on the horizon and school leaders saying they are running out of things to cut back on, are schools actually at breaking point now? Book a free demo for MathsZoo now and see how we can help your school smash maths! www.mathszoo.org Join our free WhatsApp community for Q&A submissions, polls on future episodes & links to the podcast first: https://chat.whatsap...

We are back answering listener questions. Influencers working with government, filming in school, favourite teachers and delivering CPD! Enjoy it! Book a free demo for MathsZoo now and see how we can help your school smash maths! www.mathszoo.orgJoin our free WhatsApp community for Q&A submissions, polls on future episodes & links to the podcast first: https://chat.whatsapp.com/HB7n1PNGdGL...