 Hello everyone, this is Ross at Teacher Talkit, the most influential blog on education in the UK. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Victoria Carr, but I've been told to say Vic, so that's what I'm going to do. Vic, could you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell everybody what you do? I'm Vic. I'm a headteacher of a primary school in the north west of England and also a British Army Reserve officer. Yeah, now that's interesting. Let's talk about that first because I follow you on Twitter and LinkedIn and I guess my brother's an XREF soldier and I guess my younger year is going to watch him. I forget what all the technical language is, but the boot camp and passing out and all those military parades. I loved it. So tell me about the kind of stuff that you do as a reserve? Well, I'm in the intelligence corps. So you can't tell me anything? Okay, not really, but it's really good. So recently in November I commissioned, which was quite the challenge. Anybody who knows anything about the army will know that you commission as an officer out of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, which was quite the challenge. I can tell you at my ripe old age, but I absolutely loved it. It was brilliant. The best experience and yeah, I learned a lot about myself doing that. Yeah. And I've read snippets, I think in your new book, which we'll talk about, how you were helping younger people and you were feeling a bit fearful and you helped them and all sorts of things. So tell us about some of the things are you allowed to tell us about some of the things you were asked to do? Yeah, I mean, the training's fairly standard. So anyone in the army gets trained to be an infant here in the first instance. So you have to learn, first of all, weapon handling drills. So how to strip a weapon and safely handle it, load it with a magazine, full magazine and so on. So we do all of that. And then when we were at Sandhurst, the next stage of that is how to actually use it. So conducting, I know, conducting section and platoon attacks. Wow. And all of that. So it's pretty, pretty physical stuff. So being a headteacher is a breeze there, isn't it, if you ever have to go to war? Well, to be honest with you, I didn't notice the difference between the two. Apart from the fact that you wear a uniform and run around in the rain, the leadership skills are pretty similar to a headteacher. So the day job really did help. So can I ask, would you ever be called up for something or anything? How does all that work? Yeah, so potentially you can be deployed, you can be, you know, actively working on local tasks as well as international tasks, depending on what you do. So obviously, I've got children and I work in a school. So some of my colleagues were working during the pandemic, which obviously was really important work. But my work at a school was really important work. So that obviously took precedence. But there's no reason why in the summer and then the holidays I can't do short term taskings, which is quite exciting. Wow, fascinating. And I, you know, I watch your social posts and I saw you going through the kind of new, you know, the thought process and the struggles and the ups and downs, and then the final picture where you graduated. So, you know, congratulations. Thank you. Could you tell us a little bit about your school, and then I'm going to rewind back to your childhood and stuff like that. And we'll do a little back catalogue, but give us a little bit context of your work in school today. Okay, so my school is one of the biggest schools in our area. Before I took over as head, it had a bit of a rocky few years, which meant that my job was very easy in a way. I just had to love it back to life and inject some enthusiasm and some stability. And sometimes that can be really easy to do. If that's just your natural disposition, then it becomes a pleasurable part of what you do. So although it took a lot of time and a lot of energy, just by being myself, you know, I've loved it back to life and I absolutely love working there. Would you an off-stead any day, please God? Of course, aren't we all? I just wish they would come for goodness sakes. But yeah, so would you an off-stead, I've been there almost four years, and I love it, absolutely love it. And it gives us how many teachers, how many kids, that type of stuff. Okay, so two slash three former entry. Again, the couple of years before I got there, there was a massive kind of exodus of children, about 60 children, which was quite kind of damaging for the school. But we are on the up, we're growing, even though we're still in an off-stead category, we are growing and growing and growing. And I've got now, well, my staff, I've got 90 plus staff at the moment. Right, wow. Big team, big team. Yeah, it's a big old primary, yeah. Yeah. Okay, right, let's rewind. So I guess we'll pick out bits of your book here, because it's a it's a deep book, isn't it? Let's start off with the book and then we'll thread it into some of the questions I've got for you. So give everyone a synopsis of your book. What's it about? Okay, so a lot of people will tell me things which are very sweet of them, like you're inspirational and I don't know how you do and things like that. And it makes me feel quite uncomfortable, because to me, I'm just fairly bog-standard single mum, you know, mum I've got two teenagers, happy to run a school and so on. So I wanted to try and distill what it is I do, so that other people can see it's easy to do. It's just a it's just a thing that you can all learn to do. So I wrote the book for Rootledge or Routledge. I'm not on the top of that. Routledge, yeah. Well, I say Routledge, it could be Rootledge, you know. Let's find out. I think it depends on where you're from, right? Yes, probably, yeah. So I wrote the book for them and it's due out later on this year, which is exciting for me, because if you'd have said to me a couple of years ago, you'll write a book and you'll be an army officer, I just, I would have… Yeah, and we're still on a working title last time we caught up. Yeah, so it's called Leading with Love, because I guess that kind of summarises what I do. And it kind of talks about some stuff, I'm trying to sit on my hands because I talk with my hands a lot, so I've sat on them for long enough now. Right. So basically, it talks about some of the experiences I've had as a head, as a human, as a mum, and how I've learned to be an OK leader, which is I think what I am, so, yeah. Right, well, let's unpick, let's ask you some tough questions, because I'll draw out some of the incredible stories inside the book. I think when I was going through it, just even the introduction was like crikey. Brilliant stuff. OK, describe your 16-year-old self. I know that's a big question for you already, but let's start with that. So my 16-year-old self, I was extremely sad. I'd lost a lot of weight. I played netball every night. I played a lot of sports in school. I went to a grammar school, really, really, really high-achieving grammar school. And my maths teacher, who happened to be my form teacher, who was a lovely guy called Mr. Robinson, he used to slide half a sandwich to me every day, because he could obviously see something was seriously wrong. And I guess he stopped me from having serious illness at that time. I wasn't starving myself. I was actually, there was a difficult situation at home. And yeah, so that's my 16-year-old self. So I didn't think I'd ever amount to anything. I just thought I needed to try and survive, which I did. Yeah, so that's great to hear. A question I always ask is, in terms of homework, did you hand it in on time, or were you a latecomer? So, you know, given the circumstances to hand it in on time, that's great. No, I was one of those quiet children, which I guess does affect the way I work. I was very quiet, very studious. Nobody would ever have known there was anything going on at home that I would find was sad. I just worked really hard and always had a smile for everyone and kind of hid everything, in fact. When I talked a little bit in my TED talk about my childhood, as some guys I went to college with who were just adorable, I love them to bits, one of them was Paul Healy. He contacted me and said, Vic, my goodness, when we were at uni, I never knew anything of that had happened. You were just always smiling and happy. And I think that's probably one of my big weaknesses, really, just kind of smiling it all away. Yeah, because I've had a very similar story, I think, to you. And I kept a particular story in my life quiet all through my university years and recently spoke about it and a lot of my old university contacts couldn't believe that you can just show you don't really know people, even if you can be best friends, because there's always something that we can... Well, it's context and what's going on in our heads, but I guess that speaking up's helpful for all of us. So, well done to you. If I could ask then, in those difficult circumstances, what happened 16 to 25, university phase, first job, what happened in that part of your life? A lot of luck, actually. I came across a lot of people who wanted to invest in me. And again, it's in the book and probably I've talked about it a lot, but I feel like I was really lucky and came across a lot of adults who saw some potential and wanted to just invest in me. So, I was signposted to various things. When I was a teenager, I was in the air cadets, so I was often doing lots of stuff with them. I was playing sports. I did the Duke of Edinburgh. And then I went to university and whilst at university, I met two guys who became my lifelong friends, which they are now, Johnny and Richard. And they kind of, Richard's an academic. He's very intelligent, existential thinker. And he gave me lots of kind of books to read, and he knew I was a reader, so I would just sink myself into these books. And I found myself healing from within, really. I know that sounds really kind of cliche, but I read these books. And because I was an academic type person, I kind of rationalized it all out in my head and realized that there was a different way to live and you could be a different person. That's not to say my confidence increased because it really didn't. But I think that's something I'm working on now. But I think definitely my ability to process things and understand what had happened to me and how I could help people, that happened because of them. So other adults investing in me, I think was really crucial. And when did the teacher conversation start for you? Well, again, this was about survival, really. So I knew that I was on my own and I needed to get a job. I didn't have the luxury of kind of going off traveling or anything like that because I didn't have a backup plan. So after I was at university, I did some outdoor work. My first degree was in outdoor and environmental science. So I did some outdoor work and thought, actually, I quite like kids. I'm pretty good at it. But in the back of my mind, perhaps subconsciously, was this whole thing that when I'd been at primary school, and again, it's boring for people who've heard it in the TED talk, but when I was at primary school, there was a teacher who just invested in me and said to my family, which was in disarray, this girl's got huge potential. And I think that narrative just began a whole direction of travel for me. And I guess in the back of my mind, I was always going to be in a job where I cared for other people. I've got three younger siblings who I loved a bit. And I've always kind of cared for and nurtured them. So it was all a natural progression when I was at uni, and that was it. But do you know what? I applied to be a teacher and I applied to join the RAF simultaneously because I lacked the courage to kind of... Yes. What was I going to do? I didn't have anyone backing me, and I was too weak to back myself. So I ended up being a teacher, but actually, I've spent 27 years thinking, I wonder what would have happened if I'd become a pilot in the RAF, a Chinook pilot. Well, all those thousands of kids' lives you've changed. Well, there is that. It's hard to compete with. Okay, so first job, roughly. What was your role? You're one teacher, what did you do? No, on my life. I worked in a middle school in Newcastle upon time. Best job ever. Best job, well, apart from this one, best job ever. And I taught year five maths, English, and science. And then I was key stage three, girl's PE teacher, which was just epic in this really big five-formantry school in Newcastle. And just had the best time ever. Did loads of residential and stuff. And then my last question then on the school things. When did the head teacher conversation start? By pure fluke, I think, when I was a... It seems to be like that for most people, doesn't it? Okay, so tell us, talk us through what happened. Worked for a nice guy, Neil LaFerve. He was head of a school. I was his deputy, worked with him. And yeah, he just backed me and said, you know, you could do this job and do a DMPQH. And yeah, so he supported that process. And that was it. And then, so how many years in headship now? 10, this is my second headship. I know, I can't tell. Look at this face. No, you could not tell. Wow, amazing. I'll have huge admiration for head teachers. Okay, let's get into the nitty gritty of the book. So it's still in draft. We could talk about the editorial process because we're both authors, I suppose. So there's all that headache. How did you start the process? Let's talk about the logistical side of things first, rather than the content. Somebody recommended that I do it. And I don't know where to begin. And so I kind of, again, fell into it and I thought I haven't got a clue. What could I talk about that people would be interested to hear? And I basically did a talk last January, not the one gone but the one before, for some students at Hope University. And they wanted to know about my career. So I said, listen, you're going to be bored. Everyone's bored to death of Zoom. So I'll just give you some in my long years. And I kind of summarized it into about 12 points, which I then tweeted later on. And then someone said to me, what you should do is expand on those and make them into a book. And so each of those points became a kind of blog-sized chunk. And that's the book, really, it's nice. Now you've thrashed it out with that. So is word count 60,000 words? Are we on? 100,000 words. Wow. Yeah, sounds like a lot, I know. So what's the current book challenge? We'll get into the content. But where are you currently at with the editing process? So it's gone. It's gone to the printers. It's gone today. God, that's quick. We were only chatting the other week about it. I know, yeah. So it went to them in January and I've had to ask them to delay it slightly because my daughter's not 18 until November and she wanted to give permission to be named in the book. So that kind of delayed the process a little. But actually it's fine because the book was written, you know, before. So we'll be printed for mid to late November, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Great. So we've got a title. We've got a cover yet? Yeah. All right. Okay. God, lots of things have happened since we last spoke a couple of weeks ago. Wow. You don't hang about. Right. So give me a kind of top to bottom teaser of what someone would learn from. And you have got loads to share, Vic. So don't be shy about this. What will they learn from your experiences in life throughout the book? I guess from a personal circumstance, but maybe as a teacher, I suppose, also in a mother? I think that none of us are perfect, no matter what you see on the surface. None of us are perfect. That we've all got our skeletons in the closet and our regrets and heartaches and difficulties and we're all the same. We're all just human trying to navigate this crazy thing that we call life. And if people stop trying to compare themselves to others and just became the best version of themselves, I know that, again, that sounds cliche, but genuinely, it's how I live my life. It's what I've learned in all the 47 years I've been alive. And through all the things I've survived, I think definitely that. And also some little tips, like how people often say, how do you manage to do this and this? Just time-saving tips and yeah. Right, so give us two or three. Go on, let's put you on the spot. Okay, so people say, how do you manage to exercise and everything else? So I live 10 kilometers or six miles in old money from my school. So anybody who runs will know that 10Ks are 10Ks and you can run 10K. So I might run to school or in the army, we call it tabbing. So I might go with weight and on I go, so I can get a tilt. Yeah, great. And then I thought to add to that, I could listen to after and listen to music, music's like my life. And what I decided to do was start to listen to audiobooks, which again is an anathema for me because I love actual, tangible books. Yeah, yeah, me too, yeah. So but I got into audiobooks last year and I've listened to some incredible stories on the way to work and back. And so yeah, multitasking. How do I know? Well, I know a good audiobook called Just Great Teaching. I can send you a copy if you want to. If you want to fail your 10K run. So yeah, that's just. Right, what's your email strategy? How do you delete your emails? What's your workload tip there? The action them or write down in my diary. So I often have a list in my diary. My diary is an absolute riot. I'm old school. I do all in paper. Oh, right. I know, right. All right. I do all in pencil and I put a line through the things I've done. So prioritize everything in that diary. And if it's in the diary, it gets done. And if not. So fingers crossed, you don't lose that diary. I know. Honestly, it's like. Fingers crossed. So we've got tips in there. We've got lots of kind of deep stories. We're both parents. Talk about some kind of parents situations that you shared in the book. So one of the things I share was when my son was at secondary school, my son's dyslexic. He's absolutely gorgeous boy. And he's 18 and a half now. And he's a real man's man. But when he was at school, he's very tall. And so he was in year eight and he was walking through school and was at the back of a bunch of boys who were pushing and shoving some year sevens. And I got a call from the head of year, long suffering, who said, yeah, your son's been involved in this. He's on detention. So I could have kind of said, you know, he didn't do that. I'm going to come in and, you know, read the right act to the school, which I would never do. And I don't advocate doing that either, by the way. And so instead, I talked to my son and I said, you know what this is? This is tough love. You're on detention. That's tough. And he said, well, I didn't do anything. I said, no, but you're with a group of people who did. So if you were an adult and everyone was pushing and shoving someone outside a pub and someone got injured, you'd be kind of part of that. And you'd be in trouble, like big trouble with the police. So let this be a lesson, a life lesson. If you don't want to be involved in being labeled like those other people, then just don't be with them. Don't hang out with them. And he was aggrieved at that at the start and then said, actually, fair point. So that's just one of the many... Yeah, one of thousands of parents. ...shamanigans. Well, my boy's going into secondary school in September. So you got any good tips? It's really weird going through school as a parent, even though you're a teacher. It's such a really fascinating side of the education system. And that biting your lips really tough, isn't it? It's really hard. So any tips? Transition tips, I'd be more than welcome to hear them. Take a deep breath. I think parenting is this massive rollercoaster ride. You think when you... Before you have a child, you think, I was very arrogant. I thought, yes, my child will never eat crisps on the carpet. And then you think, yeah, these like carpet picnic things go on. And I think, you know what you just... We're dealing with sofa surf, watching Chris moments, and now it's in the bed. So we need to move away from that. But it's probably going to get worse now as he gets towards 18. Okay, yeah, they are a blessing. And right. So let's move to mental health strategies. So we both and I, you and I, both had some trauma in our life, I suppose, and you talk about it in the book. And I think we all, like you said, we're not perfect. And we all have our demons and skeletons. And we all have our moments of a bit, you know, where we lack a bit of confidence. So I guess the question from a mental health perspective is what kind of strategies do you use to kind of raise your confidence or recognize when you're having a bad day? And what would you say to others? I know it's a big question, but any kind of resources or strategies you draw upon? Yeah, I think nowadays self-talk. And again, the flipping echo, I'm not an expert in this. What I do is work really hard on it with myself. So I can only say to you that I don't feel like I'm ever going to be finished with that. I feel like I never feel like I'm good enough. And that's something I can only say now at 47. And in the last couple of years, I've reached the point where I could say that. And part of that is obviously to do with all that stuff that goes on in your childhood. Part of it's to do with relationships that you have as an adult that go wrong. And you tell yourself the wrong thing. You make it about you. And you don't make it about the fact that it's two or three people involved in a circumstance or a situation that sometimes those things are beyond your control. So I think what I'm really good at now is talking myself through how my physical response is. So if my physical response is to run away and kind of close myself in to protect myself, then I might do that instantaneously. And then I really say to myself, okay, you're responding like this because of this. What you now need to do is do this. And you know, you felt like this before. And therefore you can name these feelings and their anxiety and it's okay to feel like that. But what you now must do is this. And it's kind of just, I get a narrative in my head. And once you've got your narrative, it's kind of just like this loop that goes through your mind when you have those responses. And I don't think we'll ever get away from the response. But hopefully my speed to respond and my ability to respond will become... Yeah, the more I've learned about memory, you can know that reward loop or the kind of how trauma might be, I guess, activated for want of a better word. It's a bit like that cognitive behaviour therapy without me being an expert in it, but you just have to learn and adapt. I guess the next thing I'd like to ask is how much of that blurs into your role as a head teacher, that confidence side. I know through my life in teaching, I learned a lot of personal things I could use from my life as a teacher, public speaking in front of a thousand kids in assembly, panicking for your life, but then rising above that and then using it in your personal life. How's that been for you? Well, I feel like one of the easiest things that I did when I became a head was just kind of align all parts of myself and think it's too much stress to try and be different people for different people. So better to just kind of live a life of integrity and where I make decisions based on ethical and moral beliefs of my own. And that way, no matter what happens, I know that I'm always in alignment. And again, that's to do with mental health. I don't have this kind of cognitive dissonance where I'm thinking, oh, you know, what should I say? I think, right, it's always about the children. So if it's about the children, this is a decision. And everybody knows that. All my senior team know it. My teachers know it. And in fact, a lot of our parents know it as well. So even when I'm have challenging conversations with people, they know that it comes from a place of this is about the best for the child, the best for the children. Yeah, it's interesting because I was on a chat with someone overseas just before we came online and we're having a chat about, I won't go into too much detail, but the total opposite of that, that the decisions being made by someone above and remotely was not in the interests of children, sadly. More in the interests of bullying and cutting back and redundancies. But that's the landscape we're living, isn't it, sadly? In all industries, not just in teaching. I do feel like for teachers, though, that is the thing as a head teacher, that's kind of the thing that's being pushed down on us. So we're kind of pushing against that from above. And trying to protect people below. So in between is us, which is why I think so many heads leave because they're being squished by that narrative from above. But below, they see the need and what the majority of people, certainly the majority of heads I know, want to do is provide for the need rather than kind of do that horrible stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I'm just drawing a little doodle, actually. Such a fascinating summary and an accurate summary of the pressures that our school leaders are under, isn't it, that you've got people in front of you with livelihoods and careers and children with lack of alternative provision and the diminishing budget. And you've got all this nonsense policy-making decisions being spouted up and high. I think I said that yesterday. I think I said it on Twitter. Well, I put out a tweet yesterday and I do it once a year. You know, what are the biggest education problems right now? And I just get inundated with the tweet. And then I turn it into a blog. And I'm going to compare last year's to this year, particularly with the pandemic. I suspect all the responses are the same. But what I've noticed is the SCN provisions become tougher, tougher for people. And I think with the mental health crisis that we've had through the pandemic, it's only going to get worse. Right, let me switch and come back to the kind of practicalities that have been ahead. Now, you'll know workload drives us all mad. What do you think is the biggest pressure for teachers? Well, there's not one, I know that, but, you know, today pandemic, as we're emerging out, what are the things that drive your teachers mad the most? I think, I think there are a few, if I'm honest with you. So in my school, if I'm honest with you, I think it's, you know, we're ready for after to come in and visit us. So they want to, my staff want to share and showcase the work they've done. And they know they've only got a limited amount of time to do that. So they gather bits and pieces, you know, and it's important to them to be able to do that. So I think in the back of that and being conscious all the time that someone's going to come and ask them as a subject leader about this, that and the other, they're gathering the evidence for that conversation rather than just knowing that it happens. I know it happens. I know the children are doing it because I see it every day. But if you've only got a few minutes to kind of celebrate this with Ofsted because you want them to write something positive about you, then automatically you're self motivated to gather that stuff. So you've got asking it and wanting to assess children's work and share it with them and drive the learning forward. You've got planning. And again, that's, that's it's the teaching equivalent of a high stakes summer exam, isn't it, that you've got to perform on the day. And if you forget the answer, your intent is not clear. And if it's not on paper and I can't see it or I can't hear you say it, then it's a requires improvement, isn't it? Exactly. And I think the vulnerability in a school like ours with its history, you know, is that there's a chance that, you know, it's had two R.I. judgments, one before I got there, a terrible two years following that. And then I took over and we managed to drag it back up to R.I., which was great, absolutely brilliant. You know, we've got a good for leadership and an R.I. for overall. But, you know, that's three years ago and that's, you know, we've had two years of pandemic in between. So this idea that we'll have enough information about the curriculum. Yeah, it's tough. It's definitely tough, isn't it? And when you see it, you'll know what I think about Ofsted, but when you see all the data play out online and how schools in your category can often fall by the sword or not, and that vulnerability, it's, it can, that can significantly drive everyone's workload, can't it? Yeah, and children's behavior, you know, the support networks for children, you know, I have a full-time Sanker who's amazing, by the way, and a full-time learning support mentor. They're just incredible people and they spend all of their time scrapping it out, trying to get funding and challenging decisions about funding and trying to support parents who are struggling with this idea that their child has additional needs and having all the tricky conversations with staff around strategies that could be tried and staff really being quite anxious about am I doing the best for these children and then those children affecting the learning of other children, you can appreciate for teachers, this is the everyday, this is the reality of what they do, never mind the fact that they've just spent two years, you know, trying to do that and also teach online simultaneously for people who may not have been in or also if they were ill, trying to do that so, you know, I think it's quite complex. Vic, can I ask, you know, in terms, you know, the context, you know, you work in the world, so for people listening who are not familiar, that's kind of the northwest of England, near Liverpool, your area, you know, what are local head teachers telling you, same messages? Yeah, yeah, so my good friend who's been a head teacher now about 30 years, he says he's never ever known it in all the years, he's never known it, he's ready to retire obviously and he said he's never ever known it to be this way, to be this bad, you know, he said to me, I'm so sorry for you, you've got another 10 years left and I couldn't do it, I don't know how you stay so positive. And I think a lot of people are leaving, you know, I see it on Twitter, a lot of the kind of the networks that we have are quite fed up. And, you know, let's change the mood a little bit. What have been some of the successes that you're teaching staff and your school have done through this difficult period? Well, standby, because there's a company called Commander Joes. Yes, I know Commander Joes, they're great. Do you, do you know Mike? They're so cool, really good teachers. Yeah, yeah, they're very good, yeah. So my school, and it will be launched on the 6th, the week beginning the 6th of June, my school have worked with Mike to create some brand new materials, so some missions for every year group, curriculum based and so on. So that's really exciting. Yeah, they're very good, yeah. We've also done lots of things to help other schools, so I've done lots of kind of Zoom meetings to help new head teachers who might have taken over school but as finance issues, because we have that, that we are schools half a million in debt when I took over, so help them with that. So yeah, one of the things is the Commander Joes, but we've done all kinds of other really cool stuff, so. Yeah, good. Well, I look forward to those resources coming out and seeing the social stuff. Right, I'm going to bring things to close, I suppose, but I'm going to just, I like to do it, you're old enough like me, you can remember Timmy Mallet where you get loads of, I've written lots of notes and I'm going to just fire loads of questions at you and you can't pause or hesitate and I can't bang you on the head, but let's just start off with some easy ones and I'll try and get a bit tricky as we go through. So let's start easy, what is on your head teacher desk today? What's your project? Flipping it, my project is my most recent Master's dissertation which is causing me a headache. And it's your third MA, isn't it? Yeah. There you go, listen to that, folks. Right, what physical book are you reading at the moment? I've got it here, it's called Future Leadership. Yeah, it's called Future Leadership. Okay, great. What's the audible book? Jacob Morgan. Here you go, here you go. I'll show you. Okay, let's see. You'll have to say it out loud for listeners on the podcast, but people watch it. Future leaders. The future leader, Jacob Morgan. And Scram is the audio book which is about the helicopters in the Falklands. Great, and what's the tune that gets you to the 10K finishing line when you're exhausted? What's that bit of music that picks you up? Oh my word, I've got a shuffle thing. Is it Bee Gees or anything a little classic like that? No, do you know who it is at the moment? It's Kings of Leon. Oh right, brilliant, Kings of Leon, fantastic. Okay, finish this sentence. If I were Education Secretary of State, I would. Get rid of off-stead and sats. There you go. What would be your piece of advice for a teacher wanting to do an MA? Compartmentalize your time really effectively and don't challenge yourself with anything too difficult for your dissertation. Make it about something that you do every day. There you go. Now, last night, I'm sure you did. Let me just check. Did you watch the Queen's Jubilee on the telly last night? I watched it a little bit this morning when I was ironing at five o'clock. Now the guys all took their hats off and they did a military headdress off or something. There's two words they use and to put it... I thought it was brilliant. Could you give me a military drill for everyone? We don't have to follow it, but just how would you do it as a Sergeant Major and which one's your favorite? A military drill. What do you mean like... Like present arms or one that we're not familiar with? Um, I would... The one that makes me laugh the most is make safe. Right, and what do you do with that? What is that one? So make safe is a full unload and then a full load of your weapon system. Oh, right, make safe. Make safe. Right, and it's a two word and then you have to do probably five or six physical movements or something ridiculous. A lot, a lot. So as I say, it's a full unload and then a full load. Right, brilliant. If I came to the Whirl and we had 24 hours together, what would we do? Where would we go? What would we eat? What would be the local sites to see? Okay, so I would take you, Ross, on the ferry across the Mersey. We go to Liverpool. Oh, yes, brilliant. We would see the museums and go around the docks, the Albert Dock, which is just lovely. Maybe you can have a look at the live buildings. We would go up to, I think it's the 30 odd, 13th odd floor. There's a lovely restaurant and like a bar up there. I can't remember what it's called, but somebody will definitely tell you on this. And we'd have a look out over the sky in Liverpool. We'd have a nice few cocktails and so on. Maybe go to the gin and the whiskey bar and then next day we'd have breakfast at the... No teaching. No, no, no, no. Refreshment rooms, breakfast. Run into my school, meet all of my lovely kids, with the dog, meet the dog, meet all the lovely kids and stuff. And then I might treat you to an ice cream at Parkgate, which is a bit of a bit of a nature. Right, that's it. Let's sort out a date. There you go. Okay, right. Give me your TED Talk summary in 30 seconds. The power of what we say is absolutely vital. Every single word you say to someone can make a difference to their lives. There you go. Even quicker. Your netball position. Goalkeeper, goal defense. Okay. How... You mentioned earlier that you had a series of luck. Now, whether it was accidental or you had a certain method, have you got any strategies or was it just a series of just life circumstances? I think... I'm always nice to people. Well, there you go. That's a tip in itself, isn't it? Because some people don't like being nice. How do I... A new teacher who's thinking, oh, outdoor education, science sounds like something I'd like to get into? What would be your advice? University of Cumbria does a brilliant course. I'm one of their little helpers, I add on helpers up there. And some of their students come down and work in our school. It's actually a brilliant place. It's located in Ambleside in the Lake District. What better place to learn about it? Yeah, brilliant. Top tip for a teacher, teaching a dyslexic child. If you have a dyslexia-friendly classroom, then your classroom is friendly for all children. Don't tell them they're stupid. Don't make them feel stupid. Be patient. Oh, man. Let's see. Biggest career achievement to date? Helping a young army soldier, years ago, before he was even in the army, to achieve his maths GCSE and English GCSE, he had nothing. And then I taught him for a year. He's my massive success story. Daniel must be shut up. Okay, well done. Now, dream job, wacky career. If you weren't in the army or head teacher, what would it be? I'd be a landscape photographer. Teaching people how to take photos on the Isle of Skye or the Isle of Arran in the west coast of Scotland. The favourite place is fantastic. Who would you recommend to interview next and why? Oh, my word. Well, I would say censored head, but he won't come on because he wants to keep his thing up. Yes. I don't know, I mean, see, yeah. Yeah, I'd say Kirsty Stubbs. Firstly, she's absolutely gorgeous and stunning. Kirsty Stubbs, okay. Yeah, she's so fab. And like me, she's got lots of tattoos. When you said interesting fact earlier on, I was like, interesting fact, what's interesting about me? I don't know. I don't know. Couldn't think of anything. I was thinking. Right, give us a tattoo. What have you got? I've got loads. I've got an anchor. I've got a big angel, a guardian angel. I've got a butterfly, big butterfly. Right. And you've got another one in the pipeline. Thinking about it. Thinking about it. See, I've managed to avoid them my whole life, but I've got a secret fetish for them. And I think if I ended up getting one, they'd be like my gardener. Since I've moved to Yorkshire, I've got addicted to gardening and I can't stop buying plugs. I think if I got a tattoo, I'd end up covering my arms. So I'm trying to avoid it. Okay, where can listeners read your book, find out more about you, connect with you on Twitter or Insta. What would they do? Okay. So Twitter, it's happyhead74. Yeah, happyhead74. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. I think that's just my name. I'm on Instagram, but I can't remember what it is. I think it's vixters. Right, we'll dig it out. Yeah. And what's the flavour on the channel? So I get your professional side on LinkedIn and I get that on Twitter also, but we get a mixture of the rants and the honesty as well. Do we get something different on Instagram? Well, mainly photos, mainly landscape photos. Oh, there you go. There's a new career calling, isn't there? Well, if there was money in it, if I could pay my mortgage, I might be tempted. Hey, there's money in everything. I've come to learn in my life. There's a way. Okay, so I'm going to catch up with Kirsty at some point if I can. My last question, Vic, is what would you hope to be your legacy? I would like people to say, when I'm a very old lady and I pop my clogs, that I enhance their lives, that their lives are made better because I was in it. There you go. What a lovely way to finish. And the book, we've got a publication date? November. But I guess it'll be on social media between November. Let's say the end of November, and then that's when everyone can grab a title. So we'll give that a plug too. Right, Vic, it's been great to catch up with you again. I can't believe how quickly your book has moved on since we last spoke. So I suspect if I catch up in a couple of weeks, you'll have got a fourth MA or something. No, I've got to get this one done. Yeah, right. If I'm in the world, I'll give you a shout and we can go for that ice cream. Absolutely. Right, thank you for your time and all the amazing work that you do and all the inspiring life that you're changing. Keep it up. Thank you. Bye for now.