 canon. I'll ever n Poppy's is wros a teacher to get the most influential blog on education in the UK today I'm delighted to be joined by a highly used high is a former teacher studying for her doctorate and is deeply fascinated by mentor which I think is the focus of you doctorate Haley, am I correct? Sort of, yeah I mean I'm fascinated by a lot of things. That's my problem. Mogw erdwyd mewn gwahanol am yma'n allanoddau ac rwy'n meddwl gydag ystafell mewn gwahyd. Rwy'n ni'n ei ddweud, mae'n gweithio yn ddod yn ei ddweud. Rydyn ni'n gofynol peth gydag ymlaen i chi'n gweithio'r ffordd o'r ffordd i'r ysgol, i'r ddweud i chi'n gallu'n gweithio i chi'n gweithio i chi? Rydyn ni'n gweithio i chi, mae'n gweithio ar gyfer yma, iddyn ni'n gweithio i chi gydag ymlaen, So, rydw i'n amlwg yw y cyfnodd yng nghymru nesaf yng Nghymru. Nid yw'n gweithio'r bywysi'r ysgol yw'r cyfeirio. Rhaid i'n cael eu rhan o'r reiffa o'r cyfnodd o'r cyfnodd i'r gweithio yw'r cyfnodd yma yng nghymru. Rydw i'n credu yng Nghymru ar y mae'r ystafell ar 8 o'r gwrthod, ac yn fwy o'r hollidau. Rydw i'n credu ti'n credu. drwch, yma, hon. Mi'n gweld froch i chi ddechrau i chi gynnig yn dod i hynny ymweld 1989 yma. Felly, rydyn ni'n meddwl i'w ystafell, rydych chi'n ei ffordd sy'n gweld y peddwl y penderfyn, mae'n gallu gweithio'r ffordd. A rydyn ni'n dwi'n meddwl i gynnig ein morol, ac osai unrhyw ei ddweudio, ac yn dweud lle leiaf o'n gweithgredig ardano ymyrch chi'n meddwl. Onw'n weithio muntyll, ac eu gweld yr hynny'n meddwl i'n meddwl arlog mwyfynion? I signed up to train to teach, and 15 years later, and I've only just left the classroom this July, I had various different roles in a school, like most people who work in a school for 15 years. Middle leader, senior leader, looked after mentoring in schools, and teaching and learning, all sorts of different hats really, and I left in July, because increasingly after writing my books, Mae'n fawr i'n gwybod ychydig. Rydyn ni'n dod i'r gweithio yng Ngwunedd, a rydyn ni'n ddod i'r Gwlaethau, i'r gwahau i'r stafff, i'n ddiweddio gwrtho'r gwneud o'r drwsgwyl, ac yn ddod i'n trefio i'r labai o'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio, rydyn ni'n ddod i'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. I leave in the classroom. I now am head of education at Iris Connect, which I adore. I get to do research and CPD all day. I love Iris. I'm a senior lecturer at the University of Sunderland as well, so I spearhead them entering alongside my doctorate and trying desperately to finish the two books that I have due to publishers. I'm writing all this down. I'm just right. I've nearly filled half the page. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I do a lot. Yeah, I don't sleep. So, I mean, I recognise that journey of like being passionate about your subject, school leader, helping other teachers, getting really into a particular topic, writing about it, publishing a book, which is a great opportunity in its own right. But then other people asking for you to come in and share your wisdom and then that being a battle because you're fixed at a full-time employment time to, and I guess over time that becomes a real challenge, doesn't it? What's your doctorate in then mentoring? It's a standard kind of doctorate in education, but I'm looking at teacher identity of experienced teachers. So, one of my great passions as an educationalist is experienced teachers. I think very often there's a lot of research, a lot of support put in for early career teachers, but us chips off the old block who've been around the block a few times, you know, we don't really get a look in. So, all three of the books that I've done are aimed at experienced practitioners and that is a real passion of mine. Right, so I'll come back to that because I'm very interested in that too. So, a question I always ask, you know, just to kind of get to know people is, could you describe your 16-year-old self for me and listeners, please? Oh, God. What do you like at school? Oh, a nightmare, complete enough to nightmare. Didn't like authority, thought I was cleverer than the teachers, anarchist completely. Right. Yeah, and was not much different as a teacher, to be honest. Oh, okay. Did you get yourself in trouble? Sometimes, yeah, I learned to harness it, you know, as I got older and realised that actually no one practitioner is bigger than a school and I think that was a hard lesson that I had to learn, but I still don't like the rules. You know, I think I throw out the rule book a lot as a teacher, you know, I'm sat here talking to you today, Ross, with half black, half white hair, lots of tattoos. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool, yeah. So, can I dig it a bit deeper? Where do you think that kind of energy comes from to have that kind of devil in you, Jean? My mother, I think. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, my mum, I had me when she was 16, very young, and I remember being at the school gates waiting for her on a daily basis at school as a very small child and her turning up with different hair colour pretty much every week. You know, she was a new romantic back in the 80s and she's always been somebody really who doesn't like to conform and likes to break stereotypes. So, I've got a question for you then, you know, if I think back to my, you know, my, one of my first NQT roles or early teacher roles in the 90s was in a Catholic school in Tottenham and at the time I wasn't wearing a tie and it was very traditional and all those like, and the deputy head used to always come once a week. Ross, have you thought about wearing a tie? All those types of things. Now, a tie in the grand scheme of things is low end to teachers with tattoos and piercings and God knows what else, that some schools may not advocate. So, my question is, what tips do you have for teachers who may not fit the traditional stereotype of that squeaky clean suit type appearance, you know, skirt and whatever else. I'm falling into stereotypes here. That traditional view of a teacher, people that don't fit that mould, what would be your advice? Find your home because there is one. You know, there's many, many, many heads, some of whom I connect with on Twitter on a daily basis, who actually see past the superficial things like that about teachers and they look at their pedagogy and the relationships and the difference that they make to students and I feel quite actually lucky. I don't whether that's the right word because it almost sounds like, you know, I've done something wrong by being alternative, but I do feel really lucky that I've worked for two heads, well, three actually in my career and all three of them, you know, I've never asked me to cover my dress very smart as a teacher every single day, but I don't wear suits. It's not me. It's not part of my personality and I think if you're not being your authentic self in a school, we spend so long there that you will be found out. Yeah, well, I think there's a good doctoral question here. What impact does wearing a tie have on educational outcomes? We're so fixated by outcomes, aren't we? I think we need to do some kind of control trial or something on it, maybe. So just, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you know, I know that some schools out there that it's a very rigid discipline with appearance, isn't it? Yeah. So just before we move forward, go back to kind of your career. Can you give us a kind of, you know, for people listening to this, maybe outside the UK, your career's been in the northwest of England? Yes, in teaching, yes, northwest, yeah. And then in secondary schools, English teaching, middle leader, senior leader, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, yeah, correct. Any particular highlights, you know, fond memories? Many. A lot of them in my, I worked with a particularly incredible head in my first school who retired when I left the school and, you know, just really being given opportunities to shine, to lead things quite early on in my career, and having that professional trust was really beneficial to me. I need somebody there who is going to give me the space to, you know, stretch my wings as well. Sure. And if I just talk about the reasons why you left, now I think I've got a kind of similar story. It's partly the workload from the other things that you're doing outside of your full-time employment, as well as, you know, as you develop a degree of expertise and we'll come to the experience teacher part in a moment, that you develop a degree of wisdom, you repeat it every year. I know my wife felt like this after 17, 18 years of teaching, you know, the academic year becomes a very repetitive over time, the things that you do. My question I want to ask is, were there any negative things that might have made you leave, for example, the workload or the pandemic, or was it all for great positive reasons? Because for me it was a bit of both. Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. I think, like all teachers who were on the front line, so to speak, during the pandemic, it definitely changed my perspective on things like work-life balance. I think I've always been somebody who's been quite practical about work-life balance and realised that actually it doesn't exist in teaching. You know, we've essentially got to strive for a managed disequilibrium of sometimes, you know, family will come first, sometimes school will. And, you know, I'm lucky that my husband works in education, albeit in a university, so understands the demands that are on me. So there was a little bit of that, I suppose, but mostly it was the constraints in a school. I think schools are still run the way that they were, you know, 100 years ago. And I think there isn't the opportunities for experienced teachers who don't necessarily want to be on SLT than there should be. I think that's changing. I think with the ITT market review and the introduction of these lead mentor roles and other, you know, MPQLTD, for example, there are going to be those roles for experienced teachers who don't want to be SLT but want to be involved in teaching and learning and develop others. And sadly, I left at a time when that just isn't really, those roles don't really exist. Yeah, I mean, even for me, I wanted to be a part-time deputy head in a special measure of school. And, you know, that male ego, all those types of things just wasn't entertained. Okay, let's move forward. So when you took the jump, was it, I'm assuming that because you worked in another industry, it wasn't so scary. For me, I started teaching when I was 19. So it was all I ever knew. So it was a real scary leap of faith. What was that process like for you, making your resignation, going, you know, taking that leap full time? Yeah, I mean, it was scary a little bit because even though I've been a journalist before I was a teacher, you know, the vast majority of my working life now has been in the classroom. So it was a little bit scary. And I wondered whether I was, you know, the whole grass is always greener myth, you know, whether I was going to hate it. And, you know, I loved my colleagues that I worked with. My department was incredible. And, you know, I'm still very good friends with all of them. So yeah, it was just a massive, massive leap. And it's been a huge transition. I've actually found the transition to HE more difficult than I ever could have imagined that it would be to be quite honest. And what reason for that? Just the terminology, the way of working, the different level of rigor or? Yeah, lots of different reasons. I don't think it's the level of rigor, because I don't think things can be more rigorous than in a secondary school or a primary school, to be honest, without, you know, QA, et cetera. It's been more like, you know, in Pierre Bourdieu writes about the university, doesn't he? And like the academic kind of conventions that people live by. And I just felt like a fish out of water, I guess. You know, I didn't understand any of the acronyms, you know, and I work at distance as well, which I should add. So I work at the University of Sunderland and live on the Lancashire Yorkshire border. So it's even harder to do those things like turning somebody in an office and saying, what on earth is this acronym? I can't do that. So, you know, it's been, it's been a lot of different challenges. And I guess you also had a few feelers that you could take a leap of faith because of your books or people asking you to do speaking events. I guess those in the, you know, if people weren't asking you to do those things, you wouldn't know if you could take that. I guess the income leap, isn't it, to leave a regular salary. You know, before we came online, I suppose we'd just say it for the benefit of listeners that, you know, when you work for yourself, every pound matters, you have to work. And you said that you're working right up to Christmas Eve. It would be your only day off perhaps over the break. And, you know, the freedom comes with its challenges in a different respect, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, you're absolutely right. It had got to probably May. And I had, you know, 40 bookings or something that I was being asked to do. And I just thought I can't do this. So, I knew the appetite was there. I'm definitely not somebody who's going to rest on my laurels because I think, you know, that the bookings aren't going to last forever on this one book. To do this, you know, for me, it's from my fifth year or something like that now. But to do it at the start of a pandemic or in the middle of the pandemic, it's a real difficult one. And what lessons have you learned? You know, how is it going, you know, of the ups and downs that, you know, that self-employment type former teacher role? There'll be a lot of people who listen to this that are considering it or people that are already doing it and just want to bounce ideas because it can be quite a lonely business, quite solo, and there's a little network of us, I suppose. So, what have been the highs and lows so far in the last six months? I think the highs have been getting the chance to travel around the country and go into different schools and meet teachers from all different kind of levels of experience and to learn so much from them because I absolutely believe that when I come into a school, I'm not stood there as an expert. I'm stood there as somebody who has got an opinion about something and I've got a big enough gob to shout about it essentially. But I've learned so much from interactions with other colleagues, so that's definitely the highlight. I think that the points have been not having that day-to-day interaction with teenagers that I normally have. I've got my own teenager at home who actually goes to my old school that I left in July and he just grunts at me, so it's not quite the same. And also not having colleagues, so even though I have amazing colleagues at Iris Connect and at Sunderland, we're connecting on a digital basis and it's not quite the same. I wonder if there's an idea for us to think about creating a little network of education consultants of some kind because the ZESL teacher that I created years ago and there's other potential things. But I've thought for a while now that there needs to be a little network for us all to come together, share ideas, processes, protocols, ups and downs. Anyway, we'll part that one for now, but that's an idea. So the ups and downs, the usual things are through the pandemic. My next question is what kind of things have you been asked to do? All sorts. So from working kind of in a small collaborative group of four or five team members in a school, literally panning out their whole mentoring provision to going into schools and providing an academic lecture for year 11 students on Romeo and Juliet. So huge difference. Yeah, so I guess you've got that English expertise as well as your mentoring passion. Now, what kind of things have you learned from visiting lots of different institutions? You get that lovely radar to go and see different places and you see how some of your ideas work in some places. Some are well received, some go down like a lead balloon. What kind of things have you picked up? I think I've picked up that teachers are very tired and that, you know, when you go into a school, it's not about going in with this kind of panacea or if this is going to change your lives. It's about trying to make it relevant for their context and listening to what their needs are. I think, you know, Mark and Zoe ends his brilliant book about CPD spelled it out for me about how CPD needs to be tailored, it needs to be bespoke. And I think going in with a one size fits all and expecting everybody to just lap it up is not going to work. And I think I've learned over the last kind of three or four months of doing this that actually being questioned by people, having to win hearts and minds is actually part of the process. And I think, you know, I enjoy it now and I was scared of it when I first asked it. Yeah, well, it's like that. It's a one off supply day experience for you. You've got to build relationships very quickly, gain a bit of trust, get that feedback in the rooms. Pretty much what teachers do day in, day out, I suppose, but doing it as a one off gig is quite a big, big tough ask. So I want to switch to mentoring. Before I do, let's just quash or get some definitions. What's coaching? What's mentoring in your opinion? What's the difference? I knew you were going to ask me this. So traditionally, I think mentoring has been an expert or somebody more expert working with a novice, you know, guiding them. Then that will result as they become more experienced at becoming a reflective practitioner that will result in them being able to lead their own practice a little bit more. I think coaching for me is more about people who are more on of an equal footing. That might be in, you know, two colleagues working together where there is no hierarchy, where it's very much two people passing ideas, having that professional dialogue and giving suggestions and steering your own development. And you've written a couple of books on mentoring. So could you talk about maybe your first book, you know, what was the particular focus? Yes, so I mean, it's one book on mentoring at the moment. I've got another one due with Crown House after Christmas that I'm woefully behind on. But yes, so I wrote mentoring in schools and this came from my, I was asked by Professor Sam Twisselton to come to a DFE round table that she was looking at on the core content framework. And I just found it really interesting and my heart sang a little at the emphasis on how important and vital mentoring is for early career teachers. So I thought, do you know what, there's a book here. So I wrote the book and it's aligned to the early career framework. So it's very technical, it's very of the moment. And essentially it sets out, it's broken down into sort of behind each of the sections of the early career framework to the teacher standards. It's broken down to the research that underpins the framework. And then there's case studies. I did some qualitative research with about 100 new teachers that was online like this on the phone met some face to face. So it's got their experience in and then it's got practical strategies bridging the gap between that theory and practice of actually what mentors can do to go away and help. Nice. So like I said, a book very timely at the moment. And I guess that maybe I'm wrong. Did it form a large part of your work at the moment or at least your passion? Yeah, very much so. So the mentoring, obviously it's very, as you say, very timely, very topical. And a lot of what I'm being asked to come in in schools about is about mentoring. Some is about disadvantaged pupils. I come from a background of disadvantage and have written quite a lot about that in the press. And I also talk about teacher well being quite a lot as well of experienced teachers. Sure. And what about your preserving positivity book? Yes. Give people listening a summary. You talk about the mindset and have a positive attitude as a teacher employee. Is that the perspective? Yeah, essentially. I mean, it's a very honest book. I'm a very honest person. I'm not going to go in with flowers and chocolates and go isn't teaching wonderful because sometimes it's bloody awful. And, you know, the whole point of preserving positivity is that it's told from the point of view of somebody who probably would have left four or five times because of particular toxic things that had happened in my career. And I did and I moved schools. I wrote it out. I found other things to fulfil me. And that's what it's about. Again, it's looking at the reasons why people leave the profession at case studies of practical things that have worked and tangible ways that people can make a difference. I mean, you know, this was written when I was in the classroom. I do feel a bit of a charlatan now I've left the classroom. However, I probably will go back to the classroom at some stage, but I just had to take this opportunity now. Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, I did 20 plus years or so. And I remember often as a blogger, you know, a lot of people externally shouting lots of ideas and it's frustrating if you're on the front line or those types of things. And now I'm on the other side. I do try my best to support and challenge from the within, particularly during a pandemic. It's really tricky. Yes. But I kind of look back and hindsight some of my views are probably a bit narrow. And it's a personal thing more than anything that there are people outside of the classroom that can contribute and support schools. And like you said, as we said earlier, there's a whole industry of people working outside of full time school life that do a huge service to ensure school success. So, yeah, it's a very interesting point you make about, you know, how perhaps just moving to a different school can unleash your mojo again. Is that what happened to you? Yeah, I mean, I was being bullied actually, which I talk about in the book and I've written about in the press as well. I was being bullied by a member of SLT who was quite McEvellian. And, you know, he made my life hell essentially and made me feel like I was a Welsh teacher. So, you know, I had to move for my own self-preservation. What surprises me about education, you know, any sector I suppose, but within education where we work with children, there are people bullying colleagues in our skills and it's a sad indictment that, you know, we're human nature and these things will be evident everywhere. But, yeah, that's why I published a book called Toxic Skills with Dr Helen Woodley a few years ago now, just trying to lift the carpet on this toxic culture that exists in some schools. Could I ask one more question on that topic highly? Do you think it was an individual thing or do you think it was a cultural thing that was allowed to kind of breathe in that school or was it just an individual personality that took a dislike to you? It was an individual personality, but he did it to a lot of different people and actually it was accepted because that was just the way he was. And many people ended up leaving the school because of it and actually this person was asked to leave eventually. So, you know, but it took years. I mean, I dread it. Yeah, and a lot of casualties along the way. Okay, so then I guess we move on to that experience. You know, you've got that person's experience as a bully and then you've got your own experience and then we kind of move towards your doctorate research. So give us a little kind of synopsis as to why this has become your focus, you know, you know, doing it part-time at what institution, et cetera. Just give us a whistle-stop tour of where you're at. Yeah, so I met Glasgow, the University of Glasgow. I chose that because of its reputation, essentially. And I am in year four, so I'm supposed to be doing my dissertation as we speak. I've got about a year and a half left to do it. You're on a podcast for me instead of writing it. I'll be honest with you, Ross. I haven't really read anything since September. So, you know, changing careers completely. I've been doing myself. Honestly, like my supervisor is going to kill me the next time I see him. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Yeah, I agree, like totally. I think the first three years at Glasgow were taught, so that was much easier because I had specific deadlines I had to work to, but now it's like, you're in year four. You're on your own. Good luck. Yeah, it's hard. I mean, I haven't been to Cambridge for two years physically since the pandemic, and it kills me to say it, but all the seminars and lectures have been virtual. I'm just not motivated to turn up to any of them because we're all zoomed out, I suppose. I think it's also a degree of independence when you're at that level. You've just got to crack on with it, so you check and we supervise, et cetera. I think also the pandemic for me, you know, working solo, chasing the pounds doesn't give you much time to focus on research, which is something that you do as a kind of byproduct or interest, et cetera. So, on that note, giving some tips because I know that I've been struggling with this personally. How have you narrowed your focus? Well, I knew that I wanted to do something about experienced teachers, and I really like the writing of Pierre Bourdieu, so particularly on kind of habitus and field rather than specifically kind of cultural capital, which seems to be a lot of what people talk about when it comes to the ideas behind Bourdieu, but obviously they're all enmeshed anyway, and I got the opportunity because of a global pandemic to look at experienced teacher identity through the COVID-19 pandemic. I just thought it was a really interesting dynamic that a lot of the things that we take for granted as teachers, like in the interaction with students, all of those things that are in the field of the school that are in our habitus as a teacher are now taken away, and I wanted to know what effects that had on experienced teachers understand. So, how do you define experience after a number of years of service or an age? Yeah, I think five years plus, because the DFE define early career teachers as before five years. Okay, so you're at a stage where you're kind of writing your final pitch, so to speak? No, I've done that. Yeah, I'm now on the literature review, and then I'll be putting my ethics. I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing. Yeah, next year is ethics in January, and then studying in summer, probably. Right, well, you're a bit ahead of me, because I've really struggled to narrow it down, but I think I'm on the theme of corpus linguistics, which is large bodies of text. Yeah, it's new territory. I'm not a social scientist, I'm a DT teacher, but I've now got a focus of corpus linguistics, looking at the sentiment analysis of the text. So there's a great paper published last year by Dr Sam Sims and Christian Bocov. I think I tweeted it about a month ago. They gathered the text mining language of 17,000 Oxford reports, which was fascinating, but you may have seen on my Twitter feed where I've been putting little social network maps. So my plan is, and this is the challenge to narrow it, is when Ofsted publish a blog or a document, what's the corpus linguistics aspects of it, but what's the sentiment analysis, and then when people talk about it online, what are they saying, how does that conversation spread? That's so interesting. And what I'm really fascinated is what does Hailey or Ross say on Twitter about this publication that later leads to a change in policy or an Ofsted later announcement. So it's a tricky one to unpick, but I'm confident I've observed it on Twitter for myself for the last 15 years or so, so I'd like to put it on paper, but that's my current challenge and focus. So yeah, it's really interesting. So I know it's early days for you, but what are the kind of things that are emerging from the things that you're unpicking? I think that a lot of experienced teachers missed those informal chats with colleagues, because those in themselves are a form of teacher development. So, you know, I remember from my own experience, if I was teaching a text, I might stop a colleague while we're having a brew in the staff room and say, how are you approaching this particular aspect of this, you know, or what about this student, or how would you do this? You know, it's all of those things. I think as well, the identity of putting your smart clothes on every day, of coming to school, of acting out this role as a role model really around students and not having that and instead those boundaries being broken and students being able to see into your homes, to meet your pets, you know, to have children in the background. And I think those professional boundaries that we put up as a teacher because of that standard one about setting my expectations, you know, I think those were broken and a lot of experienced teachers who'd been in the classroom for a long time found that quite difficult to deal with. I know that I battled with the real Ross and the teacher Ross at school. And as you get a bit older, you get a bit more comfortable about being yourself and you can get a bit more covered about letting people into your personal circumstances. And I think that when you become a school leader, it comes a bit harder because you have to also, although there's not any clear written rules, there is over time that comes a bit of a clear separation between the general staff body and the leadership team. And that's also an interesting dynamic. So the experienced teachers have you broken this down into, you know, the kind of middle leaders and school leaders so you can get a sense of different bits of data. Yes, I intend to, yes. So when I put my proposal in, that was one of the things that I intended because I think, as you say, having experienced being a senior leader myself, one of the things I found the hardest to deal with actually was going into a staff room and people stopping talking. And I think that says it all really, there is going to be a differencing in their perspectives. So, yeah, can I pin you down for an estimate, publicate? Well, do you know what? To be honest, if I pass my vibe or I think I would be crying with happiness, so I have no plans to publish it at the moment. However, maybe I'll get a book out of it, who knows? A couple of years or something, yeah. Okay. Now, we haven't talked about iris. I love iris. So, what was the head of education role contain? What kind of things are you doing? So, I'm developing new content for the platform. We've got this really exciting launch in January where we're launching an instructional coaching pathway, a reflective pathway and also something called the practice exchange, which is essentially bite-sized theory, CPD, four teachers so they can steer their own development and also video exemplifications of those strategies in action. Fantastic. I've always wanted iris to marry the chartered college or someone like that so that I have a professional Facebook of video footage and certificates so that when I connect with Haile as a head teacher, I can let you see my portfolio of car crash lessons, reflections and brilliant and it's there and we've got the technology to do this rather than this notion that I have to go to an interview, teach a fake class of kids that I don't know in an abstract environment and no one really gets the true sense of how good or I am or would I fit into the school etc. So, can you pass that one to iris for me again that we need to try and marry up with someone and get this technology available. They have it in Scotland and they have it in Wales, we don't have it in England sadly. I think I need to arrange a meeting with you with our CEO Andy Newell because I think you'd love it. I've posed that to Andy a few years ago so send him a little nudge. I will. Let's see if we can work out something. Right, my next question then is so tell me what you're doing at Sunderland. So, I started out as an English PGCE lecturer. I'm still doing a little bit of that. I'm doing subject studies because obviously I'm very recently come out of the classroom so it's good for the student to have that input but I'm now a lecturer in professional development so I'm working on the master's course, some coaching and mentoring qualifications and really kind of spearheading a guess Sunderland mentoring provision. So, you're juggling loads of bulls. A lot, yeah. I mean I've got very understanding employers so Andy Newell has been amazing with me going into schools and speaking. As long as I get my deadlines done and my work done it's very flexible. So, you're doing all these different things in a kind of self-employed capacity so you can juggle different hats and choose your work that meets deadlines or yeah. I'm sure there's some formal agreements in there but I think what I'm trying to say is you've got such an interesting range of stuff going on. You're no doubt you're busy but it's super exciting at the same time. Yeah, I mean it's amazing. I mean I'm employed Iris and I'm employed at Sunderland and then I do the speaking self-employed so it's a bit of an odd situation really. So, I'll give you one last big question and I'll start to wrap up a little bit. You know given that you took that leap of faith to go out and now you've got all these different things going on and some will be brilliant, some might go a little wavy up and down kind of mood. Where was the original intention of stepping out in terms of what pathway did you hope to pursue? I guess the question is where do you see yourself in the two or three years time in terms of this self-employment and you also mentioned going back to school at some point. Yeah, I mean in the short term in the next five years it'd be great to become the director of education at Iris maybe. Who knows? I've got to prove myself a little bit. There's a plug for people listening. Are you listening? But yeah and you know I'm very happy to carry on working in teach training in some capacity. I'm not sure whether that's in HE or whether that's in somewhere like Teach First or somewhere that's more of a teaching school hub but I do like having a foot in both camps. I do you know in five years plus who knows it'd be great to go and work for a trust perhaps doing mentoring across the trust or some kind of teaching and learning. Maybe Johnny Utley who I would love to work with at some point so there you go. There's another plug Johnny for listening. He knows I'm always mithering him. Now there's a word of not over a while but I've heard it lots since I moved up north. Mithering. So for people listening elsewhere in the UK and outside the UK what does mithering mean? It means bothering. And how do you spell it? And how do you spell it? It's like mothering with an eye but yeah it's bothering. Annoying somebody. Annoying somebody. Right now I probably know the answer to this but what's your synopsis of COVID for teachers? You know workload, headaches. So that's initial synopsis and what are your hopes? Yeah I mean I think it's just been an absolute nightmare for teachers to be quite honest. I don't know how they've carried on because in July I was on my knees and by all intents and purposes from listening to colleagues on the ground being worse this afternoon in many ways. So I think it's just been awful for them and they're complete and utter champions. They deserve every accolade going. My hopes I guess are that there is more respect in the media for teachers after this. More respect from parents. I think that's happened a little bit because certainly when I was still at school last year some parents said to me oh my god I realise how hard work they are now and the stuff you've got to do and how difficult it is. Because teaching isn't an easy job and I think teachers deserve the same respect you know as any other front line worker. What would be your advice to your young journalist self? Don't do what they're asking you to do. Get out. There's more to life. Have you ever, did you ever write a headline that you regretted? Oh many many many. I mean they usually always had some kind of awful pun in definitely. Yeah so there you go right so highly you know if you're people listening will know that now we've gone through a bit of deep meaningful I'm going to pose loads of quick fire questions I'm sure you without offending the old enough to remember mallets mallets and things like that. And I don't have a virtual hammer to hang in the head but I'm going to pose loads of questions away and I don't want your white to be succinct and not pause or hesitate if that's possible so we'll start easy. Now you're jugging lots of hats but so what project are you working on on your desk today? I'm doing my book my next book which is a critical theory book yeah. Great and what books are you reading? I am reading The Beginner's Guide to Cooperative Learning. I have a copy there which I've just been sent by Crown House and was lucky enough to write a testimonial for. Fantastic. Finish the sentence if I was Secretary of State for Education I would. Oh my god I don't think I want to say. I would give to teachers an extra week off. An extra week off now that would be well received maybe not so for parents. Okay piece of advice for a teacher wanting to get deeper into research or maybe want to start a doctorate. I think just go for it you'll think I can't do this how am I going to do it but you just make it work. Okay your favourite tattoo on yourself? I think my latest one which is my fingers and it says life is a cabaret. Okay nice. Can you show us that again on the camera? Beautiful. And any regrets tattoo one that you wish you hadn't got is there any? Yeah I've got Morrissey on my arm and he's turned into an absolute muppet so yeah that's pretty pretty distressing. So there you go now if you're not doing your dream job now what was that off the wall career that you wanted to have you know growing up that you never did? I'd love to be a librarian if it paid more. How would you? Well there you go. Piece of advice for any anarchy teachers out there? Be subversive so do what you've got to do not smile but you know be subversive. Be subversive. What are you most proud of your biggest career achievement? Probably working in a special measure school for seven years and it was really tough but I know I made a difference to those students. There you go. Now you mentioned earlier in our chats as CPD. What are your favourite tips for having little conversations day to day to boost morale for yourself or for other colleagues? What's your piece of advice? I think tell somebody how good they are at something. I don't think we do that enough and every single colleague that we work with is brilliant at something in the classroom and I think it's about making people more aware of that and the fact that we appreciate them. Great little tips. If I've been to Diggle where you live, if I came over to Diggle for 24 hours what would we do? Where would we go to have a drink? What's there to see? Oh well Diggle my goodness me you know it's a hive of activity. Well I'd take you to Diggle Chippie for their famous ragpudding so we'd have ragpudding chips and gravy. We'd sit by the duck pond and we'd feed our scraps to the ducks maybe go for a walk to grandpa greens for ice cream afterwards. Sounds very relaxing. Who would you recommend I interview next and why? Because I'd love to dig out my recording. I think someone recommended you. I'll need to dig out who it was but who would you recommend? I would recommend that you interview Professor Rachel Lofthouse. Because I think there's a lot of talk at the moment about what instructional coaching is and isn't and I think Rachel's got some really interesting perspectives on it as someone who works with Jim Nygf. Now I was going to ask you that question what is instructional coaching I don't know if I put my cynical hat on but what and your definition what is it? It depends what definition you're looking for because there's many. Maybe that's Rachel. Okay I'll chase Rachel down. Work in listeners find out more about you you know online links blogs I know you've got a blog The Ink Teacher which is fascinating is that something you regularly update? It's not I need to do it more that's going to be my new year's resolution I think to update my blog more. So yeah The Ink Scholar is my blog I'm quite active on Twitter probably not as active as I used to be because I just have no time with jobs etc at the moment. But yeah so it's a place to find me and my books are all on Amazon and WH Smith etc. So there you go. Hi I've got one more question what would you hope to be your legacy? I just hope that I've made some challenging students who hate Shakespeare and hate English not hate it as much mostly and also that I've given alternative teens who were a bit like me who you know see nobody in front of them who looks like them who's a role model the opportunity to know that you don't have to dumb down your light to shine. What a lovely little expression so highly thank you it's been lovely to connect and lovely to pick your brains and I wish you all the best with all the different exciting things that you've juggled and particularly doctorate I'm going to look forward to that when you get something published and yeah in this now I'm living up your way in a pandemic world hoping to catch up soon physically. That'll be amazing yeah thank you. So thanks for your time Hayley. Bye for now.