What are the most unpopular opinions teachers and school staff really hold? Hayden and Dylan work through your submissions on homework, shared planning, AI lesson tools, screens in the classroom, teacher workload and whether teaching is actually as hard as people say.

This week on Teach Sleep Repeat, we dig into the hot takes you sent in on Facebook and Instagram. First, we sort the genuinely unpopular opinions from the ones everyone secretly agrees with. Then the debate gets going. Do pre-made resources and AI lesson planners risk de-skilling new teachers, and where should the line be for ECTs and trainees? Should primary schools set no homework at all, and does reading at home even count as homework?

One listener argued that teaching is easier than other public services like nursing, policing and firefighting. We explain why we find that framing condescending, and why getting a five-year-old to really understand fractions is harder than it looks. We also ask whether workload differs between secondary subjects and why Year 6 so often carries the SATs pressure. A former head of computing makes the case for less technology in classrooms, which leads us to tech-free Fridays, problem-solving Fridays and what actually makes a good lesson. We finish with high-attainers and special needs, and whether senior leaders should rotate back into the classroom so they don't lose touch.

It's honest, funny and occasionally heated, so it's perfect for any primary school teacher who has an opinion they've never dared say in the staffroom.

In this episode:

- Unpopular opinions that aren't actually unpopular

- Shared resources, AI planning tools and the risk of de-skilling new teachers

- Should primary schools set no homework?

- "Teaching isn't as hard as people claim": our response

- Workload differences between subjects and the pressure on Year 6

- Less technology in classrooms and the problem with tech-free Fridays

- Gifted and talented pupils: is high intelligence a special need?

- Should senior leadership rotate back into the classroom?

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow Teach Sleep Repeat, leave us a rating and share it with a teacher friend. Send us your unpopular opinions too, because we'll be back with more!

Welcome back, valued listeners & watchers!

In today's episode, we go through your listener submissions for the craziest, most ridiculous, daft, waste-of-time whole school policies you've ever seen.

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More schools than ever are taking two weeks off in October, so where does the extra week come from? Dylan explains how his old school swapped INSET days for twilights, why it can cut term-time holidays, and Hayden asks the obvious question about day one safeguarding training.

Then it's your school trip stories, and you sent thousands. A Year 3 child leaves a trail through the British Museum and a teacher ends up in Primark buying emergency trousers. An NQT counts 60 kids into the wrong museum. A head teacher puts on gloves to search a sick bucket for a retainer. Two Year 7s lick their way round a botanical garden and end up in A&E.

Along the way: when you can actually say no to the toilet on a trip, watching England v Brazil on a coach in 2002, how classes derail lessons on purpose, and why real children's authors might be fed up with celebrity picture books.

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It’s nearly the end of Term 1, which means the first parents’ evening of the year, usually when you’re shattered and losing your voice. Dylan and Hayden talk about why it’s still worth doing, what parents actually want to hear (whether their child is happy, not fronted adverbials), and whether teachers should be stricter about keeping to time. Then a quick-fire round: online or in person, one long night or two, 5, 10 or 15 minute slots, chasing no-shows, and whether the child should sit in.

In the second half we read out your most unhinged parents’ evening stories. There’s the parent who called a Welsh teacher a nationalist for saying Wales has a capital city, an MFL teacher insulted as a “Europhile”, a parent who doesn’t believe in detention, a five-minute rant aimed at the wrong teacher, and Marjorie, who says hello even though she’s no longer with us. Along the way there’s a row about whether mediums are a con, and Hayden still can’t get over the Nectar card incident.

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Hayden plans the episode this week, which means you get a game. He opens with a bedtime story about his nearly-three-year-old that ends with the question no parent wants to hear: “Dad, where am I going to put my bogey?” Then Blind Rank is back by listener request. Dylan has to rank playground duty, parents’ evening, teaching art, the staffroom and one more mystery job without knowing what’s coming next. He gets badly stitched up at number one.

Next, Dylan drove past two primary schools on the way to the new office and counted more than a dozen parents vaping on the school run. Is that just normal now? The boys get into what kids pick up from it, vaping in secondary toilets, the generational smoking ban and whether it’s a nanny state, and vapes made to look like highlighters.

In the Q&A, a listener asks what you’d buy if you had to stock a brand new school with maths resources from scratch. Dienes, Cuisenaire rods, multilink cubes, real clock faces, plenty of 3D shapes, and the place value sliders you should never pay for. That turns into a proper conversation about using CPA flexibly and the links in maths that actually make a difference.

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Hayden is back after one whole week of paternity leave, with a 10-day-old son called Albie (who Dylan has already renamed Albatross). We talk about how much calmer you are second time round, which parenting "rules" turn out not to matter and which ones really do, then get properly stuck into why children are so gross: snot bubbles in Reception, the Year 6 residential room nobody wants to open on day three, and a crisp eaten straight out of the bin.

Then your questions. One listener's school has put a twilight, a parents evening and an open evening in the same week. Is that unreasonable? Short answer: yes. We get into directed time, why an open evening should replace something rather than just be added on, and whether teaching really is harder than other jobs. Plus, after our Bridget Phillipson interview, would new Education Secretary Lucy Powell ever come on the show? Lucy, the invite is open.

🐘 Free Maths Zoo arithmetic worksheet generator: tools.mathszoo.app

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Once a year we ask you for your school's biggest red flags, and once a year you absolutely bury us. Nearly a thousand comments on Facebook alone, so we've pulled out the worst of them and gone through them one by one.

A memo banning anyone below SLT from drinking ground coffee, after a colleague was caught with a filter mug. A member of leadership asking a teacher if she knew what "professional" meant. A skirts-only school that told an NQT to leave the interview there and then if she'd rather wear trousers. An open plan school with no staff room and hot desking, which sets Dylan off on private schools, class sizes and what the people with actual money choose to do. Staples that had to match the backing paper, coloured in with permanent pen. A fire alarm set off to stop a lunchtime union meeting. Five compulsory parent phone calls a week, logged in three places, because nobody wants to pay for an attendance officer. A suit jacket rule enforced on a woman eight months pregnant. Being told to call the children "clients". And a school where teachers weren't allowed a sip of water in front of a class.

Somewhere in the middle of it Hayden runs a riled-up meter on Dylan and gets him from a two to a nine, and there's some baby news too. Fair warning, the language gets away from us on this one.

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England has just landed in the world's top ten for reading, maths and science. Good news, surely? Dylan and Hayden are not so sure, because the same PISA results show reading ability falling off a cliff worldwide, and the countries where children use AI the most are falling behind the fastest.

Here's the article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgy6n0l4rdo

First, though, it is episode one from the new office, complete with a slight echo and a metal works next door. Dylan is fresh off a sleeper train to Edinburgh (think bunk beds, a shower that doubles as the toilet, and a mate who is six foot three), and he has some explaining to do about that Scottish teacher pay post that got a few people worked up.

Then two listener questions. With AI able to manipulate images, should schools stop publishing pupil photos altogether? And which subject did each of them love teaching far more than they expected? Hayden's answer says a lot about what league tables miss. Dylan's ends up in a confession about marking writing without actually reading it.

Honest, a bit echoey, and back in business.

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