023 - Pit Pony Lee Springett - Classroom to Barnardos Project Manager

In todays episode of The Pit Pony Podcast, we sit down with Lee Springett, a former secondary school teacher who made the leap from the classroom into the charity sector. After 12 years in teaching, Lee didn’t leave because of burnout or a critical incident - he left because of a gut feeling and a reflective process that changed his perspective on what the next 20 years could look like.

Lee takes us through the creation of his “list of non-negotiables,” his year-long exit strategy, and the 75 applications that ultimately landed him a fulfilling role as a Project Manager for Barnardo’s. We explore the challenges of leadership in education, the disconnect between training and real-world application, and the pivotal moments that inspired Lee to prioritise family and work-life balance.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone contemplating a career change, searching for purpose, or wondering if the grass really is greener on the other side.

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Edited with finesse by our Podcast Super Producer, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Pit Pony podcast with myself, Sharon Cawley, and me, Sara Dunwood, in which we talk to teachers from all walks of life who exited the classroom from what they thought was a job for life and thrived on the other side of teaching. Coming up in this episode… It never really felt real. It felt like a dream, like a lot of my life has possibly.

It felt like I was somebody else sleepwalking through, and like in a coma, and that moment, with all its imperfections, depending on what you think perfect is, felt real. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pit Pony podcast. We've got a great one, an interesting one today. 

I think people will be riveted by this particular story and some of the ideas that are going to come out of it. We have got Lee Springett. Great guy, really, really great guy, who taught for 12 years.

Only came out in January 2024, so he's a newly emerged Pit Pony that we have. 12 years, four years in his first secondary school, eight years in his last one. No critical incident, no particular burnout, not typical of an exit in many ways with Lee, which is why I found it particularly fascinating. 

But Lee could see things happening around him, and he made a list. It's fascinating. He makes this list of what was happening, and it was almost like a list of non-negotiables. 

So some real reflection going on at the time. And when that list wasn't changing or getting any better, Lee left. After 12 years as a secondary teacher, he left. 

So welcome, Lee. And can you tell us, what are you doing today? Hi, Sharon. So great to be here. 

So yeah, I am now a project manager for the digital data and technology team at the children's charity, Barnardo's. Beautiful. And that's why I think this is going to be a cracker, because the charity sector is something that many of our Pit Ponies naturally want to gravitate towards, particularly for that sense of purpose, because we are fundamentally the good guys.

So Lee, okey-dokey, talk our listeners through this thought process that you were going through towards the end of your career in teaching. What was happening at the time, and what was going on in your head? Yeah, so it really sort of kicked off in the academic year, sort of 2023. So around the time, back in 2023, I was doing some work for an awarding body as well as my school role, and an opportunity arose there. 

And I found myself applying for it without really much thought. And I didn't secure that particular role, but it definitely made me stop and think, there must have been a reason why I decided to apply for this role. What's changed all of a sudden? And so, what I then started to do is to sort of look and reflect what was going on, and what I was doing in my school roles, in terms of as a head of department, but also doing some additional work wide around the school in terms of sort of improvement projects and staff well-being initiatives. 

And while they felt worth and purposeful, I could start to see, like you said, things starting to change more and more in terms of the direction things were going. I think, as you mentioned, Sherwood, I wasn't necessarily in a school that was unsupportive. I had an incredibly supportive leadership team in my school and the colleagues around me.

But even with that layer that I know is not something a lot of the listeners and people in the forum experienced, or are experiencing, there were still other things going on that were starting to make me think, actually, is this something I want to do for another 20, 25 years? Because when I started to look at where my journey might go if I wanted to progress in my career, what would that look like? Or even if I was content in what I was doing, am I content enough that I would carry on doing that for another 20 to 25 years? And it was that time where this concept of, you know, I started just keeping that sort of mental list of the things that were happening around me and where I could see things were moving, that I started moving towards that realization that actually it was time to find my way out. And that took me up until sort of the summer of 2023. And that was really when I started to sort of reflect more and decide and think about what was next for me.

Okay, so that's quite unusual to hear that, that there's almost like this contemplation going on around, without being in a real pain point, that you're taking a step back and you're looking. Can you try and quantify or go into a bit more detail what was happening around you that was causing this discomfort that said, this isn't me for the next 20 years? Yeah, so I think the first thing was when I started to reflect more on myself. And like I said, there must've been a reason why I made that initial application. 

And I really thought about the things that I enjoyed about my role and what I wanted to experience more of, which was the supporting of my colleagues and their development and their wellbeing, as well as our students. And when I looked at what that opportunity looked like beyond what I was doing already, the only direction of charity for me was to be looking towards working in a multi-academy trust type set up. The school I was at wasn't, it was a single academy, but I could see that ultimately that was a direction of travel for most schools and essentially where we may end up, or as I said, for myself and able to progress, that's where I'd need to go. 

And it wasn't something I was comfortable doing, I think. And again, it's my very own personal opinion, but I'm not a strong believer in the current setup and experiences around those trusts. And I say that without being in one, it's more for my reflection on knowing colleagues that are in those trusts and working in those.

And it didn't feel right to me that that would be the area I'd move into if I wanted to continue doing the things that I enjoyed, but on a larger scale. Alongside that, I also had the opportunity to partake in one of the new MPQ qualifications that were initiated and I was part of that first wave through those. And I joined those and the idea behind them was to continue that development around leadership training and leading development. 

But I found the content of that to be almost patronizing in a way. And in terms of talking about that direction of travel and where education was, it was very much that a lot of the stuff we were being taught was very similar in terms of how we were educating our students, the same pedagogy we were using to train or to teach our students. We were being told this is the way that we train and engage with our colleagues. 

It's knowledge over experience. It's using all the same tools, the same pedagogy, the old metacognitive and all that language. Where with my background, prior to coming into teaching, my background was in HR, staff development and business, which was where my degree was. 

I could see that actually that's the direction of travel that education's moving to in these qualifications. That's what we're saying to the next wave of leaders in schools. It was that and I say that the situation around really being able to explore that more would involve moving out into those trusts were the two main sort of drivers that really pushed me towards thinking, do I need to look outside of education and start thinking about it? Like a lot of people experience sort of changes in our students post-pandemic and it was still noticeable. 

Again, I was in a very supportive school. We were in a very strong leadership in my school, but even we could see those changes in those students and that they're shifting views and understanding about what education was to them and what it meant to them as young adults in a lot of cases. It was those type of things that were sort of coming together and made me feel, actually, I don't want to do what I'm just doing now for another 20, 25 years, but to do it, to expand on that and to grow me and to be able to experience maybe the things I want to would mean moving into something I wasn't comfortable with.

I think you've touched on something that we talk around without actually going into great depth. We talk about senior leadership teams all the time, SLT, and very often we work really hard in our group not to do generic SLT bashing, but fundamentally when we talk to pit ponies who are exiting, it has been poor leadership that has resulted in the majority of the problems. Now, I'm going to come across to Sarah here. 

Sarah was SLT for 15 years. I'm probably taking a punt there, but Sarah worked with many head teachers and was on leadership. We don't talk about what good leadership looks like in schools, do we? And Lee has, just for me, hit on something. 

We've already got a problem in some schools and what programmes are coming forward to create great leaderships within schools. Sarah, what are your thoughts on that? I did my MPQH in 2009. So, was that 16, 15 years ago? It might actually have been a little bit earlier than that, but it was early doors for MPQH and what Lee's articulated in terms of I've written kind of culture of leadership down and I don't know whether that really captures it, but there was a sense even early on with MPQH as being the required qualification to go and be a head teacher that it was good, but it was quite generic. 

It was a one-size-fits-all approach to skilling up the next generation of leaders. And I think if you were in a school as I was at the time with an exceptional head teacher and an exceptional deputy, and I was part of three assistant heads, I got the amplification and the reality from having great leadership around me. But I think for people who just did the course and saw it exactly as it was taught without some wider context, without the model of I'm using good leadership as a catch-all phrase, then if that's not been modelled for them in reality, then we end up with leaders who know the theory, but aren't necessarily able to translate that into the reality of working with a thousand children and a body of staff that's a hundred people. 

And I don't know what the newer MPQs are like, but for me the big thing that's missing with a lot of leadership in schools are from our experiences of talking to group members and people who we've helped, is the absence of understanding of the frameworks that leadership still has to sit under in terms of law, HR law, employment law, all of that sort of stuff. And I think it's a podcast in and of itself, the conversation about leadership, because what is a good leader for me might be somebody very different for somebody else. I am sure that there are people who worked under the person that I perceive to be an exceptional leader, who probably hated their guts. 

It's personal and it's based on experience, but I think there are some common traits with poor leadership that are rooted in an absence of knowledge in its practical application to people and how you manage, because there's a difference between management and leadership for me. And there's just been a big disconnect for me over the past 10 years in terms of what's happening in schools. Yeah, and I think I Pit up on most of the points you said, Sarah, I think that really sort of resonated with that experience I had. 

And I came into education sort of early doors to academies and the view of what academies were about. So prior, even before we moved to multi-academy trust, this vision of bringing more funding to the school, allowing schools that autonomy to how they use that money and how they engage with that money. And we saw that quick movement of people moving up the chain into positions very quickly. 

We saw that money, again, a lot of personal experience sort of absorbed very quickly into other areas. We saw people maybe moving into positions exactly like you said, they were very effective, maybe as class practitioners or as head of departments, being moved into legal positions, like you said, in terms of understanding of employment laws and things. And that is the big fall down. 

And we read that time and time again in the group about situations you sit there, you just think as someone who's come from the private sector previously, that doesn't even pass any form of legal wrangles here. And yeah, so it resonated a lot with what you said. And again, that kind of goes back towards my journey because I knew my head, my fantastic head. 

And like I said, I was an incredibly supportive school. They were an incredibly passionate, almost what you might want to call your old school head now. I'm sad that we have to say that, but it was, but she also did understand the legal ramification. 

She was an effective leader. She understand the power of people and engaging with people, but she knew her responsibilities of her role, but I knew she was leaving. So it was another thing on the list because there was that unknown of what was coming next. 

But now I definitely share and feel my own experience seeing that journey because obviously I was, to be fair, I was in education a short time compared to some people, but I was there in that early doors of academies that then evolved into maths and then it evolved into, okay, we need all these new heads. So we need all these executive heads. So we need these principals and things and how people are moved around into those positions.

And again, they may not have had the understanding of what that role really needed to entail from a, from a legal or a governance standpoint. It's, it's that for me, it's the, when you see people moving into leadership, you use the word responsibilities. And I think what is not writ large and is not supported through ongoing development and training is, is the reality of those, those very real HR type legal responsibilities because the focus is on teaching, learning results, the, the, the practicalities of what's happening with children rather than the adults that sit around them. 

And then what you do with that is when you've got this and I'll use the expression toxic leader, toxic leadership, I then deal with the fallout of that kind of behaviour because if you're working within a school and you are a classroom teacher, a TA, a head of department, and you've got a leader who's already running a school through a culture of fear. And then I speak to people from the group each night who come on and tell me a set of circumstances in their school and I'll go, but they can't do that. It's illegal.

I'm sorry, you've got rights. So you have a leadership team who don't know whether or not they're doing the right thing. You then have a teacher who's too frightened when they're sat with their HR rights, their employment law rights to really combat what's happening.

They might touch unlucky and have a union rep with no teeth, which then feeds back up to that leader that they're okay to do that. So it becomes this cycle of pain for teachers within schools. And that's why they leave because everything that's going on has imploded because there's a lack of leadership at the helm of that organisation. 

And the irony is not lost on me that the academy trust process, the process of academisation is often touted as turning schools into businesses. But in reality it does, but it doesn't translate everything that is happening in businesses into what is happening in school. So it's kind of like the perfect storm of it's right and it's wrong. 

And it's the important bit that's missing. And contentiously, it might be for people to see the way I've looked at the direction of travel of multiple academy trusts is you've only got to look at the NHS. Again, it's a personal opinion, but you look at the state of the NHS and the structure and the historical and what happens there when they started to go down trusts, privatised, allocating funds for private management by individuals and groups and trusts, for example. 

And you see where that has ended or where that is. And you think, well, you can see that direction of travel almost. But what you've also got, Lee, then layered on top of that, is you've got a talent pool. 

You've got a talent pool within your school. And you started this conversation off with the poor quality of personal development. You only have to listen to some of the previous podcasts with teachers who were burnt out or teachers who could see what was coming over the hill. 

They have gone on to other organisations that have been structured correctly, that have got good staff development, that have got good staff training programmes, and they are flourishing within a different environment. And I think that's part of the major problem that we have. We've got some absolutely amazing and talented individuals who are hemorrhaging out of the most important job in the world, in my opinion, which is shaping and moulding and teaching young people. 

And we're losing talent. That's what hurts me. Yeah, 100% agree with that. 

And you say we are losing incredible talent. And, you know, to be a teacher, you need a professional qualification. You are level five to seven educated, or someone like myself was postgraduate educated. 

So beyond my degree, I am a professional. I should be treated as a professional. I should be developed as a professional.

I should be seen as a professional. So no, definitely align with everything you say there, Sharon. You also noticed a sea change in pupils' attitudes. 

COVID was a big determiner in many teachers' decisions to leave. We'd got children who were struggling. There'd been an attitudinal change. 

So changing pupils' attitudes, you could see what was happening for you personally. So did you just hand your resignation in and hope for the best? Or did you apply for, did you set yourself up before you left? What was your exit strategy to move you from the business world into the educational world, into the world you are now? So it was actually about a 12-month process. So it was that end of that summer, so sort of July-August time.

So when it started to come, I needed to make that change. And I was having a conversation with my wife, and it was very clear that something had to change, both what I was seeing in my personal life and obviously the changes that I was seeing in terms of education and where I might fit into that. It then became that process of applications and interviews and offers.

I think the first thing I did that was most important was to think about the things I would want to do and I could do for the next number of years. I still believe in a career for life. I know it's not really a thing these days, but I still like to think that if I could find something that I engage and I love, that I can do that to be happy and satisfied and content, then that's what I wanted. 

So it weren't a case of anything that came along that paid the bills for me. It was about finding something that made me more content as well. So I looked at areas of learning and development, project management, staff development, those type of areas, the things that really sort of drove me. 

And also, again, did look at the education, charity sector and areas where there is the opportunity still to be doing something towards young people in those areas. So I started by thinking of those sort of things that interested me. I then started to do the usual things we see our members, the groups do. 

So drafting CVs and cover letters, sort of civil service applications. There was a few opportunities there. A lot of that really helped with the educating of my own understanding of the process because there was so much support from so many people in the groups now around the civil service process and how that worked and the scoring and so many people willing to sort of share how they had got on with that.

And there was a number of roles at that point advertised that were of interest for myself really and did align with what I was thinking of doing. I actually ended up doing 75-ish applications. I sort of kept a bit of a tracker going that went down to 15 interviews across a number of charities and the public sector. 

So civil service, Pited up a couple of offers, but nothing really landed on the financial model of things. And then it was around about, it's going to be about July last year really, where I got called back for an interview with Barnardo's that I'd applied for as a program officer. And the role itself was at my bottom line, sort of done the calculations, what was our bottom line. 

I still needed to be able to provide for our family. My wife worked as well, but it was, you know, I still had my contribution and however incredibly supportive she's been through the whole process. Ultimately, we obviously still had some responsibilities. 

We've got two young sons. So the role I applied for was sort of at the lower end of what would work for us, but it allowed me to make that exit. And it was quite obvious from the early conversations I was having with this person that kind of wanted to do a bit of a pre-phone interview with me. 

She was asking me a lot more about the sort of things I've been doing, the things I've been leading on around staff development and the staff improvement and sort of projects more I've been delivering on than more necessarily my sort of day-to-day role. And then I was asked and invited back to a couple more interviews with various heads popping up on these interviews. They're all online. 

And again, the questions were very much more driven around how I sort of delivered on things, how I led on things, how I planned and prioritized things, how I worked with colleagues that were, you know, they were doing other things that had other priorities, essentially the teachers, but we're also asking them to be involved in other projects and things, how I engaged with parents and students and people outside of the school and engaged with those and brought those into the things and the work I was doing, how we understood our young people and how I engaged and worked with them and helped them meet their goals and what they were trying to learn. And ultimately, it came back with a phone call from the recruiter who the line manager was recruiting for the role. And she sort of said, you know, thank you for interviewing. 

It was really good hearing from you. And I thought, well, that's funny for them to ring. Normally, it's the email saying thanks, but no thanks.

And she said, I just don't understand the money when I know what you're on at the moment. And I obviously explained to her that, you know, the pension's different. There'd be remote work, so I'd be saving on fuels, those type of discussions. 

And I've done my bottom line, I know financially, because she was obviously worried about that I wouldn't be able to sustain that job financially, so I'd have to look elsewhere again. I said, so it really, really isn't about that. And she sort of went, I think you're going to be bored doing this role.

I don't want to offer you this role. You will be bored in this role very quickly. I want to offer you the next role up, which was a project manager role. 

And so it was incredibly nice to hear, but I'd also been debating whether how much of a line management and responsibilities I wanted going forward, if that had been maybe a contributing factor in the past. So I asked them to sort of share the information with me about the role and what it entailed, the job description, job specification. And I shared that with a couple of colleagues, friends I've got, who are project managers. 

I reached out to another friend of ours who works remotely with family at home and to understand how that all works as a life in terms of having children and how it works with school holidays and travel when you need to go away and things like that. And they both came back and said, you know, the job description, they're not trying to catch you out on anything here. It's very reasonable. 

You know, you make it work, school holidays, you make work, you use your holiday calculations, you get smart with your your days off and things. And so I accepted the job. And so I got the job offered to me last September. 

I literally had our end of year, we had our data sort of analysis review meeting with my head the following day. And it was at the end of that meeting that I was able to sort of explain to the head that I'd been offered a position that I've taken and I'd be finishing at Christmas and the head was nothing more than supportive of me. She knew I had been interviewing for other things, we'd have discussions. 

And to be fair, I had a really, really positive experience. So again, that exit out for me was quite positive. So it never got to the point where I had to just not be in education for me. 

It wasn't far off at some points. And I think my wife might look at that different to what I do actually say, actually, I think you might be in closer than you think. But at the same time, I also knew where my responsibilities were with my family and what I needed to do. 

So it had to be that more sort of drawn out process. But yeah, so it was about a 12 month process in the end. And I think what I want to just Pit up on, just that you alluded to, because I'm going to tease you out emotionally.

You talked about, you know, you've got this thing coming over the horizon, you weren't burnt out, but I don't think you were the person you wanted to be within the home, within your life as a friend, as a dad. What was life like out of school? You're not burnt out, you're not working 80 hour weeks and that kind of thing. But who were you at home when you were a teacher? I think it's something a lot of the people resonate who listen to this and in the group, that it was almost like you were that person in the room. 

You weren't present, you were working holiday to holiday. So both myself and my wife working in education, our boys are in schools and they're doing lots of clubs and things, which obviously I wasn't able to always get to. But essentially we were working to the weekends to almost recharge, so not to be present for our boys. 

And then working to the holidays. But then we even noticed when you went on the holidays, the first part of that holiday is taken by you re-energizing, not being present with your children, I mean your lads and doing more things with them. So I know you're right on that in that I wasn't happy with who I was or who I was being for my children, for my wife.

And I wanted to do something about that. And I'd previously done work around that and reflected on that because I know I still mention I'm quite an introvert when we had our initial court talk and I can be quite bullish and quite stubborn about my views and things and be quite sharp with people that I care about. I think a lot of us do when we know we feel we can put our guards down with the people we love, which sometimes means we can be sharp with them. 

But I ain't right. And that needed to sort of change. And I'm not saying that's magically changed in the 10 months I've been out, but it's definitely been better because of it. 

It's one of those things, isn't it? And I was experiencing it. I almost felt like I was this person stepping outside of a life, working tirelessly to keep a life going. School runs, Pitups, new school shoes, what we have in for tea. 

It was this chaotic million miles an hour, working as hard as I could and telling myself I do this for the kids. Everything I'm doing is for my kids. That's the reason I work.

That's my raison d'etre. But actually, I was doing all of this for the children and not actually engaging with them. Of course, I was engaging with them. 

I was with them, but they became an annoyance whilst I was working so hard for their quality of life. No, I'm not coming watching you do that dance routine that you've just made up. I've not got time. 

No, don't have a bath tonight. Just grab yourself a quick shower and we're doing four pages of the reading book. I was trading off the most important parts of my relationship with my children, believing that what I was putting into the bank each month was what they needed for their better life so that they could go to the Enid Wrigley School of Dance, so they could join this chess club, so we could go on this holiday that I wasn't even enjoying anyway.

It was like the imperfect storm, so to speak. I'd got my priorities and my values wrong when it came to why I was doing what I was doing, because I tied a wage to a quality of life. Now, you talked about a pay cut because you traded that off. 

Had you, like myself and many other members of our group, suddenly went, I'm now not talking about money. I'm going to put different values on certain elements of my life. It doesn't have a pound sign in front of it.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely something I resonate with when you say that. Yeah, exactly that. 

It was about, if I'm doing this, then this is going to the bank and we're going to be able to do this. We were doing great things. We've been on incredible holidays and shared incredible experiences with my children and with my boys and with my family. 

Like you said, it was at the expense of the day-to-day experiences and moments and times with them, which is the thing they want and the things they remember ultimately. Yes, they remember those holidays, but more importantly is the remembering of the other things you're there for. I mean, Sarah, I'm going to pull you in here. 

You talk, if I'm right in thinking about your own son's GCSE time compared to all the kids' GCSEs at the school you were teaching. How was your role when you were going at full throttle as a deputy head with a teenage boy in the house, a young boy in the house? Can you relate to what Lee and I are saying at that point? Yeah, I've been sat here feeling quite sad, to be quite honest, and I've kind of played back a film of different things of, and they sound so low level, but they're not, of driving him to band practice when he was 13, 14, and knowing actually there was no point driving back and then driving back over. I might as well take some markings, sit in the car and do that marking whilst he was at band practice when I could have gone in and sat and watched. 

It's all those little missed things where, and I've had this conversation with him, it's in the group, we recorded it when we first came out and I've had the conversation many times since. He doesn't see it like that, but as a parent, I do increasingly feel those missed moments and very much at GCSE time, the amount of times I was sat in a library till nine o'clock at night in school supervising kids when my own boy was at home needed me, in reality, and I know this with reflection now, it cracked the whip and get him to do some revision because he wasn't doing any. And it's not just the parental and child relationship either.

I know I missed out on some friendships, particularly with non-teaching friends from school, neighbours. Hiya Sharon, we're throwing an impromptu barbecue, do you want to come? I'll throw the kids over the fence, but I'm not. Or if, because it put pressure on my relationship, well why aren't you coming? Okay, so to keep the peace I'll come, but I'm not enjoying it, my stomach's churning, there's other things I need to be doing. 

And it's that playing loop where all of the life that we want our job to provide for us is happening in front of us, but we don't necessarily engage. And Lee hit the nail on the head with me, and I was snappy and short-tempered because I couldn't be in school or I couldn't be, but with the people who matter the most, that's when you are not the best version of yourself in that respect. So Lee, has that shifted in 10 months then? What differences have you noticed particularly, say with your boys? Yeah, so I think just Piting back to the point she's both saying there, and I think one of the things that's made a difference, and part of maybe again on that list of the things I was looking at, and again it is a personal opinion and I know it's a contentious point of discussion, I was originally very much in that camp where, so what, yes I'm doing a 60 hour week, but do you know what, if I divide that by 40 and times it by 48 to put it to the scale of a typical, you know, a non-educational jobs typical holiday, oh it averages out about 40 hours a week, so crack on, stop complaining, I'm a teacher and I'm not complaining about it and I'm getting on. 

And that was my mindset, but like you said, that's all been well with those, but all that meant then was it was just those holidays was when that time was there, not when the things were happening here and now. So that was a shift, a mindset shift that I had, and like I said, I know that is a contentious point and it was my view, but it was a point I had on it and I used to think, you know, it balances out over the year actually, because, and again I'm not going to lie here, I wasn't one of those that did a great deal of extra work in my school holidays, I know that's not the same for a lot of listeners and I appreciate that's not the same for a lot of people in the group and things, so, but for myself, you know, I did probably have about 10 weeks of holiday time a year, but you were using a lot of that to recharge and it was the only time really, as opposed to weekdays, weekends, and so one of the big changes has obviously been, I've got to be more careful with the holiday I have now, and we strategically sort of planned that, but obviously the bigger thing is that I now have that time during the week, so my boys, both my boys got used to, you know, maximum wraparound care at school, for example, so they were in an hour and a half before school and they're in for two hours after school, two or three days a week, there's none of that now, or it's very little now, I'm able to take them to school and we'll collect them, or they do very little, sort of the bit of the sort of after school clubs and things, so I've got that more time that I'm with them at home, or they can be at least at home, I might have a little bit at work to finish, but it's nothing normally major, or in the morning I could sit and have breakfast with them instead of driving and getting in to wherever I need to be at half seven in the morning, I have that flexibility to attend things more, it's not perfect, I don't want people to just assume, and again it's my opinion, and I've seen it, but it's wrong to just assume because you're doing a job that isn't in teaching, you've now all of a sudden got all this availability to go to every single event and things, I still have to manage my work and deliver my role, but I do have that more flexibility when I look at things like the upcoming Christmas plays, or my son doing cross-country competitions and being able to take him to that, and so I've got that flexibility now, and also just the evenings and weekends, that willingness to be more with them. I think one of the things I'd like to just pull back on at the moment is the original Pit Pony video, one of the most powerful aspects of the original video we did, Lee, was we talked about the importance of the role model of the parent, and particularly the role model of the parent in terms of the world of work.

Yes, I hit a point from probably about 2013-2014 where I was able to be more present, I was able to, like yourself, work things around them, be the face in the assembly, be calmer at home, if they didn't want the tea I prepared for them, we can flex, that kind of thing. I don't sit with the role model and the world of work they've seen from me since I exited, because they've had some good modelling of boundaries, entrepreneurialism, the ability to not have a glass ceiling on your income, they have seen a massive rival with their mum. I do a moment where I think, had I not have left, what was I teaching my kids about what the world of work looks like? It comes first. 

No, don't go and disturb your mum because she's got to do this. No, unfortunately my mum's not the kind of mum who turns up at the school place. No, my mum doesn't go out Monday to Friday. 

I am able to model a work-life balance. They don't come in the room I'm in now recording this because I'm working. No, you can't speak to me tonight, I'm on a Zoom call, I'm in the office this morning. 

They get boundaries, they understand work is an important aspect of our culture in order to provide stuff, but it's not the be-all and end-all. It doesn't result in making me ill and snappy and unhappy. Work and money and business is the crutch that we use to leverage a fantastic lifestyle and I think that's the bit that resonates with people more than anything. 

What am I modelling for my children? Because my dad had the work ethic of the bloody co-op coal horse. He never stopped, he never took a day off. Work, work, work, work, work.

I've broken that generational cycle and I think we talked about some kind of toxicity within leadership, but if we're not careful we can be quite toxic in our modelling for sending messages to children about what the working life actually looks like. I mean, guys, I'd be interested in your thoughts on that part of political broadcast on behalf of the entrepreneurial mother, but I think the role model of the parent where the world of work is concerned is a really, really crucial part that we play in our kids' lives. Yeah, I think that's really valuable and yeah, sort of seeing what work is to the children and they're just going to model what they're seeing with their parents ultimately, so it almost creates a vicious cycle, doesn't it, of what they see work as. 

And then you could even begin to say, well, if they see it's doing this to you, does that then become something that then it becomes a behavioural or a disconnection with their own education? And then that becomes background to us in this whole conversation we're having about where education is at the moment. So it's quite interesting actually, you could actually, if you wanted to, put it into that kind of cycle. So it is quite interesting for our boys now because obviously they see that I'm remote at home, so it's interesting that we've had to establish that, you know, yes, I am working at home, but I've still got work to do. 

So in the summer holidays, again, my wife is absolutely incredible. She just took every opportunity to actually, you know, get them out and doing things and being out of the house because they did want engage with me and when I was trying to work, so yeah, it's still about having those boundaries and balances and things. But I definitely see how and agree that it kind of gives that perception. 

And, you know, the boys both were kind of like, well, why do you want to leave teaching? Why do you want to leave education? And I wanted to be very careful. I didn't want them to share my views and my personal views on education because they are in that and they're both going to be in that for a number of years yet, but ultimately they understood and they see what I'm doing now and they can see that I'm sort of happier and that I've been to have those opportunities to be more there for them. Well, hopefully they're seeing that in the last sort of the last year.

I think one of the observations I always make in life is the best parenting I ever see, the best parenting in the main, I'm generalizing, is grandparenting. Grandparents are phenomenal with your own kids, okay? They are the very best versions of ourselves. They want to do the baking, they want to do the walks in the park and collects leaves and conquers.

They're quite happy to be present with their grandchildren because they're giving them back. But one of the things I'm proudest about in terms of my personal journey is I feel like I've become more of a grandparent to my own kids. I am present with them. 

I engage in their drivel on a daily basis. I am available not to just be mum's taxi, but when we're in the taxi, we're going watching a festival in 2025. I'm currently learning the lyrics to Dizzy Rascal songs, okay? I don't need no speed. 

I don't need no coke. I'm all over it, right? Because I can be. Because that's what a grandparent would do. 

Am I talking? Sarah, bail me out here. I've gone down a rabbit hole about, you get where I'm coming from. I do recognize it. 

And I think the parallel for me is the relationship that I've got with my nephews who are 11, who I've, because of the timing of of how things happened with me, I've probably been much more present as a, almost a parental figure, not a parent, the favorite auntie, which is a great place to be. But I've been able to kind of, on a very selfish level, experience the things that I think I missed out with, with my own son when they were that age, because I was all in at school when he was that age. So, yeah, I get it. 

I get what you're saying. It's, yeah, I do. I get what you're saying. 

It's about being present and, but you don't realize your absence until you finally realize what being present is. Correct. Correct. 

And I think, I think that's how this is, this is, this podcast has been shaped here with Lee. And I think it is a different one. And I said that to you, didn't I, Sarah? This, this would be a different one, but a very, very powerful and reflective one, which then I'm assuming, just dibbing back into Bernardo's, who I know you've spoken to and asked for permission to name and talk about, what is life like working in the charity sector? What is it actually like? It's an incredible mix. 

What I found, because like I said, I had previously worked in, in private sector, in, in retail as well and retail management. I'd say it sort of sits in between what, what we saw in education as a, as a publicly funded sort of, as a school and, and what goes on in the private sector. You know, we, we have, we have, we have, we have, our source of income is, is very, very much governed and flexes each year. 

Obviously as a children's charity, we deliver to, to, we deliver frontline work to, to about 765 services we're currently delivering for, for local councils at the moment and across the UK. And supporting that is an incredibly rewarding piece of work. It has its similar challenges in that those frontline workers who are working with all those young people, they're saying the same things to me that the teachers were saying when we talk about asking them to do, asking them to do something, asking them to engage with something, but their priorities are with the young people that they're engaging and they're providing those services to and those young people and families, which is incredibly right, because that is the mission of the charity at the end of the day.

And I think part of it, the reason I've sort of fallen into this role is, is because I have that understanding coming, come from education. And so, but all those, it's quite, it is very similar in that, that sense that a large portion of our colleagues, over half of our colleagues are, are front facing with young people and are dealing with young people on a day to day. And, and so appreciating that and being able to engage with that was great because it meant, I still felt like I was supporting them and my role still then is doing the thing I wanted to do is, is trying to support them, to free them up to support more young people. 

And I think like I say, a lot of the charity, the challenges within the charity sector, I think they're the same in it, in it as they are in education, like I say, in terms of the sort of the budgetary constraints and the financial challenges that are around it, that, you know, we can't just go and spend endless amounts and pots of money we don't necessarily have. It is about utilising what we have and working with our colleagues and supporting our colleagues the best we can with, with, with what's coming in. Obviously, I was very cautious when I was looking at charity sectors as well, looking at charity roles and thinking about the sustainability of charities.

So again, I'm very fortunate with Barnardo's, we are the largest children's charity. We are very stable. We're a high presence charity. 

It's a very warm, very diverse, very open charity. Everything's done by name, not role in terms of how we communicate with each other. They're our formal channels, but it doesn't mean that I can't go around those and speak to someone and I'm not going to get a, we should have spoken to those. 

So even though we've got just over 8,000 colleagues, you can effectively talk out to anyone at a time and, and it's pleasant, it's positive and a very respectful conversations. So it has been, it has been great enlightening as a, as a new role to go into, but it does have those similarities to education, which is why I sort of think I feel I've sort of fallen into it so well. Well, my friend, that's, that's perfect.

It's been a, it's been a lovely one, this. It's been a real, real important one for me. I've, I've loved it. 

So therefore, Lee, I'm going to be interested to hear your sliding doors moment about that moment that you are now experiencing 10 months out of the classroom that you know for a fact you wouldn't have experienced had you remained in teaching. What's your sliding doors moment? Yeah, that's really interesting because so many come to mind, both in my professional life, in my, my relationship, my wife, my, my relationship with my family, my boys. And there's so many things I could have sat here and said, there's no way I would have not, I would have experienced these, the things I've seen and done and the opportunities in the last year. 

But ultimately I think if we had to pin it down to one thing was I was able to go to my boys sports days for the first time this year, which for one of my lads was his last day of primary. So it was really important to be able to see that. And it was fantastic to be able to go that and be a part of that and cheer them on and have some photos with them afterwards. 

And just know that I, they knew that I was, I was there and seeing them do these things because they love their sports. They love their competitive, competitiveness. And so I knew it meant to them a lot. 

And I hope to them, it meant a lot to them that I was there, but even for me, just being able to see him do that and see them compete and get on and the smiles and enjoying themselves, which again, my school wasn't a no school, but, you know, a few hours out for a sports day was maybe a little bit of a stretch in terms of, and it wasn't something I'd probably necessarily felt comfortable asking about before, but it was something that all I had to do this time was just make sure it didn't clash with my calendar of work. And I was able to do that. So that was, that was that moment from if we had to sort of boil it down to one sort of incident that would summarise where I definitely wouldn't have been if I was still teaching, it would be that.

And I suspect the version of Lee that stood on those sidelines, cheering them on was a very different version, having thought about what we talked about before, because you were present, you were able to be there, relaxed and enjoying it because we've all been there. But have we really been there? So Lee, on behalf of myself and Sarah and the team, thank you for such an insightful and reflective episode. Great episode to get somebody from the charity sector on, because I know it's something that many of our group members do look towards. 

So it's fantastic that you've spent the time with us here today. So Lee, from all of us here on the Pit Pony podcast, thank you very much. Thank you very much. 

And I will just add in there, I will just put it out there that I'm more than happy for anyone to hunt us down, reach out to us and speak in any support, because the amount of support that I've had in the last year, probably from people that don't even know they've helped me from the group when they've added pop something cup or when they've shared something or if they've put a link here or they've responded to a messenger, I sent one. I had one just last night from a very known contributor from the group. He said, I'm so sorry, it was a year ago when you sent me, I hope things are going. 

And I was able to say to them, amazingly, this is what I'm doing now. So any opportunity to give back to the group and the work that you guys have been doing over the last few years, please, if anyone wants to, I'm more than happy to listen and help anyone where I can. Thank you, Lee. 

Thank you. That's amazing. Thank you.

I enjoyed that, pal. I really enjoyed it. What did you think? I've just been stood making a cup of tea before we had the chat and reflecting very much on the conversation around leadership. 

And I want to clarify something that, and it's that avoidance of generalisation because there are lots of great people who were in the system and so on and so forth. But I think there's also people who could be even better if the right frameworks were there and the right training and support was there to make sure that they were skilled up. And I think where I want to make the leap to is what we have to do as NTP partners for the last four years and the level of auditing and quality assurance that's gone on that has been non-combative, not at all like the Ofsted experience, but has really dug deep, not just into like the quality of the tutoring, so the equivalent of the quality of teaching, but all of the systems and processes that are there to make sure that the business as an entirety runs as it should do. 

So we've been looked at in terms of HR and all that sort of stuff. And that for me is something that's absent from the framework in terms of how schools are looked at. And maybe that's part of where the gap is. 

Yeah. And I mean, just to clarify, when Sarah referred to NTP, she's referring to the National Tutoring Programme, which is... Oh yes, sorry. It's okay. 

Which is, you've got to remember, we're recording, mate. We're not on the phone. I know. 

Sorry. You forget it, don't you? And I think for me as well, because you've alluded to the fact that we run a national company. And when I first stepped out of teaching, I was responsible for my own development and CPD. 

Found lots of it through local networking groups, LinkedIn, and took a personal responsibility for my own development, because as a pit pony, I believed it was the responsibility of the leadership team to develop me. I became more well-read. I became more self-aware of my own mind.

Everything once I left teaching, and why I liked what Lee was talking about, was he was coming to that whilst in school. That was the most powerful aspect of it for me. He was having his light bulb moments whilst in school, almost in a mystic Meg kind of way, because he could see what was coming across the horizon, and he could see how he was going to fall through the cracks.

He was very insightful. I've got a good head teacher. I've got a good leadership team, but that's not forever. 

He was basing it on anecdotal evidence and spending time within our Facebook group to say, sooner or later, this could be me. He was writing what he was saying, and particularly when he'd gone into the MPQ, and it really was not what he wanted it to be. He then did the joined up thinking and went, well, this is the future. 

This is the future. So I did like that thing, and I think some people are natural leaders. I think some people have got really great innate leadership qualities.

I think some people are mentored into being good and great leaders, and I also think there are superb training and development courses out there on leadership. One of our greatest friends, as you know, Mr. Drew Povey, is a leadership consultant. His work is phenomenal and off the charts, and we're having Drew, as you know, on our podcast at some point with an E in brackets for explicit, no doubt. 

So I know about leadership, and it is, in my experience in the group, the root of most, if not all, of the issues that we are facing, a lack of robust and strong leadership and vision within schools. Accountability is put in the wrong place. Toxic behaviours are allowed to continue. 

There's pressure from the top down, and I do think you're right, it's a podcast in and of itself, but Lee, looking at Lee as an individual, he realised what was coming over the hill, but he also then reflected that he wasn't necessarily the person he wanted to be in terms of how he was showing up for his kids, in his marriage. I mean, I don't want to present the guy that he was in crisis, because he certainly wasn't. He was just not happy enough.

I think it comes down to that he had really clear, a really clear perspective on his own values. It might not have been conscious, but when we talk about seeing things coming over the hill, there's a lot of people who sit in our group who see things coming over the hill. I am one of those people, but I was prepared to, or just so entrenched in a system that the only way that it was going to work for me was that I was just going to push on through and align to that system, even though the discomfort, the rub about doing that was so great that it was making me ill. 

I think it's easy to see things coming over the hill, but still stand still. I think what he did was saw it coming and went, no, I now need to start preparing to move out of the way of that when it does come. You know, with me, I was, had I not had been suspended, which put the spanner in and the brake in this hamster wheel that I was on, I wouldn't have had the time to have exited my job, the marriage, because time and getting through existing in the day in my late thirties was just a task in and of itself. 

So my hand was forced to a certain extent. I don't know if I could have got through without becoming very, very ill. I think my circumstances, you know, when we talk about those plates spinning, well, if it's okay at home, the plates can be dropping at work. 

And if it's okay at work, but everything collapsed like a Greek wedding for me at that point. But no, I think where he was in that respect was really measured. That's the read I got off that guy. 

He was incredibly measured. And again, he nodded towards that importance of your pay packet measured against the value of certain things. Cut your cloth and place your value elsewhere.

He took a pay cut. He touched lucky in that interview, didn't he? Where he got promotion. He did. 

Absolutely. But I think that goes to something as well, because I think there's a fear of the unknown. When people are looking to step outside of a system that it's been the thing they've known for a number of years, wherever people are at. 

If you haven't had prior experience of working in the prior sector, which I would, I have no idea what the figures are, but I would suspect that probably it's at least 75% of teachers have done school, university straight back to school. So if you haven't got that framework of what life can be like in the private sector, it's not, it's not perfect. There are businesses we've, I'm not going to name any, but you see them in the news who are not treating staff well and things like that.

But actually, and you said this in another podcast of ours that I was listening to this week, in a lot of respects, a lot of private sector businesses are so much further along in terms of how they work with people, how they look after people, mental health, allowing that flex for family priorities. And, but that can be a fear if you don't know. And I, and I think that's one of the things that holds people back. 

And I remember so distinctly, it's really interesting where, where Lee's gone to in the charity sector, because when I was having the conversations with my brother, when I first came out of teaching, that was one of the things he said to me, get into, try and get into the charity sector because there is so much crossover and alignment of skills and values. It's just about framing it right so that you get in front of the person that you can talk to and sell yourself. Um, so yeah, no, it was really interesting.

It was a, it was a different episode for me, much more, much more, not much more reflective in a different way. And I think I was going to Pit him up on this when he said, um, I don't know if he said it to us afterwards that, you know, it's not the typical story and actually the ordinary stories in inverted commas are just as powerful to me because not having a crisis and still making that decision is almost as big as having the crisis and having to make the decision. And, and I don't think either one is, is more significant than the other.

I think you're right. It's like, I've got friends who say their marriage has split up and they're shocked. I'm like, I didn't know it was that bad. 

I didn't know there was a crisis. No, there wasn't. It just, I just wasn't happy. 

I just knew there was more for me out there. Yeah, but it didn't beat you and he'd not been cheating on you. No, I just didn't want to be in it anymore. 

I've got one life. It's, I'm making a change and we're so programmed that that's not how we do. We put up with stuff. 

We, we, we do think we're trees. I've made this decision. I can't possibly move. 

Well, actually it's okay to just feel unsettled and unhappy and have a feeling in your liver that this isn't going to end well, because I think that's where it was inspirational what he said. He wasn't burnt out having to have the emergency doctor off with work-related stress. This is a man who applied for 75 jobs whilst still in a school. 

Now, if that's not quite unique and what kind of a measure of good leadership does that tell you in his school, that he's got a head teacher supporting that. So actually that's where he knew what he was benefiting from, but 75 jobs. We've had other guys who've been on our podcast who've said it was getting embarrassing having, but they were applying for teaching jobs, you know, and having to come back and say, I've been the second candidate again. 

That was a really different mindset. I want to get out of teaching after 12 years. I know that moving from the state to the corporate sector, we've, we've had another podcast episode, um, Amy Mead. 

How many jobs did Amy apply for? 400. 400. So that's why I think what we're doing that's quite powerful is normalizing things because that was the vision behind this podcast. 

There are so many things that are relatable to individual people. Certain episodes will chime, certain aspects of stories will and won't, but what I would like to end us on today is how he ended the shout out to that group and everything that's going on within that resource in and of itself, life after teaching, the help he received, the support he had. We might all have slightly different stories, but we are all in a very, very similar place. 

We just want the best for ourselves. We want it right for our friends and family and enough is a feast. Right, pal. 

Okie kokie. Are we all done? Yeah. Talking of feasts, I'm going to have my chocolate bar now. 

Excellent. What are you having? What have you got? The timeout. Oh no, there's not, there's no substance to a timeout. 

It's too flaky. It's wafery. It's pointless. 

It's a pointless chocolate bar. All right. If you're going to have something, have a bloody Snickers and get a filling half on the way out or. 

Sorry, Cadbury's. No, I'm sorry. Sorry, a timeout's neither. 

If you're going to do anything, do a full finger KitKat because they're not dissimilar, but you get a better ratio of chocolate to wafer. Okay. We are massively rambling at the end of this episode.

It has been a joy as always. And thank you from the bottom of our hearts for listening. You make it all worthwhile. 

Okie kokie. See you on the other side, my friend. Ciao.

Thank you so much for staying with us throughout another great episode. And on behalf of myself, Sarah Dunwood, and all at the production team, we appreciate your continued support. If you wish to contact me directly for a support session or a clarity call for your next steps, please find my link in the comments below. 

See you soon.