030 - Pit Pony Amy MacDonald - From Classroom to Forest School Leader and Curriculum Writer

This week, we welcome Amy MacDonald, a former primary school teacher who transformed her love for teaching outdoors into a fulfilling new career. Amy’s journey is one of resilience, self-discovery, and inspiration, showing us that life after teaching can be rich with opportunities.

In this episode, Amy shares:
🌿 Her journey through challenging school environments, including part-time battles and chronic unkindness.
🌟 How she found her passion for forest schools and outdoor learning.
💪 The powerful moment she realised her family’s pride in her new career.
💼 Tips on making the leap into a more balanced and fulfilling professional life.

Amy’s story will inspire anyone considering a new chapter or looking to align their work with their passions.

As always, thank you for being part of our amazing Pit Pony community. Your support helps us share these transformative stories every week.

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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 Corley and me Sarah 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... I felt trapped by my salary. I know that you've talked about that on the original Pit Pony podcast and I listened to that and I cried because everything was so relevant and so true for me.

I listened to it with my husband actually and we worked out, I've worked out our bottom line. Hello lovely listeners and welcome to our latest episode of the Pit Pony podcast with Amy MacDonald. As always we have prepared for you a fantastic episode today. 

Typical, unusual and unique as all our Pit Pony guests are. Amy's career as a primary school teacher is, it's typical, it's typical in so many ways. She started teaching in 2008, primary school teacher.

Her first school she stayed for four years, excellent results, loved it and she particularly loved the residentials. There's a little breadcrumb of foreshadowing for you listeners. She loved the residentials and the teaching elements of being outdoors. 

Her next school she stayed for six years. She was the English subject lead and in that school she did the thing that many many of us have done which is try to come back part-time after her maternity leave and we are going to get into that unreasonable request of us teachers when we ask to do something so off the charts which is come back off our maternity leave part-time. Obviously that didn't work out well for her and her subsequent schools again have got similar themes of bullying, toxic behaviours which fundamentally resulted in her doing a couple of terms of supply, a year in a standalone academy, three years in a multi-academy trust which was her last school and at that point Amy's exited the classroom. 

She's not exited education but she's definitely exited the indoor teaching world. Welcome Amy MacDonald, darling tell us what do you do today? So at the moment I've got two freelance jobs, kind of three actually. For one of them I'm a session leader for a wildlife charity so I'm outdoors for that and then I've got an indoor freelance role which is I'm a curriculum writer for another charity and then I also occasionally continue doing what I was doing whilst I was in my last school part-time. 

I've been a forest school leader for a local community interest company. Perfect, perfect and straight away you will have peaked all the interests of all of those teachers who actually go walking for pleasure. It's an alien concept to me. 

I aim for my 10,000 steps a week and I think I do that quite well. So this is going to lend itself lovely to those people who love the outdoors, love teaching and we'll talk about how you've knitted those two passions together but before we do that, as with all of our guests, I want you to reflect over your time as a teacher and the issues and circumstances that brought you to leaving a job that you loved. So we normally start at the end so shall we start at the last three years of your life as a teacher and how did that work out for you Amy? My last three years it was actually a Catholic primary school that was still local authority. 

I got my role there I think in the Pit Pony podcast you talked about not going to the next job and I was like oh whoops that's what I've been doing. So I stayed there because I've been kind of hopping from job to job looking for something that was right for me. It was it was like the wrong place for me to stay. 

So it was a two days a week in a small primary school, lovely children, really lovely parents, lovely area but there was a new head who had been the deputy. There was a culture of what I'd call unkindness, just chronic unkindness there. Lots of nepotism. 

I watched her, we all did, watched her bully out the school business manager and give that job to her friend and there was lots of that going on. Governors that were friends and so on. Yeah the most like one example of how unkind it was, there was a well-being policy that also managed to mention informal capability procedures in it. 

Forgive me for laughing at that point but oh my god almighty how are we getting this so wrong. Go on love carry on. Yeah that's what an example of what it was like there. 

So I think I kind of put a target on my own back when I was, so I was 0.4 so two days a week. I was expected to do, me and my job share do like parents evenings together as an example but unpaid. So I couldn't and I went you know I went to her and said I was happy to do it as long as I could be paid. 

You know I'm a parent, if I'm going to work I need to be paid for it. You know I'm not I'm not working unpaid anymore. I'm like as my sister's a school business manager actually and she said to me you're a professional, you're not a volunteer. 

So that that was just one example of things. I think it's a basic contractual right. It's not I'm a pirate, I'm a professional. 

I'm providing a service in my time. Yeah yeah yeah and uh and I knew that. I knew that you talked in one episode about being like disabled by fear.

That's how I felt every time I went to speak to her. I was just talked down and obviously I couldn't, it wasn't worth the fight you know. You just made it more difficult for yourself of doing things like that in a school. 

I'm sure other people feel the same. I couldn't whistle because of like yes. And and it's the employment law. 

Yeah yeah. Fear. You couldn't whistle because and what's more you've hit on something before we've even got into it which is this and it tends to happen in primary schools. 

I get this a lot when I'm speaking to people from the group. We'll go and speak to HR. Yeah well that's her best mate that she brought in from another school.

Have you spoke to the doctor? That's his brother. Not uncommon for schools to surround themselves either with actual family members or people they've brought in from another school which makes you feel as though the odds are stacked against you. Anyway it's very common that Amy. 

It's more common than you think actually. Yeah nobody on senior leadership team was approachable. Yeah and like things like almost like financial bullying. 

I was I had no pay progression for three years. I was on M6 the whole time. You know and this is like year 14, 15, 16th year of teaching. 

So I was very experienced and it was because I in in inverted commas didn't do enough for the school. I certainly did. I did loads for that school. 

But yeah as I say you feel like you can't you can't fight. But my first couple years I did watch you know that whole scenario of if your face doesn't fit. I saw other people bullied out and then in my third year it was my turn. 

So I had like a spout of illnesses. I had my daughter was quite young in school and beforehand she'd been with a child minder. So as soon as she started school her immune system was being very much challenged and mine was too.

I got all sorts from her. I got like I got hand put mouth. I got tonsillitis like a few times.

Another minor thing was like I had a cycling accident and I went I felt like I had to go back to school the next day even though I haven't. I had a hematoma and like you know like really badly bruised. I do know the words you used when you started describing what happened. 

I had a Well they were minor compared to what was next because I well I got I got covered up like two three times in that school and it was when it was when like the rules had changed and you know family children could come in even if someone at home had a coronavirus. And I think the school I was in was doing things like whole school discos and whole school assemblies when they shouldn't have been. And I just thought I was looking back I was vulnerable to catching it and I did. 

Lots of stuff did. But after I had coronavirus I also had like laryngitis. I had laryngitis and at the same time was given music lead. 

Like you know it's like laughable now but it was so stressful at the time. You know my voice was gone by the end of the day. I couldn't sing you know could barely get through the day without my voice going. 

And that led into like a respiratory infection. I had something called myalgia which is like that aching issue you get when you when you've got flu. And then towards the end of my time at that school I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. 

And they knew all of this but put me on like a stage one absence procedure. And I know when I listen to the episode with Hannah and her child who I know it's totally different because it's just awful when it's your child. But the things you know the callous situations you're put in kind of made me realise the treatment that I'd received from the senior leadership team at my school. 

They knew how poorly I'd been and but I'd have this diagnosis but still added to the stress with this absence sorry procedure. I've since found out that because of my condition it should have been more lenient and I shouldn't have been put through that. And it wasn't just me you know I overheard because of just the the position of the photocopier in school. 

I overheard the head teacher talking to a supply teacher asking if she'd received all the planning from the teacher that was off. And this teacher was in hospital you know and it's just like looking back I just think how illegal. Yeah. 

And what I want to do with you now Amy because and you will be able to to give us more information anecdotally. Sarah I think at this point what we've got here in this particular instance is a classic case of we always say this as a disclaimer it is not all head teachers and senior leadership types. No. 

They don't like part-timers. They cannot get their head around a part-time member of staff not acting in a full-time capacity. And am I right in saying one of your head teachers was 0.8 and wouldn't give you part-time? Yeah yeah. 

Sarah I'd be interested what's been your experience of this concept of part-time and potential discrimination that comes with it? Personal experience the schools that I've worked in have done part-time very well and they've done it properly. That's been my actual practical experience. My experience within the group it's almost a daily thing in terms of I've been asked to do a parent's evening it's on my non-working day. 

No it's a hard no. It's an absolute hard no and I think it's very easy for me to sit and say well you should know your rights you should you know this that and the other but actually there's so many rights that you should know you you don't end up looking for what your rights are until you're in a situation where where you need to invoke them. But it my my experience from what we see in the group is that there's there's a real lack of understanding by some senior leaders and head teachers about what the law is and what they can and can't ask people to do. 

And I think I don't know how to articulate it I think there's just this general well we can do what we want and I don't know where that's come from. Well I I kind of do. I did my MPQH in good god when did I do that? 2007 to 2009. 

There was no HR stuff on that. It was nothing and and I don't know if there is on the the newer MPQs. I don't know whether there is a requirement so I'm talking in the abstract but if there isn't there should be there should be a requirement for senior leaders to at least have a rudimentary understanding of HR law in terms of how it applies to school workforces because with the great well with the greatest of respect and sorry just to interrupt you Sharon. 

There's so many circulars and statutory pieces of information and documents from DFE which with the best will in the world even the best senior leader hasn't got the time to read them all and understand them. So as much as that guidance might be pushed out to schools there's some new stuff come out in the last term about performance pay and pay progression which has removed performance management essentially in terms of how it links to pay progression. I suspect a lot of heads haven't read that. 

I was just going to say even without knowing all the kind of correct way of doing things and doing it in a dignified way there was just no empathy from that head teacher. There was no human aspect of any of you know and whereas now the the work the people I work for now well we'll come on to that in a minute but it's this is where I think the perfect storm of this toxicity comes into play. You have a head teacher who's ill-informed about what they can actually ask you to do. 

You shouldn't be being put in that position in the first instance where you you're being asked to say no you shouldn't be asked to do something that sits outside of your contractual obligation. But if you are and you've got this head teacher who's pushing and pushing but her echo chamber or his echo chamber around themselves are their friends and their family and ex-colleagues who are supporting this behaviour by going no you're in the right, she's out of border, she does bugger all, she only on two days a week. What harm is it going to do her coming in on Thursday night? Yeah that is the attitude. 

You've built a leadership team around you who are just it's the emperor's new clothes it looks wonderful your majesty and it just takes that little boy to say but you're not wearing anything. That's where I think it's become really really difficult for you Amy. You had somebody acting illegally, immorally, without empathy but then that behaviour no doubt in the office during SLT meetings signalled to that leader that they were in the right and that very very toxic crosshair to be to be caught within. 

So this part-time I'm going to take you back to your school where you did six years as the English lead. That's where you asked to go back part-time after your maternity. How did that go down? Not very well. 

So I was in that school for six years, loved it. Really like I was in year five then and loved being the English lead. Really really great relationship with like pupils and their families and then I mean things weren't going or didn't always go great there anyway like the first year I was there my husband had quite a nasty accident where he had severe quite severe like facial burns and I was made to go back you know pressured to go back before he'd even left hospital like I just wasn't ready and like after that I got treated for like PTSD and have like cognitive behaviour therapy to to move through that. 

So there were things that were going on there was kind of some nepotism creeping in so I wasn't overly happy there but I knew I knew I wanted to have a family, start a family. So yeah to 2018, January 2018 I had my little girl he just met that was that and but that year was really challenging year so my husband got made redundant he had a he had a cycling accident where he he broke his collarbone it was when our daughter was really really young like really young baby loads more and more things kind of kept happening in my personal life but I'd also been diagnosed with postnatal depression as and I say that because many mums have it or dads as well for me I had like I thank my blessings because I had a really lovely relationship with my daughter a really good bond but it was I think it was just everything that had been thrown at me and the the change you know from being like a super organised teacher everything's timetabled and then this baby comes with. I just found it really challenging so yeah I requested part-time and I was quite open in the fact that I just was not prepared to miss out on raising my daughter and at the time the head teacher was 0.8 she was on like a phased retirement and yeah I was one of a few I was the first of a few to go back and request part-time and was refused it you know another colleague was on the senior leadership team and she was told if she wanted to go back she wouldn't be able to keep her senior leadership team responsibility and the salary that goes with it you know. 

But it's after a maternity leave? Yeah yeah there was a there was a big school. I'm going to call Rumpole of the Valey in at the side of me here Sarah and I'm not asking you to be completely and utterly up to date on employment law but where are we here with this this request for part-time after maternity leave because I'm going back where it might have been an urban myth but in the 90s I thought you were entitled to it I thought you could no you've never been entitled. No you are entitled to ask for part-time because it sits under flexible working but if whatever business institution organization it is can argue a strong business case for why it won't work then the business has absolutely every right to refuse it. 

Yeah they said that they couldn't accommodate it because it wasn't in the best interest of the school and the children but I knew if I had gone back there full-time I was not well enough to teach full-time and be the parent that I wanted to be because of how demanding the job is and that particular school it was a very academic school you know I spent before I had my daughter I'd spend like you know all weekend working and late till late at night working on my you know my leadership well it was I didn't even have a leadership point for the English leadership role that I had it was almost like voluntary on top of my salary. I think what's interesting at the moment is this accommodating part-time because I suspect one of the things that's leveled at a teacher who's asking for part-time is we want consistency for the children we want the same classroom we want consistency well here's the peak irony guys once those kids get to secondary school okay not only do they have multiple different teachers delivering their subject specialisms but more and more now you can have two English teachers delivering the four English periods a week so we have Mrs Jones for language and we have Mrs Smith for literature we don't even do it anymore in secondary schools we have split teachers delivering the same subject within a secondary school and actually if I was the head of a primary I'd welcome that I would welcome those children having different faces delivering their different specialisms and actually sometimes when I look back on my primary school I can chart my years of absolute peak success and those where I struggled based upon that relationship I had with the teacher some liked didn't like me some style of teaching didn't suit me find I've had two or three different faces over the course of a week delivering to me when I was in year five I might have had a different and even with my own kids they used to be stood at the school gates and you're like oh my god have you seen who they've got in year five that you know my kid's not going to work well with her so actually job shares and multiple flexibility within primary school to me I think should be embraced you're English lead so it's a case and the other thing as well is I've found that that colleagues who've asked for part-time want to do two solid days and have three off but they can be offered part-time because we can give you two hours every morning which part-time hours so there's a whole there's a whole argument that sits behind it but I think it's going to really resonate with our listeners because that can be the non-negotiable that sees parents unable to return to teaching with all those years experience behind them exiting the classroom so what I'm going to do now Amy you get to the end and and I think from 21 to 24 in the last three years of this multi-academy trust you are now saying to yourself this is not for me I'm not well I'm poorly my family circumstances are such that I am my job is unable to leverage me the life I want within my home within my health my husband's health etc was it easy to leave was it easy to say I'm going to find the confidence were you doing anything in school at the time that was potentially helping you to segue out I mean forest schools were you doing anything like that in your last school it was it was really difficult because my so my husband is I was the breadwinner I mean that the school that I left when I had my daughter I ended up negotiating leaving with my union rep and I was ups2 due to go to ups3 and I've never been able to get back on that off the pay scale and I've been m6 ever since so that didn't sit right with me I always felt like undervalued and not really I think we should as teachers be paid our worth and I really felt that I wasn't so that was always niggling at me and then my husband as I said my husband works in the arts he's got his own business one does other like bits of freelance work I felt trapped by my salary I know that you've talked about that on the original kick pony podcast and I listened to that and I cried because everything was so relevant and so true for me I listened to it with my husband actually and we worked out I've worked out our bottom line and like what we need to bring in every month and because at the time when I was in that school for three years I was there for two days and on the other days I was working as a forest school practitioner for like a local community interest company and by the way my school that I was working in went to them behind my back and employed them on the day that I was at college I was at college doing a horticulture course fully funded so I'm a now qualified horticulturalist and I'm now doing level three as well so yeah my school that the senior leadership team that showed me so much shown me so much unkindness with my illness yeah they went to my other employer and got them to do forest school so at this point I'd reached out to to Bowie and my union rep and they you know they all said this is like it's basically constructive dismissal but it's so hard to prove. You've mentioned you've named dropped the great Sue Bowie who was the third face on our original Pit Pony video and thank you so much for for mentioning that because I don't think we'll ever know the impact that that conversation we captured had on people's life it was a straight talking very simplistic financial blueprint on how to work out your finances how to potentially use multiple income streams to meet your financial commitment it also talks about the role of the parent and what your role modeling in front of your children I think which is is the powerful but go on anecdotally you reach out to the wonderful amazing powerhouse what did Sue do for you because this is a random stranger that you've seen on YouTube tell us about tell us about your time with Sue. 

Well she so she actually was she got back to me straight away said she was really busy talking to other members and she got me she put me in touch with Julie and so I spoke to her like you know in the I couldn't believe how quick you would you're you get back to people and support people you know in their like worst hour because I just couldn't believe what my school were doing to me um neither and by the way neither could my other employer they couldn't believe it either so yeah we just thought it was just being able to like talk to somebody who was removed from the situation I think and it was at that point I was like I'm going you know I had had that that I can't be I think because I was so stressed and so upset I can't so upset I can't really fully remember everything that was said but I just remember feeling like almost like the cloud had lifted a bit and I I knew I was gonna go and I knew I was gonna leave. I suspect as well what's happening here is you've talked about um I can't pronounce it so I'm gonna say your gardening course I've got astro turf I've got one cordal I've got one corduroy that I've wrapped up because we're snowing at the moment in Warrington it's um January 2025 so on Amazon I've bought this like snug um jacket for me corduroy that I've zipped it up with I still killed it but I think you're outdoors you're doing forest schools you're working with your hands in the garden this must now be throwing up a real contrast to what must almost feel like a cage in the classroom but before before we walk into how you how you actually exited and did it just for the sake of um our listeners I suspect they've got an idea of what forest school is because they've heard of it and it's it's kids being educated outdoors but could you just very succinctly tell us what you mean by forest schools? Yeah so it's um it's taking children out regularly but you can't say regularly taking them outdoors um you know weekly at least and they're in a natural setting it's child-centered so I often say to people you know how like in the early years everything is planned around the child and their development so you're observing you're watching you're seeing you know where they're flourishing where their interests lie where it might be that I don't know their balance is off so you create little um like trail uh balancing trails through the woodland you know things like that and it's long term it involves play exploration because our children are not given enough opportunity in our education system to do that in this country supported risk taking so it's you know I I think with doing forest school as well I've struggled more and more in school with the don't do that culture you know don't climb on that don't you know you'll hurt yourself and that cotton wool culture I just couldn't cope with it anymore because I think children are more capable and we give them credit for so yeah forest school is about like planning learning experience experiences outdoors engaging them with nature giving them a deep understanding through the seasons and developing their confidence and self-esteem yeah sorry does 100% because that's like the curriculum that's that's obviously what sits behind it with the intention of the forest school and do do schools bring in forest school providers do they outsource that organization to come in and deliver within the school day is that how it works when I did my forest school training I was in the school my longest term school when I had my daughter and I was enrolled in a middle leadership course and I just thought this isn't me and I found forest school I thought this is morning so I have in my experience I've never been able to do it as a teacher they are a lot of schools will either train a teaching assistant to do it because it's more you know they can't they god forbid they take a teacher out of the classroom to do something that's valuable outdoors for children you know so yes a lot of schools will do it that way or they will get a provider in yeah so as I've worked in schools as for a provider perfect right I understand it I understand how it works from a business point of view with a school and I understand the curriculum and the intent that sits behind it can I just say it sounds like my worst nightmare don't tempt me outdoors if it's spitting I'm not going out ten thousand steps a week we're in uh but I know for many of our listeners oh that would be their dream you know they try to wear these dry robes and go out walking for fun and and I suppose it's absolutely amazing to to be able to see child development taking place the way it should I told you that my daughter's education was predominantly forest school based um school outdoors you know she always knew what time it was dinner time because she was hungry so take us to that last school now we've talked about the forest schools okay how do you exit your last school Amy it comes down to references again I was really worried about getting a good reference because I had seen I mentioned the school business manager that was pushed out uh I know that she had to go she got a bad reference from the head and had to go to the previous head to get one um I saw a recently qualified teacher being treated appallingly in her first years of teaching at that school and she had to go to her local authority uh she had she had to go to the local authority to get one so I was really thinking I need to stay I need to get like a crew a few more years and get a good reference and um then I realized well I'm I'm just going to carry on doing what I'm doing now which was working for my other employer who I loved working for and I after talking to Julie from the from the life after teaching group that was when I applied I applied to a few jobs quite a few jobs and two of them I got to interview stage for one of them was a wildlife charity it was for a um like a leadership role for their education team I didn't get the job but I was asked if I'd like to be a session leader and I was able to put my college tutor down as a reference my my head teacher I don't know if she ever replied I put her down um she was quite notorious for not even replying to references and I also put down um my other like my other employer so um and I know I got good references from both both of those people and um so yeah I started doing in my last year in my in the in the spring and summer term in my last year of that school I was also doing outdoor um sessions in nature reserves for that charity and loving it and couldn't wait to finish school and do more of it because I was having to turn turn sessions down because I wasn't available because of my contract in school um and the the lady who did get the job that I'd gone for who's now my boss is the loveliest person who has just seen my work that no head teacher has done she's got me doing teacher training um as as you know as well as the sessions that I do with schools she's got me to do a lecture at a university and talk about green careers I've been to like a school eco council day she and she is just a lovely person to work for I love working for her and for the charity and here we go again Sarah Dunwood my pal did you see the moment Amy just transformed and the moment you transform in your voice your face your attitude your shoulders change because we can see is when you talk about the difference of one leader to another leader that's why people you're you've stayed the same you're the same person there's nothing changed about you Sarah we see it time and time and time again what's your response to when we meet Amy part two my usual response people don't leave jobs they leave bad leaders it that's fundamental and Sharon's right Amy we've we've recorded so many of these and and it's fascinating to watch and to listen and I think when you listen to previous episodes you could there's a difference in the the tone and I know even if I talk about my experience before I left which will be six years ago in May I know my tone is different because it's it puts you back in a hard place but it's not surprising fundamentally Sharon it's not surprising is it you you've you've taken somebody out of something that's compressing them that's that's a pressure on them that's a weight on them and then you put them in a different environment with a different person that person has not changed you've just taken the pressure off to use a to use a horticulture analogy I knew you were going to do that is so obvious so obvious go on well fundamentally if a plant doesn't grow it's because it's not being fed it's not got light the conditions aren't right for it to grow it's it's fundamentally I don't know if you've listened to I'm going to shout out another episode a lady called Helen Taylor who at the age of 52 went into be a cabin crew that is that was one of the first times I experienced an interview with two halves so I talking to two completely different women when she talked about being a history teacher trapped downtrodden micromanaged and then with it she uses this fantastic line about not even being able to be bothered to put a bra on to go out at night next trying to climb up a life raft and shut doors and she's on safari and that's the heartbreaking part of this because the talent pool is absolutely hemorrhaging so just to just to now capture for us Amy what's it like now your day-to-day life being outdoors working with the wildlife charity doing your gardening stuff how's that how are you how does it feel yeah I think I think obviously we know the impact it has on children but it has that huge impact on adults as well you know I'm so I am I am much happier and feel like I'm decompressed obviously I exited the classroom quite recently I feel like I'm still decompressing from from from those years spent in the classroom um but I've I've got a nice balance because when I went for that that job with the wildlife charity I went for another job like an admin role for a charity that are a sustainable education charity that are writing lesson plans didn't get the admin role but they asked me if I would like to be a curriculum writer so I've got a nice balance of being at home managing my own time and being treated with like dignity and respect and I work with lots of ex-teachers as well by the way both in both roles actually in both jobs so my day is you know I could be at home working at my own pace with you know everything isn't 100 miles per hour anymore which is really nice and I get to pick my daughter up from school and manage my time how I want to manage my time as long as I get the work done and then I have the days where I'm working outdoors with children and I feel like I'm making more of a difference now than I was when I was in the classroom because I am training teachers who then go on to you know deliver whatever we've done with their children in their in their classes and we have regular visitors to all these nature reserves and they just have the best day with us with me and my colleagues there so yeah I feel like I'm making a bigger difference than I was before and I'm in terms of salary as well I'm making the same but I'm working less less hours I could pick up more if I wanted but I'm you know I'm enjoying I'm enjoying that life feels more balanced. Well that is beautiful and guess what that nicely brings us to my my favourite favourite bit in all of this so since leaving the classroom tell us Amy Macdonald what's your sliding doors moment? Okay so as I've mentioned I it took me a while to take the leap of faith and leave because of my husband's job so he he works in the art I realized that this sliding doors moment made me realize that I didn't really talk to even though I had lovely moments with the children I taught I loved teaching I loved having a relationship with my class because of the microaggressions that Sarah you and Johnny were talking about and Sharon and that episode the looks in the corridor being all being ignored never knew which one it was going to be the the tone of the emails I I would come home and cry and have like whispered conversations you know with my husband so my daughter couldn't hear however my sliding doors moment made me realize that I talked to my daughter about my job I show her photos because I'm in three different nature reserves one is a quarry and it's been rewilded we have all types of native newts there including the greater crested newts toads you know and I come home and show my daughter photos of like the flora and fauna we found that day one of them is a nature friendly farm I brought home owl pellets to dissect with her and then my closest nature reserve is an estuary where I take care regularly and I you know we find the the things we find there are just incredible like um no mermaid's purses shark egg cases and all sorts of fantastic things and so my sliding doors moment was when I had my husband and I went to a parents evening and at the end really good parents evening and at the end her teacher said to me that our daughter so she said that um like our daughter talks about me and my husband like all the time and what we do to work because we involve her and what we do you know she goes to my husband's shows and she's come along to all the nature reserves that I work in and as I say I show her photos yeah and it just that word proud sorry because I thought um you know teaching everyone says I'm a teacher with pride don't they and I think one of the things that stopped me leaving was not not feeling that way anymore but actually I know that my daughter's proud of me and of course I am of her and I know that my parents are as well even though they got me through you know four years of teacher training and actually everything that I've gone through in school or uni and at school it has prepared me for the roles that I'm doing now and I'm like you said about being um you kind of get unskilled in teaching don't you but I feel like the opposite is happening now the opportunities and the training that I've done since leaving but I know that I'm valued because I was a teacher and a teacher for so long and I just think I think that's absolutely beautiful you go to parents evening and you think that the parents evening is going to be about how proud you feel about your child and their achievements but a teacher's articulated to you how proud your daughter you because of how she talks about you how she talks about your husband so you've talked all the way through this about the impact that the original pit pony video had on you yeah and apart from the financial blueprint one of the most powerful things that people who watch that video come to come to realize is is the impact we are having upon our children so you've done it yeah you've done it your daughter it's it's a really strange one that because very often kids will say I love my mum or I really respect my mum but to actually hear that your child is proud of you well I just think I think that is absolutely amazing and she should be proud of you she should because that teacher who did the first four years from 2008 to 2012 loved the residentials loved those I think you used to go to the Menai Centre in Conway didn't you yeah that was the week and how I could like truly be myself and with the children and before before I was like at university I worked as a play leader and like actually it was during university and before I worked as a play leader I've kind of come back well it took the scenic route but you took that you took that one week at Menai that you loved and I can't even begin to tell you the stories I've got when I was going to Menai because my god anyway you managed to take that one week that you loved and you've turned it into you've you've absolutely managed to monetize your joy and Amy it's been an absolutely superb episode and I know what Sarah Dunwood's going to do now she's going to be chewing your ear off for gardening tips and pocket stuff and and seedlings she tried to get me to grow some sweet peas this year it didn't last I couldn't even I couldn't even bet sweet peas going on my kitchen window so never happened mate honestly seriously I couldn't even tell you I don't think they lasted two weeks I knew I shouldn't have given those back to you seriously I could kill a plastic plant right okay brilliant episode love fantastic sliding doors moment you were a joy to talk to and I think you've given so much for our readers our readers our listeners to take away from a fantastic episode of the Pit Pony video so thank you so much for being our guest today Amy oh thank you I hope it helps other people to hear yeah nice story hello friend now I'm gonna start our reflections with what I'm not prepared to talk to you about which is gardening all right please do not bore me anymore with your gardening because listeners she sends me photographs of pots and veg and all sorts of stuff Lady Dunwood and her dear husband live on the good life quite frankly when it comes and she's a member of the national trust and she likes walking you know I don't even know how we mate anyway anyway we're rambling we're rambling Amy Macdonald I like I tell you I liked it because it it brought up a couple of things that are so important nepotism and part-time what what were your thoughts pal the nepotism or or the the closeness of that in terms of bringing friends and things and I I think that's more common than people realize certainly from the conversations that you and I have with with group members and if we were to do a a proper tally of that it comes up more than people would think um and I think in some respects the school system is quite like that anyway that it's almost a closed loop isn't it that somebody will go from some somewhere to somewhere they'll know somebody from somewhere else and and it almost self-feeds to a point it can work but it's so dangerous and it's and it's so risky because it blurs the lines of of doing things properly particularly it can be really problematic and I think when people fundamentally don't trust going and talking to another person because that that person has a personal relationship with the head teacher or the deputy or whoever it is then it makes life very difficult for people and it leads to what exactly what what she said that kind of just being disabled by fear and it's the thing that we hear so many times there's a reason why people are disabled by fear because there's there's something there that's making them question whether they can go and have a conversation with whether it will get back whether it will be talked about off books it is that sort of thing um so I did think it was it was interesting that that came up and I like I don't like her phrase but the way she phrased it the chronic unkindness I think is something that again we see time and time again and the sorry if there's drilling in the background of this epilogue that would be my husband of course it is no doubt it's no doubt it's constructing something right in business in life in work it is okay to be in a position and say I've worked with somebody who's really good and I want to bring them across to my school and and I've seen it happen um one of our great friends a great leader in a school in Salford who was going to be having on the podcast drew drew was a massive advocate of building the right team around you you know both his brothers worked at the school with him and I know when he left the school we were both at and then went to his school he actively encouraged and wanted real talent so it's headhunting it is headhunting but I think I think part of the problem I found with that I tend to find that familiarity within leadership teams take place in a primary school and when it takes place in a primary school and you've got so few members of staff working together not like a secondary with like 60 or 70 members of staff on the books but when you might only be talking about 14 people under the roof I think that's when it becomes like factions and cliques and we are going to be doing an episode on that and they're not too distant and we may actually have done it by the time this goes out um I think it does make it incredibly difficult particularly when layered on top of that you've got a leadership team who are irked and annoyed by part timers part timers who want to put in boundaries and say you're paying me for the hours of my contract but you are expecting me to be available full time that's massive in our group that's Sarah it really is and I and I I don't understand what it is about the school system generalizing that seems to make part-time working such a hurdle because in other sectors it absolutely isn't and and I I know you you said it in the in the conversation with Amy and you were absolutely on the money about this if the rationale is it's about consistency for kids you we're absolutely setting them up to struggle when they transition to high school because there isn't consistency in the same way yeah you might have the same business studies teacher right the way through year 10 year 11 but actually if that business studies teacher and I'm talking about myself has to go off for surgery in six weeks recovery then there might be a sequence of people coming in we're not we're not doing primary school children any good by insisting that it's one person all of the time and and we didn't talk about it Amy was the English lead well actually as an English lead I would I would be saying well actually Amy you should be going and taking some sessions with different groups of children in the school so that so that they're getting best practice from you as well as what you're disseminating to to teachers so I think just on a practical level in the schools I think there's so much to discuss there and I do think that there's there's certainly some conversation going on about that in terms of and stuff at the moment but I just get so frustrated with the absence of understanding about what part-time means in law and you know me I'm a stickler for law and compliance and I know it's difficult we know things because we do things and we advise and we've gone and found out what the facts that are and you can't as a human being be expected to know absolutely everything about everything that you're entitled to you go and find out at a point of need but people who are employing people should know what the rules are they should know what their people are entitled to and they should be advising them as such in terms of what works for both both sides and and I think it's weighted unfairly I might get shot down for this I think it's weighted unfairly in the favour of the employer and certainly in a school system because it is quite straightforward to go no it's not in the best interest of the children in school we can't accommodate that on timetable it makes it much more difficult to get part-time in real terms in the school system so that's it's a massive frustration to me and that's why on the group whenever anybody anybody says oh well I've been asked to do a parent seam and it's on my non-working day no it's paragraph 51.9 of STPCD and if you and even if your school's not a burgundy book school you're protected in law and and you know what gets me let's let's talk about this bloody parents evening I had a philosophy as a parent on parents evening I don't need to go to a parents evening okay you've given me a report and this applies to primary and secondary you've given me a report so I know I'll be doing if there's a problem don't wait till parents evening to tell me there's a problem okay so what is the purpose of this parents evening because if you were in a secondary school you've got you're herded like cattle into a building you've got a five minute appointment with one teacher a five minute appointment with another teacher and nine times out of ten if you've got a straight down the middle kid I've not really much for you to say really she's lovely she's fantastic don't have a problem brilliant because I've just been sweating in a corridor for 20 minutes for you to tell me you've nothing to tell me so what are we doing here with parents evenings and actually why does it have to be on one night of the year the best experiences I ever had in the school was when we did vertical tutoring and when we did vertical tutoring the parents evenings in the main were delivered by the farm tutor so say we had a farm class of I think we had about 16 20 kids in the farm class we had four year sevens four year eights four year nines four year tens four year elevens well on one evening I could sit with four year 10 parents give them half an hour each or 25 minutes where I was feeding back information talking to them they were able to give me information about that kid that I acted as the conduit to pass back to other teachers so they'd sit there and you'd have say it was a half an hour over a period of time across the academic year you could actually sit and talk to those parents so the fact that Amy couldn't do a Thursday night when she only taught the kids two days a week anyway what's the actual point of these parents evenings and also I think they should be online well and and that was just I was just gonna go because I'm I'm aware of a couple of friends who are still in teaching and and I know at least one of them their school does their parents evenings online so so they can go home they can do it from home and and and that works really well and I think this this could be an episode all by itself to be quite honest that that there are so many things that we missed a trick with in COVID times in terms of looking at practice and and almost using that as the as a new foundation for how can we do things differently how can we do things in a way that works for for for teachers but also works for parents because I'll absolutely echo that as a teacher who was a parent going to parents evening for me I I went at it with feeling sorry for that teacher on the other side of the desk that they're having to sit there for three hours that night and bounce through a load of parents and and from my perspective knowing that that my five minutes with that teacher yes it was of value but was it really of of great value did it tell me anything at all and and you invoked somebody who I worked with who said to me that parents evening should never be a challenge because you shouldn't be telling anybody at any parent at parents evening something that is a bombshell because you should have already had the conversation with them so if that's the case I'd go back to what's the point correct our parents evenings when we had like class sizes and verdict and you had a five minute session the whole of the parents evenings was set up so that you had enough time because you were relying on parents not turning up so I do think that is something to look at and actually if I was the head of a primary school I'd want about three or four different teachers teaching year six okay I'd want so many different faces in the mix so many of them teaching year three because then if that one teacher said I'm leaving that class was not abandoned from the only teacher who taught them for the whole of the year and these are quick wins and these are ways in which we could be more flexible for an offer working from home and accommodating somebody who becomes so ill that she wouldn't have been such an instrumental part of that class but she would have been part of the school that they could have put strategies in but you're right it's an episode in and of itself and yeah parents even to me I stopped going in the end because it really was a waste of everybody's time so I thought you can have your five minutes off again with me it's that flick in the moment of the podcast where they stop talking about life as a teacher and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm blossom and bloom and flourish and she's doing everything she wanted to do she's still working with kids she's still educating but she's doing it in the environment that allows her to thrive and it's outdoors she nailed it in in her first school that one week a year I loved Menai I mean Sarah me and you for those who don't know what Menai is in Conway it's an outdoor it was Cheshire owned wasn't it yeah I think it was Cheshire County Council yeah it was Cheshire County Council and every kid went on a residential either in year six or year seven oh my god it was mental some of the best staff occasions we had at Menai but we can't talk about that for legal reasons because we'll probably get imprisoned um she loved it and she came back to it the thing that I thought was important was when her daughter what had happened at that parent's evening was her teacher said I'm her daughter's teacher said I know your daughter's proud of you because of the way she talks about what you both do and I think what Amy then did was it really brought something back to her because she thought that by leaving teaching her parents wouldn't have been proud of her that her daughter would have been more proud of the fact she was saying my mum is a teacher but actually that's a false narrative we tell ourselves we're more proud of our kids when they and we're more proud of people when they're doing something where they've had to be brave where we can see they're happy we're proud of what they're giving back to the community being proud of someone because they're a teacher is a good thing but only if it's working well for that teacher so I loved the fact that her her sliding doors was all about perceived pride within her family but it was it was a cracking episode Sarah an absolute an absolute belcher I you're going to be spamming her inbox now with advice about plants and stuff like that quite possibly yes I'm going to ask you off camera what a mermaid's pocket is so don't ask me off camera let's have that conversation now when you go for a walk on a beach you'll see these little um and listeners obviously can't see me drawing a diagram in the but they're they're kind of like a they're like a little pocket and it looks like seaweed but it is a self-contained pocket and it's it's sharks eggs I don't even so you don't go to the beach though do you no good god no you don't go outside so um so let me get this man let me get this right I'm walking on a beach and there's a hole in the ground filled with seaweeds and eggs no no they'll be like well that's what you just said to me no you'll you'll see them scattered around the beach they get brought in on the tight oh my god I can't even I can't even next time I go to Crosby beach I'll bring you up there oh you can physically move them yeah they're they're like the they're like the size of half a passport they're not big you're doing a bit of like it was it was it who used all the right notes notes but not necessarily in the right place yeah Andre Beattie Eric Morecambe you've used all the right words but not necessarily in the right order because you've managed to take what I thought was a mermaid's pocket and now you've gone passport seaweeds eggs sharks I I have no I have no way of explaining it to you without showing you one okay do you know what I'm going to do now because it's Sunday afternoon I'm going to throw some Sunday dinner together and I'm going to google what's a mermaid's pocket do it I think it's the only way I can do it so thank you for inviting me on that right mermaid's pocket we're all over it mate that was a great episode it was a lot of food for thought a lot of inspiration as always it's been great um I'll see you on the next episode and I'll see you on the other side my friend all right try try 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