061 - Pit Pony Jay Dehaan - Classroom to Curriculum Innovation Manager - Part 1

Jay Dehaan didn’t grow up wanting to be a teacher. In fact, he hated school. He left education with no qualifications, spent five years in a wheelchair as a child due to Perthes disease, and was told by Citizens Advice that his family would be better off if he signed on.

But somehow, against the odds, Jay found his way into the classroom.

In this episode, Jay shares his early life with brutal honesty. We talk about growing up in chaos, being excluded by the very system he would later work in, and the life-changing moment his partner Sarah enrolled him on a college course without asking.

This is a story of trauma, tenacity, and the long, winding road into teaching. Jay is real, warm, and unfiltered. We loved this conversation, and we know you will too.

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Transcript

Thank you to our sponsors Little Voices. Are you a teacher with a passion for drama, music and performance or feeling stuck in the classroom? Little Voices gives you the chance to step into a role where you can truly inspire young minds through the arts. This is a company I know well and admire. 

They're passionate about child development, highly rated and genuine and transformative. With small group teaching, a focus on confidence and creativity. With the opportunity to guide children through Lambda qualifications, you can make a real impact. 

Plus, with the support of a nationwide franchise network behind you, you can run your own successful business, doing what you love while teaching in a way that truly fits your life. 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... By now we had a house, it wasn't a little flat, I think it was £1,200, like I weren't earning that, just, just scraping. 

Sarah wasn't working, obviously three kids, but I remember being in Citizens Advice Bureau and the person said to me, as a teacher you will be better off going and signing on, as your family will be financially better off if you go and sign on. And I was like, I've just worked six, seven years, to get to this point, I'm not leaving. Hello listeners, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Pit Pony podcast. 

Now, let's begin with what a traditional Pit Pony was. Went into education, stayed in education, felt they were born to teach, they were lining up their teddy bears as a kid, giving them stuff to do, marking little blackboards in the classroom. We've not got a traditional Pit Pony with us today. 

In fact, we've got, we've got quite the opposite. We have got a guest today who, by his own words, absolutely hated being at school, hated every minute of it, was not his safe space at all, left with the square root of nothing academically when he left the classroom, and the thought of being a teacher could not have been further from his mind. Dragged into it behind his back, by the way, by his partner, which we will dig into, we owe her a debt of gratitude, and actually trained to be a secondary school teacher, but ended up doing primary. 

This is not a man with a plan, in many respects. He fell in, he twisted, and he turned, but we've got Jay Dehaan today, and I'm really looking forward to spending time in his space. His energy's fantastic, his humour's there. 

He's already forewarned us he may drop a few F-bombs, but do you know what? He's in good company. So, without further hesitation, Jay, welcome to our podcast. Tell us what it is you're doing today. 

Today, I'm a Curriculum Innovation Manager in Further Education. Okay, okay, and it's not your traditional further education. I know it's with an organisation and a company, so we will get into that. 

So, Jay, it's over to you, my friend. Start us at the beginning and take us through the twists and the turns. Thank you. 

Like Sharon said, hated school growing up. Single mum, me and my older sister. Early life, childhood was crazy, mad. 

Well, no role models. The role models were kind of people doing the wrong thing, not much guidance. Mum was brilliant, did what she could, obviously, but just kind of manic, domestic violence, seeing things I shouldn't be seeing. 

Just, it was all normal to me. Hated school, didn't want to leave my mum, so just wanted to be with my mum. Didn't like being at school at all. 

There was no respect because, obviously, maybe the environment I was in, there wasn't respect for any teachers, any authority. Learning was just boring, didn't like, just absolutely hated it. Was getting into, wasn't particularly naughty or rebellious at school, just hated being there, would get into fights because, like I said, the environment I was in, that was kind of, I don't want to say second nature, but almost normalised. 

So we'd get into fights, just was hardly ever there. Hated school, primary school. Things took a bit of a drastic turn in year five, so leading up to year five, obviously, in and out of school, hated it. 

And then started limping, like really heavily, but was really sporty. So I was doing this really heavy limp. I remember my mum saying, oh, you're lying. 

You're like John Wayne, the way you're limping. Because he was so exaggerated. In the end, took me to hospital. 

They had a look, A&E had a look. I was fine, just a boy, boy being a boy, nothing. Sent home, limp carried on. 

My mum just thinks I'm doing it because it's so exaggerated to get out of school. Must have been a few more weeks, months, went to, ended up going to the GP. And I'll never forget, it was like the oldest man I'd ever seen in my life. 

The docs are really nice, but I just remember thinking he must be the oldest man I've ever seen. And I remember him saying, it's a long shot, but I think it might be this. It's a bone disease called Perthes disease. 

If it is, it's really rare because it's more common in toddler girls and for you to be a seven, eight year old boy, nine year old boy. But anyway, x-ray, he was right. Half of my ball joint and the top of my left hip was gone by that time because obviously there was no protective layer on the bone. 

And it went, I was on that x-ray, the consultation or whatever it was from literally when we left that room, I was no weight bearing. And at the time, weirdly enough, we're talking must've been mid, mid nineties ish. They didn't give us a wheelchair. 

You had to pay. I think something to do with a red cross. When we all see with skin, mama literally piggybacked me home with carrying me around the house. 

So I was dumped on the city. Couldn't go back to school because well, mom maybe didn't send me, but the school was two floors. Obviously I couldn't get up and down, ended up getting a wheelchair a few weeks later. 

And then basically I spent the next five years in with this disorder. Cause I had to wait for the ball joint to grow back because they can give hip replacements because you have to keep having them. And my legs were casted from both thighs to both ankles with a bar across the middle to hold the hip in place event.

They tried a bit of homeschooling, but no, I just hated everything even more by then. Cause now I can't do anything. Even I can't run around, I can't play football. 

And then the woman that tried to do homeschooling, I remember maybe seeing her a handful of times and it obviously just didn't work then had to go back to school eventually. So they put me in a, in a school mainstream school, but it was all one, one, um, level. So an inclusive mainstream school and a bus would come and Pit me up. 

Um, I remember getting on the bus and obviously I'm in a wheelchair, but I was in on the bus with kind of some really heavily disabled children. So I'm a bit like taken really back by all this. I was going on here. 

They're taking me to this school, hated school. Like again, I already hated it, but I hate it even more now because even if I, someone was annoying me where I was used to getting into fights, I couldn't even, like, I was just in this place. And I remember one of the teachers where I was in a, in the wheelchair, my, my legs were held at a particular angle. 

So my feet were kind of inwards. Um, I remember going down the corridor in my wheelchair and the teacher, you could clearly see from the plaster, my knees were facing in. So my feet were going to point inwards, grabbing one of my feet and pushing it up being like, put your feet straight. 

It was like, obviously just reinforce hate in this place even more. Um, that was year six. Um, obviously did that where I didn't get the choice in my secondary school. 

The one I'd planned that my sister went to that was off the cards. We had to move house not too far away, but we moved house. And then they put me in another, um, it was a mainstream school again. 

Um, but inclusive or one level again, I'd get the bus there with, um, I actually made some really good friends on, on the bus journeys, but some, some of the other boys and girls were kind of a lot more, obviously really disabled. Um, but got to the school and this is 97 now. So I think the, the, that disability act must have been brand new. 

I think it was 95 when it come out, but they didn't know what to do with me, this secondary school. So they put me in the library and I'm like, I can learn like, it's my legs that don't work. And I remember saying that because they put me with a TA, um, and we'd go into the library. 

It'd be me. Um, and a few, there was two, um, Down syndrome boys, um, and another girl that was just non-verbal and would be in the library. And I remember saying to the TA, she was, I really liked her, but, um, but why don't they let me in the lessons? What's, what's going on? Like I can do the lessons as much as I hate. 

I just, I can't sit in this library. Um, so yeah, did that. Then I started doing a few lessons here and there. 

And again, just hated it. I think it was midway through year eight. I got out of the wheelchair, stayed at that school and then just a bit more obviously freedom, but still hated it. 

But socially got better. Um, but then obviously during this whole period, it was all this madness still going on at home, like mad madness. Um, but yeah, got through school and like you said, no GCSEs, um, but socially improved from year eight, nine onwards for me.

Wow. I mean, where do we even begin now? I think what's important at this point is you're sat opposite two women now in their fifties who were starting out at that time as teachers that we, me and Sarah would have been probably by 97 and onwards a couple of years in two to three years in as teachers. So I'm right back in that environment with you. 

I was working in a school where they were building a lift in the middle of the school to start to accommodate. The integration was not there for children with physical needs. Absolutely not.

I've never seen a risk assessment and the learning needs of those kids actually seeing them as individuals, those types of kids with all fairness didn't touch me. I was on floor number two, the English department, the maths department was on floor number three. No chance library always on the bottom floor. 

So just want to go back at that point. You've got a chaotic home life. School isn't mental. 

All right. School's not even your safe place. Can I just sit with the younger version of Jay at this moment in time? That's got to be trauma. 

Surely, surely trauma is the word we can seat around you looking back and feeling safe, particularly as a dad yourself now. Yeah. How did that boy cope on a day to day basis? Where did he find any joy? Where was your joy? Where was your safety? I mean, I absolutely loved my mum. 

Biggest mummy's boy ever. But obviously, a lot of the stuff was not her. It was happening to her. 

So that was my absolutely, like, that's part of the reason I didn't want to go to school because I wouldn't be with her. But I think when you're in it, looking back, it's only when I look back or when I say it to other people and they're like, are you joking? That really happened? Because like some of the stuff is just is just mad. I didn't realise it until I was an adult. 

And I tell people, oh, yeah, this when I was a kid, this happened, obviously meeting Sarah and obviously and she'd be like, well, how are you not fully traumatised? Maybe I am. But you just you know, it's like you just get on with it, don't you? But during the time is just I just we just got on with it. I think while I was in the wheelchair, we got put in a safe house, me and my sister, my mum then got sectioned and we were left in the safe house on our own for about a week before we went to a phone box to call my uncle. 

This is what I mean. It was it was mental and looking back, I don't know how I coped. We just did. 

But then obviously, as an adult, I've got little things I do that make Sarah's like that's PTSD and she's telling me maybe that's that and things. But as a kid and yeah, I think once you get children, you realise like what they've got, I didn't have or things like that, that starts to really put it into perspective a bit more like how how have I turned out the way I am? Like, am I that lucky? Like I'm looking back and teaching children that have similar backgrounds or sometimes not even as bad thinking like how like you almost think they've got no chance, which is the wrong thing to think. But naturally you think that as an adult, where are they going to be? And in thinking of how how have I ended up? Have I just been really lucky? What is it? Was it my mum? And how have I ended? How have I not ended up being like all those people that were my role models and all those people we hear about that just have these childhoods and go into just continuing that trauma and chaos into adulthood? And it nearly did go that way. 

Like I said, and I'm sure we get onto it meeting Sarah had a massive impact on me. And I think actually in hindsight, another thing I realised as a as an adult, being put in that wheelchair at that time really calmed me down. Because I was running around as a seven, eight year old. 

Like I said, not actively looking for fights, but I wasn't scared of anything. The people I looked up to would, it was all fighting and criminal stuff. And it was that they were the why I wanted to be being put in that wheelchair almost was like, right, reality check. 

It's almost taken away, hasn't it? Yeah. The route that you couldn't go down. Now, what's interesting, and I want to bring Sarah Dunwood here, just not to conflate your partner in life is called Sarah. 

Well, we always seem to get on the pit pony multiple Sarah's. I don't know. This is what I want to just dig into. 

What you're describing to the untrained eye could be the 40s and the 50s. Historically, we are talking the late 90s into the early noughties. And we have really not set you up within the education system. 

This is an opportunity to go. How far have we come? I was reading today, Google only came into force in 1998. So anybody before 1998 was born before Google. 

We didn't have the internet. We didn't understand neurodiversity. You talked about rights, equal opportunities were only coming in. 

This is within our lifetime. We've come so far as an education system that it's almost a time, is it not, Sarah, to take Jay's circumstances and go, there's a lot to celebrate within education, within what's going on at the moment. Yes and no. 

Okay. I'm distinctly remembering a student that I had who had Perthes and that was the mid, whatever they were called, the 2000 and teens. So it was like 2012, 13, 14. 

Yeah, we had a lift, but we still weren't accommodated for him. And the Equalities Act had come in in 2010. And we had another student. 

She was the most amazing, the most amazing girl. She ended up having a full leg amputation from the hip. And that's where I wondered, I did genuinely think, oh, is this going to be the strangest coincidence? And we made accommodations for her, but I would say she had to make more accommodations to stay in mainstream than we could reasonably make for her.

So I think, yes, we have come a long way, but I still think there's so much more to do. And that would take us off down a different pathway. I think where you were, and I remember those times, mid nineties, very well, there were two types of schools. 

There was mainstream and there were special. And regardless of whether it was right or not, if you could not, and listeners, I am using air quotes, fit in, in mainstream, you went to special. That was the reality. 

And it's really interesting listening to you, more so in some respects to do with how you and your sister were missed and how, because that would not happen now, the level of safeguarding, that would not happen now. I'm not convinced knowing what I know about, about SEND support and everything else. I'm not convinced that, that all schools would be set up to accommodate even now. 

Yeah. Well, just going back to the being missed. And again, my memory as a child is not the best, but I remember one particular thing after school, we don't, we must've done some writing or something like a recount or something.

I don't know what it was, but I'd written this story or something that had happened maybe over the weekend or whatever it was. And teacher saying, Oh, can we just have a chat to my mum, she Pited me up. And then they've obviously gone off and had a chat. 

Me and my mum had a chat after and what I'd done, we'd had like a really traumatic, I don't know if it was that weekend or the week before, but basically one of my mum's partners had jumped through the window, living room window and tried to basically, I don't know what he was trying to do to us all, but we was, I remember being on my mum's bed. My mum and my sister are pushing the bedroom door. He's trying to get in.

The police have obviously got there just in time. I'd written it. This is what happened. 

And obviously the teacher's like, like, is this real or not? Said to my mum, obviously they've had that chat. I don't know what my mum might've said. I don't know. 

He's just made that story up. Whatever it was said, I don't know what was said, but obviously as a teacher, if I, if you're reading that, that's like huge safeguarding, isn't it now, but there, and then it would have been, whether that conversation got taken further, I doubt it, but it was probably just, he's written this for us. Oh yeah, he's just made that up, end of it. 

But yeah, again, that's just when you said about the safeguarding, that's one of the memories I've got of, that would have been a point as a teacher when you, when you sometimes in children's writing, they write things and you thinking it raises a lot of questions, doesn't it sometimes. So yeah. Thank you to our sponsor today, Emma Louise Bennett from the Empowerful Club. 

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For sure. You go back in time and safeguarding as it is now is only in place because of things that happened after that period of time, 2002, 2003, 2004. You fell in a period of time where I think there was movement, but the cracks were still really wide. 

This was pre Every Child Matters, the Victoria Columbia situation. And we should not be talking to a teacher, quite frankly, is everything that keeps coming through in my head. But yeah, interestingly, the wheelchair to a certain extent, was she saving grace? Because like he said, it literally did incapacitate you to go down a route where you could be going out at night, standing on street corners. 

Where were you based, Jay? I'm assuming this is down south in London. We were just outside of London in Middlesex, just around there. We started in Hillingdon and then because of the wheelchair, we moved to a place called Uxbridge because one of my primary school got moved to was Rice Slips, all around the same area. 

Then the secondary school I had to go to was in Hayes. That's just outside of West London, near Heathrow. Have you got pictures of yourself from that period? Do you have some photographs? Yeah, well, in my mum's loft, there's an actual cast because every six weeks, you'd be in the cast for six weeks, they'd cut them off and you'd have a week on crutches again, non-weight bearing, but just to, I don't know, to give you a rest or because you'd grow maybe and then you'd have a week on crutches and they'd put another set of casts on. 

And that was a five year period until it grew back. I'm sure I could dig out some pictures. Yeah. 

Wow. Wow. It's unbelievable. 

So you get to year 11. What does it say on your GCSE results day? What do you leave in your hand? I'll tell you what we did. So it was, I don't know if it's, yeah, we went and collected, it was that Burgundy, Red Book, hardback, shell, torsion. 

National record of achievement. I took my mate who went to another school, I was like, come on, let's go and get these. I didn't turn up to some of the GCSEs, to be honest, but the ones I went to, I was like, let's just go and do it. 

It'd be a laugh because we get to run around the school a bit. We went and done it, Pited up the book, had a quick look, no surprise. And then I chucked it in the wind before I even got home, to be honest. 

So that was it, Pited it up. We had a mess about in the school, bus home. And that was, by the time I got home, that was gone. 

But there was no GCSEs. I didn't, I didn't get any ATCs. I don't even think I got any D's or E's to be honest. 

Again, that just leading up to that, I suppose the only male role model I had was my uncle. And you're, again, you're talking, this is early 2000s, I think I left and it was trade, get a trade, get a trade, something to fall back on. So he was already setting me up to go into, go and do an apprenticeship in carpentry. 

And then that would lead us on to kind of my next part of my life. But it was, again, education didn't matter. I was seeing so much mad stuff at home, sitting and listening to you or learning about this. 

There's nothing. I'm more, some of the stuff we did was life threatening. Like, and I, this is nothing. 

I don't, it just never, it was just social for me, the school was. And I didn't play up. I wasn't really naughty in school. 

I was still respectable, kind of to the teachers as much as I didn't really listen and didn't really care what was going on. I was never one of those kids that would be just rude and anything like that, kicking off for the sake of it. Yeah, we'd miss about school, but it was a social stuff, kind of lunchtimes after school.

That was the only reason I was there towards the end, to be honest. And you see, my question to you would have been, and in all of that, did you find one teacher who got you? But you probably weren't in a tutor group. You probably, you were in a library. 

You were coming across the likes of me and Sarah, who probably would have fussed you out and found something within you because you were isolated. But was there anybody, any role model in all of your time at school as a teacher who made a difference? I think at the beginning, I remember, again, it's probably just a football link, but there was one woman in primary school, pre-wheelchair, and I just remember she supported Brentford. But I really liked her for some reason. 

Going into secondary, while I was in a wheelchair, no, absolutely not, except for one moment, which I'll come back to. And then when I came out of the wheelchair and was actually in a form group and it was a bit more kind of normal, not really. There was a few teachers I didn't mind. 

They was all right. They'd speak to you kind of on a decent level, if that makes sense, not at you. But I think one particular thing, and the thing that must have planted the seed about me having, just on a whim, saying to my partner when we first met, I'd love to be a PE teacher, was one lesson, I'm in a wheelchair, they're doing rounders. 

Now I'm used to either not being invited to the PE lessons or getting there and sitting on the side watching. But we get to this, he's in the hall, PE lesson, they're doing rounders. I don't know why I was in the hall, maybe it was raining, but we're in the hall and he says, Jay, what are you doing? Come on.

And I'm like, are you not looking at me? Like what? I'm in a wheelchair. Like completely taken aback. He was like, come on, get involved, get involved. 

And this might have even been a PE teacher because I can't remember anything else from him. But anyway, he says, come on. And I'm obviously completely taken aback by it. 

He's like, you can hit a ball, can't you? Your arm works? I'm like, well, yeah, of course I can. He's like, well, you hit the ball, so and so will do your run for you. And just that whole feeling of, I was in shock, did it, and I was actually good at rounders, could hit the ball and then someone was running for me.

And then just to be included, like I think that just planted a seed that probably after that lesson, I never thought about again. But I honestly think now in hindsight, that was the seed that was planted and that would have probably been, it would have been early, maybe year seven. But again, I can't remember anything else of him. 

And whether that's because it was just blocked out or he was a supplier just for the day or whatever the reasons, I can't even remember his name, but I remember that moment. Because what we actually say is about people who make a difference. We might not remember their name, we might not remember what they look like, but we remember how they made us feel. 

And if that's what's happened there, you've had an interaction that has made you feel, and you use the word yourself, included. And that is so powerful. In the midst of home's chaos, but it's so beautiful the way you talk about your mum.

By the way, I just want to, I just want to shout that out to somebody who raised her kids on her own, who have children who sit, because if you do get it right, you make mistakes as a parent, you'll know. You've just told us you're about to get a parrot today, Jase, your family. So we'll come back to mistakes we regret later on in life. 

When your kids respect you and they can see through the lens of what you've gone through, and they still admire you, that's amazing. So on behalf of your mum, it's just so lovely to hear you talk about her in that way. Respect is the word that I think you're a very respectful person. 

But kids go through the most awful upbringings, and I didn't. So I had a 2.4 existence with Vera and Arnold, raised voices in our house a bit like, oh, something's going on. So it was, it could not have been opposite. 

So when you're teaching, you teach through that lens. I remember teaching books that meant nothing to kids like you, because there were kids like you I taught. I couldn't relate to them. 

I remember at the time we were doing early GCSE stuff. We were doing poems from other cultures and traditions. I mean, Christ, some of the kids, I couldn't even relate to their UK-based Northern upbringing, let alone asking them to relate to African villages. 

So I was teaching a curriculum that meant nothing to them in a setting that they couldn't relate to. And to then sit opposite you and listen to your story and know that you enter into teaching, I'm loving every single minute of you sharing. So partway through, I always thank at the end.

But now on behalf of our listeners, thank you so far for this. Have you read the book Teach, Survive, Repeat by Mark Rickard? It is a blisteringly honest expose of life behind the staffroom door. Far from the inspirational posters and recruitment campaigners, this unapologetic book dives into the harsh truths of modern teaching, where burnout, toxic leadership and data-driven madness have replaced passion, purpose and pedagogy.

Through unflinching personal accounts and anonymized testimonies, Mark Rickard reveals the emotional toil, institutional failures and systemic injustices that define the teaching profession in the UK. Part memoir, part manifesto, Teach, Survive, Repeat is both a survival guide and a wake-up call, a must-read for educators, policymakers and anyone who still believes the system is working. Now available in paperback and ebook and I've got it on my coffee table.

So you leave with your national record of achievement that doesn't even make it home. Nope. Fabulous. 

You've got an uncle, carpentry, rightly so, a thread. How does that work out? So I leave school and he's driven me to the college, Langley College, made sure I got there for the, it was an evening, it must have been an induction sort of thing, signing up, signed up, made me sign up. One day a week, he's got me a job with, somebody knows, a little building firm because it was all, obviously you go to the college on a Monday, the rest of the week you're learning the trade. 

So it happened that the company, the little company I was with, they weren't really, I was more of a labourer, so I wasn't really learning the skills and I went from them to another company and again labouring, so it got to year two where you've got to start building your folder with evidence. I'm labouring so I'm not hanging doors or anything they're asking me to do for my portfolio and then the company then can't, I kind of got laid off because they couldn't afford people. And I remember looking at some of the older, it was all men, but some of the older men and the people I was with and they were kind of taking subs on their wages, where you take your wages early, take 20 quid, can I have 20 quid? And they'd just, they'd be going, so they could go to the pub and I'd be thinking, I don't want to be like this, what am I doing? This is not me, I just didn't, it wasn't for me, I didn't, it just didn't do anything for me at the time, but obviously I was sticking through it, but the college thing just, I couldn't carry on because I couldn't do this portfolio, I wasn't doing the work, I was labouring and I think my uncle in hindsight, I think he thought I kind of pulled out, but actually I didn't, the company let me go. 

I think they, I honestly think they told him something else, but they let me go, that just lost and I think he was a bit like, I've tried, it's your fault sort of thing and that was it really, I mean and he was always kind of there trying to get me to do things, but that was the end of that kind of carpentry thing and then I just didn't really work for a while because I just wanted to do, I didn't know what I wanted to do again, it was just like, what do you do, like people are around doing lots of illegal stuff, I don't know what to do, so you're just caught in this thing, this kind of weird grey area and then my mum obviously is there the whole time, still there, I've had a younger sister by now, I was 15 when she was born and her dad was actually fairly normal, but nice, really nice, but that didn't last with my mum, but obviously I've got a younger sister in the city now, as I've left towards the end of school, but so yeah, maybe 17, 18, again no work really, the odd labouring job here and there and then I started getting random office or jobs in call centres, which I actually quite liked, doing lead generation and it was around the time where call centres were kind of, they were quite massive where we were, there was loads of them that popped up in these brand new buildings, so doing different call centre jobs, lead generation sales, but again not really going anywhere, not earning great money, all my friends that had stuck to the trade were earning good money by now and I'm like, I don't know what it was then, but not a lot, £150, £180 a week or something like that, like not a lot, but they're all like, oh I'm on £100 a day, because they've stuck through, they've finished their apprenticeships, they're working at Pinewood Studios and I'm a bit like, just lost and I'm still a bit like, I've still got, there's still a bit of chaos at home, but nothing like it was when I was a kid, but just lost, lost to be honest, but I held down those sort of jobs for a few years and then I met my partner Sarah and that's when everything, everything changed. Right, you've mentioned her, I know she's pivotal, so indulge us women please, how did you meet? We don't do a little our tune section and a bit of romance, but how did you meet Sarah? Tell us about that. This is going to be very fitting with kind of the rest of my life up to this point. 

Yeah, I'm on a night out and she knows the same people I know, but we don't know each other and I'm sure our paths have crossed for years leading up. She's six years older than me, so again even if our paths did cross, it'd be a bit like when you were kind of early, late teens, it's like, well she's out of my league, she's much older than me. Anyway, so I'm on a night out with my friend and the way nights out went, where we were, is at the end of the night you'd either try and talk to some girls or you'd end up trying to get into a fight, as mad as that sounds, but that's how, and I'm sure that's the same for lots of men my age who went out 20 odd years, but that's what it was. 

So we were standing outside this local nightclub, me and one of my friends who was six years older than me, same age as Sarah, and he's had a bit of an argument with one of the bouncers and the bouncers, out of nowhere, has just come and punched him and he's cut his head and I think there's a, I don't know if an ambulance was called, but an ambulance was there anyway, so I've gone to get in the ambulance with him. He's fine, but he's just cut his head and then this woman's next to me saying, I'll get in with you Paul, my friend. I'm like, who are you? I'm getting in with him and we've had a little bit of an argument and I can't remember who got in the ambulance. 

All I can remember, I don't think any of us did, all I can remember is we were both in A&E waiting for him and obviously we've got talking in A&E and that set it off and then a few weeks after that I've got a request on Facebook, at the time was new or fairly new, I got a message and then I got an invite to a birthday party thing she was having at another local nightclub in Beaconsfield it was and then it just went from there, just full speed ahead from that night onwards, but that's how we met in A&E. And was she different? Something about her at that point that went, this is the kind of energy, the kind of person, the kind of outlook I want? Everything. Am I right in assuming she fell for you and thought, right let's get this untapped potential focused in the right way? Was it Sarah who first suggested teaching maybe to a guy with no qualifications? Yeah it was, I mean just everything about her, like it's cheesy and I hate saying it but it was like love at first sight, it really was, but I was still like she's older, this is not really going to go anywhere, but anyway it did go somewhere and it was just everything about her, she's up front, says how it is and it's just I like people like that, straight down the middle, no messing about, I'm not going to say things just because I think you want to hear it, it's just straight down the middle and obviously as things have progressed and bear in mind I'm struggling for work, she's held down a job, she's got a bit of savings, not loads but a bit of savings, comes from a fairly, fairly normal upbringing and I'm kind of still trying to put a bit of an act on, like you've got a bit of money but you haven't, so I remember like just this whole weird beginning part, trying to impress her and then fairly early on it was like, because if she was older at the time, it's like right, she put it all on the table, like serious, like I'm serious about kind of relationships, blah blah blah, it's not long before I'm going to want children, I'm not messing about, you're either in it or you're not and we're talking maybe it was a year in and by that time I'd spent the last, obviously my last bit of it mental, but I'd spent the last five or six years going out, doing stuff boys doing, I was a bit sick of it all and I was kind of ready, so I was in, I was in, like she didn't even have to say it, I was all in and I remember a conversation, it must have been about doing these jobs and not really having any aspirations or anything, she was like what have you always wanted to do? I was like nothing to be, I've never had anyone to think I want to do that, when I was a kid it was be a footballer or be a criminal, like that was it, that was my role models and then obviously that again, going back to this plant being, this seed being planted, it was like I'd love to be a PE teacher, you've spent, you're doing sport all day, helping kids, like love that, but I got no GCSEs and you've got to remember as well, university was a massive thing growing up, going to university was huge, so that was off the cards for me, anything like that was off the cards, no one in my family had ever been, it was just off the cards, but I got no GCSEs, so I got no chance and obviously she was a bit more clued up in kind of what you do, the routes and then I don't know how long later, she was like oh I've enrolled you on an access course, access to education at Harrow College, one year course, you do your equivalents, you go start your degree and I was like but what about my work? I've got all my money, but we were still at our, we weren't living together anything yet, she was like I'm working, it's fine, whatever we need to do, I'm fine, I'll be, I'll earn the money, it's fine, go and do the course, which I did and I mean I didn't love that course, but I didn't, it was hard adjusting and getting back into something you hated your whole life, but there was a purpose and a vision, so I was driven, like let's let me do this because I want like for Sarah as well, but let's sort my life out, did it and I actually did quite well, I did really well on that, I think it was, the way it was graded was like distinctions and all that and I did, I did quite well and then did all the UCAS staff and then I got offered, it was a foundation degree, so I had to do another year again, but I had London Met in North London on sports science and PE degree, full-time, but it was like two and a half days a week and we had just got a flat, renting a flat, I think it was like 650 a month and then I'd say well I need to get a part-time job, so I was working part-time for Blockbuster Video in their office, their head office, so I was earning 650 a month, that was my part-time wage, I was like right that's the rent and then Sarah funded everything else for us and then obviously got through my four-year degree because I had to do, it was a foundation degree, I had to do the year which was all the sciences, I think, I don't know, you might know better, but maybe because it was a science degree, you had to do your biology and chemistry in that first year and then all the sports stuff was the final three years, did it by the time I got to year three, we had our first child, so working full-time, uni, dissertation, child, rent, all this stuff was like stress, did it just gradually, I think I ended up with a 2.2, which I was a bit gutted about, but I was like I don't care, I'm done, as long as I didn't fail, I'm done, but I was like at the point where I said to her I'm not doing it, I'm so stressed out, just I'm gonna go and get a job and obviously she's no, don't be silly, you've done all this hard work now, you've got to do it and I was just like no, I can't, I'm so, I'm too stressed out, I can't do it, I don't want to do secondary anymore, I've done a few placements and not enjoyed it, kids, I might have just been unlucky, but I just struggled, the girls didn't really want to get involved in the schools I was at, the boys only wanted to play football and it was like I'm trying to deliver, I don't know, whatever the lesson might be, hockey or whatever it was and she was like no, don't be silly, like just go and do your, because it was PGCE time now and I was like no, I'm not, I'm not doing it, not doing it, went and applied for the police, weirdly enough, again something else, it was a fervest thing, I grew up hating police, it was ingrained in us, you don't like police and it was like, so I applied for the police, I went through all the process, I did the little exams, the interviews, the physical and then it was like three weeks in Hendon, that stage and then I backed out again because I'd spoken to somebody who'd taught him both and he said why don't you have a go at primary, it's lovely, the kids are lovely, it's like you can do PE, some schools let you specialise in PE, so I was like why not, why not and I was just on a whim, I sent loads of, I'd sent just random emails to all the local schools about getting a direct placement, if I can get on the PGCE because I'd been accepted at Brunel in Uxbridge for the PGCE and then one school got back to me and was like yeah, come in for an interview, had it, got accepted, they said yeah, we'll take you on, school's direct it was, that's what it's called and it was probably the best school in a not very nice area, so I don't know why they took me on, it was a Church of England school, people were lovely but for me again, something million miles away, people weren't, they were not like the people I was used to, so I've gone in, I remember my first ever, it wasn't me taking the lesson, my first day, my mentor who at the time I really didn't like but in hindsight was amazing for me, she was a year two class and she was reading the Mexican version of Cinderella because the topic was Mexico and it was a literacy lesson and I remember her saying to me before the lesson, as I'm reading this story, can you just write down all the adjectives on the flip chart so we can discuss it, so I'm thinking, I don't know what an adjective is like, what am I going to do here like, so I've just tried to wing it like I've done my whole life and she's, to be fair to her, she didn't say anything after the lesson, she was like, do you know what an adjective is? I was like, no, I'll be honest, I've just come from a sports science degree, like I honestly don't know and she's like, right, okay, we've got a lot of work to do and like I said, she was really hard on me and at the time, it was like, she's just, I don't like her but in hindsight, she was amazing but I loved it, even as hard as I found it and you're talking a year two curriculum, as hard as I found it, I absolutely loved it, loved working with the kids, I loved, especially kids that had been similar backgrounds from me, I loved kind of getting in there, the observation, she was really good and I want to say at the time, I hated it but in hindsight, she kind of made everyone in the school come and observe me, she'd make a point of observing me, so it was just second nature being observed and it was never, my whole career as a teacher was never an issue, people would be f***ing themselves, observation week or droppings towards the later years, so I was like, well, it's just a chance to show off, show how good you are, where that comes from. 

But you know what's amazing, in all the pockets of your life you've just been talking about, I did a tally, I think you said the word loved about six or seven times in one complex sentence, so talking about verbs and adjectives and semantic fields, you just went, I loved this, I loved the kids, so you found it then, you found for the first time, I mean you talked about Sarah with such love, it was untrue, but you actually articulated a place that you loved being in. Even though I felt like I didn't fit in, weirdly enough, because it wasn't what I was used to and I just thought, how have I got here, it was always that imposter syndrome for the first, God knows how long, probably to the end, even now I still get it a bit. But yeah, ironically, because Sarah will talk about imposter syndrome and it never leaves you, does it Sarah, I mean let's face it, it never leaves you that level of imposter syndrome.

Daily. You were leading a big training session on AI the other week, weren't you, and suddenly went. The night before, I was like, who am I, who am I to be teaching this, what on earth am I doing, I actually had to confess at the start, I've got raging imposter syndrome and then it went away because I confessed it, but yeah, daily.

But yeah, interesting, Jay then talked about loving lesson observations because it was a chance to show off, so this is like complex imposter syndrome, it's not your typical one. So this is your school's direct placement, you're with a year two mentor who's a lover already, women feature strongly in your life, my friend. Yes, they do, yeah.

They really do, so you're ploughing through, you're doing your placement, how's it work out, what happens? I loved it, but I just, and this is when in my life everything clicked as if hard work beats everything, just work hard, and because I did, I went away and I just worked so hard, I just did everything I possibly could do to be the best I could be in that, and like I was just tunnel vision, like because I just, that love was there straight away, so I just worked really hard, threw myself into it, I did, it was an academy, I was, so I did with a year two, then I went to one of the other schools in the academy, year five, another really good mentor, female again, really, she was from Hungary, brilliant, to the point, she said to me day one, don't think you're getting a, don't think I'm going to give you outstanding, and I was like, what? She said, you're never going to be outstanding, as soon as you get that in your head, you'll be a good teacher, like don't ever settle, think you're outstanding, if I give you outstanding, you're going to go into your NQT year thinking you're outstanding, I don't want you to have that mindset, I want you to constantly think about, I need to improve, I need to improve, so she was good, and I liked that year five class, because the kids were a bit older, and I realised you can have a bit more of a, bit more, I hate the word, a bit more banter with them, and it was, it was, I really enjoyed that, and again, I've still got a bit like, how have I ended up here, but just, just loved it, and then the other year five teacher in that school was leaving, summer two term, summer one, which I handed down, she was going at the end of summer one, and the school said to me, listen, do you want to take that class? It will be on a, well, we can't pay you as an NQT, but we pay you up to summer holidays, and then come in as an NQT next year, in year five, so I was like, yeah, well, yeah, 100%, like, well, of course I do, so I took it, and I kind of had my own class, and it was like, wow, this is amazing, it was only for that short kind of summer two term, but absolutely loved it, that sense of freedom, and having your own little, your own classroom, like, I was so proud of that. Ironically, when you've not been allowed in a classroom, all the way through you at school, you've now got your own, that you can get into, wow, I love it. I loved it, and then I had summer holidays, I went in, and did my classroom up, like, having that, just having your own, nice, fresh, because I wasn't used to nice, fresh things, so I've got this nice, fresh building, like, this room, done it up, did that NQT, did my NQT year, absolutely loved it, person I got put with, again, another, another female, really, she was amazing, had a great relationship with her, and we did really well in year five, that year, and then year two came, my second, my first kind of full year, whatever you call it, after the NQT year, started again year five, they said, do you want year five, so yeah, happily take year five, and then, like, and the school were brilliant, we had a head teacher, and she, I remember, and this stuck with me all through my thing, she would, again, I remember her observing me once, and the lesson, I can't remember what it was, but it was an afternoon, and it went so, it was going so bad, and I just was like, what do I do like this, I'm not, I can't carry on, it's gone, the lessons, I've lost the kids, it's gone, so I was like, right, I just stopped, I stopped the lesson, and kind of went on to something else, and all the while, I'm thinking, I've just completely messed this up, she's gonna, like, go in on me afterwards, in the feedback, and she was like, that was brilliant, you knew it was gone, and you just stopped it, and went back, and that kind of stuck with me, of being brave, she said, you were brave, that's what she kept saying, how brave you are, when you're being observed, not to just carry on, when something's gone, she said, that's what we, I want my teacher to be brave, like, take risks, but she would, she'd push, she'd pull us in as teachers, and be like, right, five years, where do you want to be, or two years, where do you want to be, five years, where do you want to be, ten years, where do you want to be, and she'd put things in place for you, to get, what's that, working towards them things, and she was amazing like that, and obviously, I didn't realize how amazing that was, until I experienced other head teachers, but anyway, year two, so I'm in year five, and then I've, by now, I've got two children, third one's just been born, three girls, on the theme of females in my life, three girls, and the house we're renting is, it's been condemned, basically, because there's a leak in the kitchen, so they've got to rip all the floors up, and my partner's mum and sister had just moved to Somerset, Burnham, so Sarah said to me, listen, I've got to get the baby out, it's a building site, like, I can't, I can't be in here, I'm going to go stay with my mum for a little while, while they do the work, and I've been toying with the idea of Dubai, because people have been going on, go to Dubai, tax free, you're tax free, and we were going under financially, living in London, teach away, I think it was on, whatever the starting was then, 22 grand, or whatever it was, going under, I remember being in the Citizens Advice Bureau, because we were going under so much, we were renting for like, by now, we had a house, it wasn't a little flat, I think it was £1,200, like, I weren't earning that, just, just scraping, Sarah wasn't working, obviously, with the three kids, but I remember being in the Citizens Advice Bureau, and the person said to me, as a teacher, you will be better off going and signing on, as your family will be financially better off, if you go and sign on, and I was like, I've just worked six, seven years, to get to this point, I'm not leaving, and he was like, and yet again, the system is letting you down, have been let down, all the way through my formative years, by a system that's failing me, and now I'm putting myself back into a system for support, and you are giving me, potentially, the worst advice of my life. 

Yeah, he was like, go and sign on, he said, if I was you, I would leave your job, sign on as a family, not you personally, but as a family, you will be better off, because you are, this is, this is, your time's ticking, basically, you cannot afford, we were just, literally, just above water, there was times we didn't have bread, and obviously, my mum's skinned, Sarah's mum's in Burnham, so we haven't got anyone to be like, I had friends, which is amazing, his family would help them buy their first, they're living in now, mortgages, and all this, I'm like, I've just worked so hard, and I'm still struggling to even eat. Thanks, listeners, for sticking through part one, fabulous and fascinating journey of Jay, loved every single minute, and part two will be coming soon. Thanks for staying with us during another great episode of the Pit Pony podcast, and on behalf of myself, Sarah Dunwood, Mike Roberts at Making Digital Real, we wish you all the very best, and we'll see you soon.

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.