064 - Pit Pony Kat Philippou-Curtis Part 2 - With Special Guest Cathy Tyson

Kat’s Story, Part 2: Swallow - A Film That Could Change Everything

In this gripping second half of our conversation with Kat Philippou-Curtis, we’re joined by the legendary Cathy Tyson, who brings Kat’s story to life in the upcoming film Swallow.

Together, we explore how a teacher who refused to be gagged transformed personal trauma into a powerful work of art. We talk about non-disclosure agreements, toxic leadership, cultural discrimination, and the quiet scandal of teachers forced out and silenced. Cathy shares her experience stepping into the role, and how the story struck a deep chord with her own values and background.

This episode is not just about one film. It’s about the thousands of stories hidden behind closed doors. It’s about truth, courage, and the potential for a Me Too moment in education.

If you've ever said, “Someone should make a film about this”… you're going to want to listen.

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

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 Cawley. 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, telling stories, getting it out into the mainstream, because in today's day and age, that's what ignites a movement. When they can see it, they can watch it, they can listen to it. And I think we keep our powder dry. 

We spend more time with the likes of Kat. We talk to our Pit Pony and eventually most things bubble from underneath and then erupt. And I think we're potentially at the point of seeing that eruption and then the discussions will be had. 

So, having listened to Kat's story, I'm sure now, listeners, we are absolutely desperate to find out how this huge miscarriage of justice has actually made its way into the format of film. Because let's face it, we all have stories, we've listened to stories. And we always say, this should be a film. 

Somebody should hear about this. And to be able to sit on a podcast now and say, yeah, that's happening. One of our Pit Ponies has found a way to get their voice from the shadows of the classroom, from the broken version of themselves on a settee, out there for people to listen to and watch. 

And that happened in no small part through Kat's connection with the acclaimed and the distinguished actor, Cathy Tyson. So, to actually have Cathy with us on the podcast today is amazing. So, welcome back, Kat. 

Thank you. And welcome, Cathy. Thank you so much. 

Cathy, can I start with you, please? When did you first become aware of Kat's story? What were the circumstances surrounding you hearing about our Pit Pony? Well, I met Kat Philippou-Curtis at the Romford Film Festival. We had a film, the film festival, and I got talking to Kat, and she told me a bit about a story that she was working on about a teacher that was mistreated. And she did mention it was her own story. 

And so, that, you know, piqued my ears. But also, when you're at film festivals, you meet interesting people as well. You know, we're all interested in making film. 

They came to see our film, which was lovely. So, that's where it started for me. And Kat sent me the script.

And I thought that would be good to, well, ask her. She asked me if I could play another character, but I was greedy. And I said, well, I want her to be considered for the main character.

She had a, and we made her French. There was discussion. And I auditioned with Kat. 

I think she came to my house in London one day, and I went through the script with her. And we talked, because she considered me as well, which was nice to be the lead. And we took it from there.

She said, yes, you'd like me to do it, which was great. I was a bit tentative about the French accent. I hadn't done a French accent before, but I thought it wasn't about colour. 

It was, Kat didn't want it to be about colour difference, but about accent difference, because that, language difference, because that pertains to her in identity as well, being Greek. So, I imagine that's why she wanted that, because it was part, and also to get, gets mocked for her accent in the class. When you heard her story, were you almost incredulous that this was an indiKation of what was going on in British schools? No, because I know, I know about that. 

I've seen, I've seen films. I was upset about it. I, my family, part of them come from the Caribbean. 

This kind of thing would never happen there. I'm aware of what happens to teachers. And when I was at drama, not drama school, but university, I was a mature student and I was contemplating being, leaving acting and becoming a teacher. 

But I didn't think I could be one, not because of the stress in the school, but because of the workload, I didn't think, you know, I was what, nearly, I was mid forties then, late forties. And I thought I wouldn't have the energy, but obviously I didn't have the calling because it is a voKation. So, I was aware, you know, I went to an inner city school myself. 

I saw, I heard about a teacher getting slapped, a really lovely teacher as well. And I don't think the student, maybe, maybe she was, I went to a tough secondary modern school where it was all about being hard. It was tough. 

So, and this was in the seventies, late seventies. So yeah, I've been aware of stuff that has gone on in our schools. And, you know, even just thinking about what you're saying about the people, 150,000 members on Facebook, I'm glad there's an outlet for them, but I also wonder what we can do. 

And things came to mind as you were talking about that, about that old saying, those who can't teach. So, the attitude towards teaching from certain people is of disrespect. And then they changed that to those who can teach.

So, they, they worked on that and I know Kat was in further eduKation, any, any eduKation, anyway, any edu, I think any eduKation is, you know, there are teachers, but, so things went through my mind when you were talking about what people are going through. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think if we bring Kat in at this point, Cathy, you've got your story, you've got this, this really, really powerful story. 

And then all of a sudden the universe and the gods collide and you've got an opportunity now to do what you do, produce a film, create something, bring this story to life and no pressure Kat, but there's a lot of people who are going to be going, okay, tell our story, might not necessarily be word for word, but you're telling our story. How did you feel when the universe aligned and you got Cathy and you got somebody who felt as passionate about getting this story out as you do, what were your priorities for Swallow? What did you want to achieve with this film that you have made? First of all, having Cathy on board, when she immediately said, I'd like to audition, I, I felt blessed immediately. I said, oh, this is impossible. 

I was so happy. It showed me that the universe wants this film to be made and it wants to be made at the highest possible caliber. And Cathy set a standard that we as a team have to reach and maintain. 

And I think having Cathy on board, open the floodgates for people to come and join and, and for students to want to work some excellent students to come and work. To become the class. And it's Cathy's caliber alone. 

I think classified, but it's a true story that has literally created this big buzz. I want to be in this film. I want to be in this film.

I have to say that I've spent last eight months working with Cathy every day on editing, right? I've spent five hours a day, at least watching Cathy's reactions in the phase. And I have loved every second of it because she is phenomenal. And I'm not bored of her. 

I watch it over and over and over. I watched the whole film and it's nearly that close. She's done an amazing job. 

She felt it there. The tears were real. And I think that everybody that saw it said the acting close friends that I'm editors and everything. 

They said that it's a phenomenal part in terms of acting. So she elevated the film from, she almost authentiKated, if I can say, I can use that word. Yeah. 

I feel extremely honorable and Cathy, thank you so, so much for, for being part of this. You have done an incredible job and you have told my story much better than I would if I'd played it myself, or if I'd played, if I had, you know, you, you brought depth into it. And the silent moments were incredible because it tells a story without, you know, it's very, very powerful. 

So I felt, yes, the universe wants me to make this film because it brought Cathy right into it. I believe strongly in faith. I believe in karma.

I felt that, you know, in my 60 years, nearly, I have not hurt anybody, helped a lot of people. And maybe that's my turning point now that this story came out of pain, came out of lots of tears, sleepless night, mediKation, you know, I literally mental health issues. I have literally been damaged me a lot. 

And I think that this is perhaps the, the payback and hopefully it will be really good. And I think that is in the center of it. I think what's, I think what's important for me and what I'm hearing now, and I'm going to bring Sarah in at this point, where I'm getting a fizz and this, the sense of excitement within me, just listening to this. 

It's Sarah, this isn't just Kat's story. This is the story of so many on our group. What's your response Satya? Because I'm having goose pimple moments to think this could be potentially what we've waited for to open the door beyond our Facebook group and bring these stories out from the shadows. 

What are your thoughts? We've always said, haven't we? There needs to be a Netflix series. There needs to be something. And, and I want to go back to something that Cathy said about perceptions of teaching and of the profession. 

And because we only talked about this last night, didn't we? On a different recording is that teaching. And I, I think it extends to the public sector generally are not well regarded in the way that they were when we were children. To be a teacher when I was 10 was something to be revered as it was to be a GP or a nurse or whatever. 

I don't think that is the case anymore. That's a societal issue. No, not go down that route. 

I think to have something that potentially could knock the lid off and actually get people talking and people going, Oh, that's a true story. It's it's, it's film, but it's, it's documentary is real. It's not Waterloo road, which I love, but it's not Waterloo road.

This is somebody's story. And I think for people like me and for you, Sharon, and for people in our group that, that we've spoken to and helped the biggest frustration is the injustice of not being able to tell our stories in the stark reality of actually what happened rather than the sanitized version that we can get away with because of the restrictions that are on us. So you're forbidden to speak. 

There are restrictions. That is very common that teachers are exited from their jobs with a settlement agreement, a legal settlement agreement. And part of that settlement agreement is a, is a binding non-disclosure and it's binding on both parts in terms of the school can't say anything negative about you, but equally you can't say anything negative about them. 

I'm going to be very careful here. We are aware of instances where actually somebody has signed one of those settlement agreements and has actually been able to leverage it back at the school because the school have breached the terms of their settlement agreement. So they do work both ways. 

But it was one of the questions we asked Kat, are you subject to a settlement agreement? Because if you are, we've got to be very careful and you've got to be very careful about telling your story. Now, unfortunately, Kat's not. Kat can tell the world.

Yes. I mean, they offered me when eight of my, seven of my eight grievances were proven guilty, they all proven guilty. They offered me compensation. 

First of all, they offered me my job back. And I said, I'm not going to go into the viper's nest. That's, that's a completely offensive and insulting that you even dare say that. 

Then they offered me compensation and I said, no, no, I won't, I won't do that. Then they upped the compensation and it was good money. And I really wanted it because I wasn't paid. 

So I said, no, I will tell the world my story. And then they said, well, we'll give you this amount of money, but you have to have an NDA not to talk about your situation and your story and the college on Facebook, on Instagram, to people, to the press, to anyone. And I basically doled into it.

No, I will get money from the world, but I'm giving you the gesture. And I said, no, I will do it because I want the world to know what teachers are going through. And there's nothing you can do to stop me. 

I'm broke because I put all my savings into this film, all my savings, because I thought it's so important to me. I'd rather be broke than keep quiet about this injustice. But what we've just touched on there, Cathy, is the secret scandal.

It's the silent scandal, because on average, what is happening with teachers in Kat's position? Schools let them down, OK? Like what happened to Kat. But in order to exit and move on and to get a reference, that's the main weaponization within a school situation, to get your reference, because your reference from your last school is crucial. Because of safeguarding rules, you can't just pull in two random character references. 

You have to have your last teacher's reference. So has that shocked you, Cathy, that there's non-disclosure agreements with teachers? Yes, because I don't know the world very well, but we have non-disclosures in our business now and have done for a long time. But have you done any research on what teachers are allowed in other countries? Is it the same kind of thing? We've never gone beyond the UK, because here's the peak irony. 

There's no recording of those figures. The unions probably have some indiKation of the scale with which this is happening, because more often than not, you have a union rep with you. But we have no documented evidence of how many teachers have been exited under a settlement agreement with a payoff. 

Now, let's do some joined-up thinking. We have got a huge eduKational crisis because of a lack of funding. So my question would be, how much of the government's money that should be going to kids is being used to gag teachers so they can't talk about their experiences? This is a unicorn to have here, to be able to talk openly. 

We have so many people wanting to come on our Pit Pony podcast, and they can't, because they've been gagged. And the reason they've been gagged is because at the point where they are being exited, they've not got their act together. They're broken.

They're on their knees. They probably had a breakdown. They're on some form of mediKation.

They're sat in front of a head teacher saying, sign this. We'll give you a reference and we'll give you a lump sum. Now go. 

Oh, and by the way, you cannot sue us for constructive dismissal. You cannot talk about our behaviour. Now, when you're a broken mother of two kids, your marriage is on the rocks because you've been a complete car crash for the last 12 months because of what teaching's done to you. 

And all you want to do is make this go away. You sign that deal. And it is a scandal waiting to be burst open through the scenes. 

But ironically, the people who could tell the stories are gagged. We are talking thousands upon thousands of teachers every year are being bullied, mistreated, put on support plans that they don't deserve to go on. And then when they are broken, they are exited under a non-disclosure agreement. 

It's huge. Our group is filled with them. So what I was hoping, and Kat and I talked about it, is your story starts a Katalyst for many dramas that sit around. 

Other people's stories are told in this format because there is a silent group of people who will be watching this film going bloody good on you, girl, because that happened to me. And I'm that frightened I can't even talk to my family and friends about what has happened or they will withdraw my reference and they will make me pay my money back. It's horrendous. 

It is the me too of teaching. It really is. And it's not being talked about enough because ironically, they've no voice. 

Cathy? So what is the union doing? What is the NUT doing about this or can the NUT do about this? Do you know? I'm going to bring I'm going to bring Sarah Dunwood in at this point because Sarah's walked down this path to try and try in her own way to get this brought into the public domain. Sarah, what are the unions doing about this? They don't seem to be. I'll come off the fence. 

The big ones, so the NU, which I think was used to be NUT and NAS. I think they are aware of it. We've had at least one regional rep kind of whistleblower to us. 

We're not an official organization, but we have had at least one rep whistleblower in terms of this is ridiculous. The unions do know what's going on, but they're not doing anything about it. There's no centralized approach. 

If there was a publiKation of figures, if there was an annual report for teaching that said this year in teaching in mainstream schools because there is an annual staffing and workforce report in England, if they stuck another line in that that said in England in 2023, 2024, two and a half thousand teachers were exited on settlement agreements, it would probably stop because it would be out in the public domain, but it's not. And I think there's a compliKation because the union reps who are dealing with it under employment legislation, the employers are quite canny. They'll do things like having a protected conversation, which can't be used in any sort of evidence or legal proceedings because it's behind closed doors. 

They play just the correct side of the line in terms of the law about how you manage these situations. And Sharon hit the nail on the head. Most times they are dealing with somebody who is utterly, utterly broken and all they want is for it to just go away. 

Make it stop. Make it stop. I've got personal experience of that, and I've got to be very careful. 

It's a compliKated situation. And interestingly, when the government changed last year, I wrote to the Secretary of State for EduKation with a number of issues, concise, but a number of issues. And the response to that was nothing other than impersonal. 

This is what we're doing. This is what we're doing. This is what we're doing.

And it didn't even come from her. It came from somebody very junior. And it was off your pop.

We're not interested. Kat, can I bring you in at this point? You have something to say here. I wanted to say that it was so difficult to get, when I was trying to find some help from the unions and I was trying to find some help from every eduKational authority, it was impossible for me to find an answer or somebody to even listen. 

First of all, I wasn't part of an union because I wasn't a full-time teacher. I had to pay a lot of money to be heard. It was so many issues that made it so impossible, wall after wall after wall, to be able to talk to somebody.

And that was while this is happening. Just for information, what are my rights? I've been five years into this particular college, but I haven't been long enough, and I'm not a full-time teacher. The thing I understand from seeing friends now locally, I've met somebody who nearly committed suicide because false accusations, and his family and his daughters were absolutely devastated for the years. 

But yes, he signed an NDA. He can't talk. And I've met other people who said that that reference is my lifeline. 

I cannot afford to get a safeguarding risk on my reference because I have no job after that. And I can't find any other job because I'm not qualified in anything else. So for me, it's easy because I'm not a fully QTS qualified teacher that has to spend my entire life in teaching. 

I taught on and off workshops and things throughout the year. So I'm an observer at the moment, and I don't need a reference because I teach a beautiful school at the moment, which is very nice and private. They don't care. 

It's important that the system doesn't want you to find a solution, or they don't want to hear the bad news. They're protecting the bad news because everybody benefits from those bad news. You see, I go back to the pit pony mentality. 

So imagine this, Cathy, like I said to you. Teaching was a voKation. You said it yourself.

It wasn't my voKation. We wrap it up as our entire identity. Cut us in half. 

That's what runs through us like Black Bill Rock. So you find yourself in the worst period of your life, and this is what's going on in your head. I need to play ball because I need my reference.

Without my reference, I'm out. Also, I've worked all my life, and another false god that keeps us trapped is our pension. Our teacher's pension is everything. 

If I come out now, I'm going to lose my pension benefits. So we're trapping ourselves into this real position of weakness, and what's more, at no point does a school say, I've got eyes in my head. I can see this woman is broken. 

She's sobbing. She doesn't know what day it is. She needs signing off by a doctor to say she's even fit to understand the documents that's been put in front of her, and at no point does the union intervene and say, this woman's not fit to make a decision about signing a non-disclosure agreement or a settlement agreement that relinquishes her rights to go for constructive dismissal when she's feeling a bit better. 

It absolutely disables teachers, and if Kat had have signed one of those, I'll tell you now, ladies, we would not be here on this podcast. Cathy? I just think teachers need more protections, don't they, and also consequences for people who, you know, codes of conduct in school from pupils, and if they're not reached or, you know, sixth form colleges, if they're not reached, then there's consequences, and also, I just thought about, imagine a world, excuse me, without teachers. I mean, back in the Dickensian era and before, people weren't at school, and, you know, they were on the street, and if just imagine, you know, a lot, you know, all of our children are looked after between 9 and 3.30 by these adults, basically, kept safe in a building. 

If we didn't have teachers, where would we be? I've seen children on the street in Ethiopia when I worked there, you know, I remember seeing a boy on the street, and he was seven, and it was like mid-morning, and it's just not a sight that I'm used to, but over there, everything is very precarious where the people get to school, and that was like, that child shouldn't be there. What's he doing alone on this main street at 10 o'clock in the morning? We, as a country, don't have that, but that's what it would look like. I kind of always support a teacher's strike as well. 

I mean, I know everybody goes it's unforgivable to do that, but I'm always usually behind them. 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 eduKators, 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.

It's interesting where we, a world without teachers, be. I don't know if we instinctively, or we are unaware in creating this world. Last year, correct me if I'm wrong, but somebody mentioned that they had read the statistic that 23,000 entered the profession as new teachers last year, and 200 are left within a year. 

There's a school in London that works one day a week now. It's £30,000 to join, and it's one day a week. The rest are home, online.

It's a waiting list. It's full of people. What I've noticed is that there's a tendency to put everything online, do homework online. 

You can be online. In my college, in my department, there were kids that were not coming to school for six months. They were working from home, online. 

They were not marked absent. They were marked work from home, a different asterisk, which allowed them to do nothing but eventually pass, which is the whole point. You pass everybody, and they don't need to do any work because it's all about show. 

You need to show a successful department, no substance. If teachers leave, I worry about that day that all they're going to be doing is online AI eduKation, and that's how we're going to be measured. If the human touch disappears, which is going to end up in five years if we carry on like this, no teacher in their right mind will enter eduKation. 

My son entered eduKation last year. He feels this is crazy. It's impossible to sustain that. 

We're talking about a very, very worrying future, depending on AI, online eduKation, work from home, and socialize one day a week at school because of mental health issues or whatever the kids are coming these days with so many mental health issues. It perpetuates the cycle. Kat, thanks for bringing that up as well.

They can't work from home because the parents work, and the parents wouldn't be able to be there, so that's not going to be the case. This film needs to be shown in as many, hopefully, secondary schools or sixth form colleges as possible so that it starts a debate talking about it. We've all heard about adolescence. 

Possibly we've all seen it. I was looking at depictions of teachers in that, and I thought, I know teachers, two of them anyway. They're a lot more hardy than that. 

I just felt the depiction of the teachers were... Sadly, I don't think there was a strong one. There was one that was rather ineffectual, and then there was one that... I think they both were, but the two teachers that I know, and they both work in state school, and I was inspired by them. I'm still inspired by them, and they love their students. 

They are interested in their future, like Kat is, interested in helping young people think about what they might want to do with their lives. That's my poems about the representations of teachers there, but also this thing about Kat. Do you know, is that the idea of putting this film into as many sixth form or secondary schools as possible? If I can just do that with Cathy at the minute. 

Two points, Cathy. Adolescence. I know this is going to sound strange, but I have yet to see an episode or a piece of film that captured literally and symbolically what I believe is going on in real pockets of problems within eduKation. 

Going and watching that episode on adolescence, for me, on a deeper level, you saw a group of talented, passionate teachers who, over a period of time, had become disempowered, disengaged, and they'd lost the battles that are taking place within secondary schools. You went back to code of conduct's consequences. There are certain institutions that we call schools that are lawless. 

In adolescence, what was really interesting was, the director made a decision that every single child in every single shot was holding a mobile phone. So, you can't see a single shot in that episode where a child doesn't have a mobile phone, but the one thing I will guarantee you is, within that school, they will have had a no mobile phone policy. We've lost the battleground in some schools. 

Look, have faith, right? We are not America. The thing about schools, for me, is that they are really vulnerable places, and when you hear about the shootings going up, thank God we are not America, and I want pupils over there to be protected more. So, we have to look on the bright side. 

There are people who still revere teaching. I thought I would do one. I get a pleasure of talking about what I do.

Kat does. What would we do without teachers? I'm going to need teachers for the rest of my life. I'm going to be going on courses. 

I'm going to need them. I hope that continuing professional development is going to be part of my life, hopefully, and I've always gotten something from teachers. I was disaffected in secondary school, but my interest, although there were some good teachers there, my maths teacher, Mrs. Saul, was fantastic. 

She encouraged me to be an actress. She was the one that was slapped in the face by this awful, awful girl. She slapped the nicest teacher in the school, and it hurt me. 

She wasn't in my class, and thank God I didn't see that happen, but I will need teachers. We probably all will for the rest of our lives if we want to go on a course, improve our lives. We depend upon them. 

I think, going back to what you said about it should be shown in schools, I think there's a step beyond that. I think it should be shown in teacher training colleges. I think it should be used as a resource for senior leadership teams who are training themselves in leading schools. 

I think it should go to the union, and that, but more importantly, it should step outside of schools, and it should go to the public who say it's all right for them. They get six weeks summer holidays. It's all right for them.

They finish at three. No, actually, what you need to see is a teacher has moved on to now. The real role of a teacher is they are a social worker. 

They're a mental health supporter. They're making sure the kids are fed in front of them. They're looking out for kids who are self-harming, who are on the brink of radicalisation. 

It has stopped being about teaching. We are so much more, and I think that's where Kat's story and Swallow is going to be so important, because this fundamentally was about a woman who was employed to teach a subject, and it became way more than just a subject teacher in a classroom. The issues that she was facing, the trials that she had to go through, the lack of support, that has got to be watched by unions, senior leadership teams. 

It's got to be watched by people who think teachers have got a bobby's job. That's where I think this is going to find its real power, and I think one of the things, Sharon and everyone in Sarah and Kat, is when Kat first spoke to me, any kind of difficulty that a woman has interests me. So, she was talking, and so you think of a woman in that position. 

I'm sure men go through it as well. I have to confess, we had a teacher at school who was a male teacher, Mr. Leakey, and we really took the mickey out of him. If I met him in later life, I'll say, he was frightened.

I'll say sorry to him for not listening to him. What do they do? You're trapped in the classroom, aren't you? Because you can't leave the classroom. So, what do you do? But I think you've just made a really interesting point. 

Our experience, I don't know if this is borne out in fact, if there were statistics, but our experience is this whole scenario with people being forced out disproportionately affects women aged 40 and above, because what happens, the teaching profession is heavily weighted towards being female anyway, but it reverses in senior leadership. So, the profession is female dominated to a point, but then when you get senior leadership teams, they tend to be male dominated. And women, I am generalizing, but women teachers get to a point where they become expensive. 

We've gone through the pay scale. We've gone through the next little bit, which is an extra pay scale for experience. And then there comes a point where we become expensive, and for the price of one experienced teacher, you could get two younger, less experienced, newer members of staff for the same price. 

And fundamentally that I believe, don't know it as fact, I believe that that's one of the things that's driving things is money. And I also think, and I will take myself as the example, when we get to a certain age, we start putting our head above the parapet a little bit more in terms of if something's not right, then we'll say we won't toe the party line if it's not right. And certainly for teachers, if it's not right for kids, no, I'm not doing it. 

What's the point of doing that if it's not going to serve how I'm serving the children? And I think we then get the reputation, I'm trying to grab the right phrase of being the troublesome woman. They're going to kick up a fuss. And I think we it's used all of the time in our group, you put a target on your back.

Absolutely agree, Sarah, what you're saying. Two things as well that, yes, being a woman is extremely easy to be the target. Being a foreign woman, even though I'm a naturalized breed, to have an accent, that puts me a pedestal below everybody else. 

So not when I'm for a you know, I'm just, she doesn't speak perfectly well, she hasn't got the right accent. So there was a lot of that as well, that I noticed. Yes, I was bullied by head of drama men, my age, and also somebody who literally belittled me from the beginning of the relationship till the very end, that talks above you, doesn't look at you in the eyes, doesn't address you.

You could tell that for him, you're invisible, sexist, terribly condescending. And he treats his wife that way as well. So there is this omnipotence about this person that he's head of drama, he's been there for 30 years. 

And you know, who are you? You're new. Every seven months, I had to renew my contract. Because I wasn't paid for anything apart from the hours I was there.

Every seven months, I had to renew a contract. It was an inside job. And after two years, it was supposed to be a permanent contract. 

So he completely, the worst thing that he did was, in the disciplinary, he was asked to do interviews about the situation. He spent two hours, character assassinated me with lies, with information as a mother. He used my children, he used my accent. 

He said that I am unable to turn the computer on because I'm stupid, that everything I do for the films is my husband, not me. So the sexist approach, which the college did not find him guilty on, because that would be scandalous. And the cultural discrimination is a very important issue that needs to be highlighted, because I know teachers that are from different countries, and they get so much unfair comments and issues. 

And of course, as you also said, the senior management is a man. Then there is a middle other management, which are women. And again, at the very top are women. 

And what happened in my experience is that the first time I was sent to the disciplinary, the interviewer, who was a head of another college, was terribly biased against me. Very condescending. It was a trial.

It wasn't a discussion to say. She had interviewed everybody else before, so she had made her opinion, and then she interviewed me, and she tried to counteract and tried to trick me. Then I appealed, and I went to the other level of management, which were men. 

And I found justice there. So I found justice in the second level of management, which was a really nice man, again, head of another college, who decided, you know, Kat, I'm so sorry you've been through hell. You're right. 

So they are guilty of those seven. And then, when I tried to appeal, that one sexist and culturally discriminatory mishap that they didn't grant from that, I was put in with another woman who shred me to pieces. She didn't even let me make a sentence. 

She kept interrupting me. She kept really, and she says, we're not going to accept that. And I was left with this taste of my gut. 

We are digging our own grave here, and I'm trying to tell you he's been sexist. He's been condescending. He's been belittling. 

He's been doing all this macroaggression that we tried for years, like me too, to find some sort of guiding light. And you knock us down over and over for what? For your position, for money, for being deaf, right? That's what you do. Yes, funding is the core of everything, further eduKation, if not the entire eduKation. 

It's all about the money. Yeah. Cathy, what are your thoughts on that? Well, I was just thinking about the film and how Kat reflects those different level of management within the film, because that was just bringing up a memory of the boss and then the nepotism, because his son was just brought in, and then there was another new person. 

And so, it just reminded me of that interview scene at the end, where she's having to face... She's alone, no representative for her, and then there's this body there. And I was just thinking, there's going to be 5,000 people. Is that how many are on your Facebook? No, there's more. 

So, we've got currently 180,000 members of our Facebook group. Right. Given that, they'll probably... This is going to be on the Facebook group, yeah? Well, don't you need just something like 5,000 petition members for things to be discussed in the House of Lords? A hundred thousand. 

A hundred thousand. And I'll give you an example of you'd think that was easy. You might be aware that there was a head teacher who took their life by suicide a couple of years ago, Ruth Perry. 

And there was a petition, went into the government for that, and in relation to Ofsted, and it didn't make it to a hundred thousand signatures, even with the absolute outrage of the entire profession, it didn't make it to a hundred thousand signatures. But I think yours will. I mean, bless that woman's heart, right, what happened and her family. 

But you have a captive audience here, right? That you've served for... How long has this group been in? Five years. Five years. You're talking to them, right? You've been a fantastic support as well. 

Fantastic that you've done this as well. You've got that. If you, you know, if you say it can be discussed in Parliament about, you know, you've got power because of these numbers, and that's a way of you... Not to kind of... And it's not to kind of lambast the school system, but enhance it. 

You know, it's not a threat to the schools that you work in. It's just to bring it to to talk to the government about, have you any solutions? Can we discuss this? How can we keep teaching? What can we do? But I think this is where the legwork is being done. Literally, with these discussions, we will have, within no time at all, a hundred stories like Kats on a podcast. 

We are about to see Swallow released as a film. I think it's when things come together. Because actually, just saying a petition for discussion, we need to eduKate first. 

We need to eduKate people who don't sit within teaching into the reality of what's happening. And the best way to do that is through art. The art of the podcast. 

The art of the film. What I'm hoping is Swallow acts as a springboard for dramatizations not dissimilar to the post office scandal. Telling stories, getting it out into the mainstream. 

Because in today's day and age, that's what ignites a movement. When they can see it, they can watch it, they can listen to it. And I think we keep our powder dry. 

We spend more time with the likes of Kat. We talk to our pit pony. And eventually, most things bubble from underneath and then erupt. 

And I think we're potentially at the point of seeing that eruption. And then the discussions will be had. And then the petitions will be signed. 

We're nearly there. And I personally, bringing this amazing discussion to a close, what are the next steps for Swallow? I know it's still in its editing phase. Tell us what's happening next, ladies. 

What are the next steps to bring this to our screens? Okay, so this is because it's, as you say, it's a brutal depiction of the reality. It's hard. It doesn't hold any punches. 

It tells you as it is. And it shows not only the manipulation of the students in the class, and the bullying that the teacher gets from students. It shows you the manipulation of the department in turning around a kindness act from one of the nice kids, and turning this into safeguarding, into sexual harassment, and all these horrible things.

Suspending the teacher with absolutely no evidence, bullying her out. And eventually, the end of the film, you will see she's just basically leaving. It is very brutal and deliKate as well. 

And it shows why our hands are tied. When I went into the head of department to complain about the insensitive, cruel, targeted bullying, he turned and said to me, you're too sensitive. She can call you whenever she likes. 

I said, well, I need her out of my class. And she says, no, no, no. You can't take her out of the class. 

You can't expel. You can't discipline students. Because if they go home and complain, and we get complaints from the parents, if they decide to leave, you and I, if we discipline every student in the class, we'll be no students in the department. 

Your department will close. You and I will lose our job. And we all want a job. 

So you turn a blind eye, and you put up with the abuse. And you try to pass everybody, because passing everybody shows that we're doing a great job. Carry on having a job. 

I have my job. Everybody's happy. Those kids are going to go out in the world, and there'll be nothing. 

Quoting. I quote his words. There'll be nothing. 

Don't care about them now. Stop worrying about what they say to you, because they mean nothing. These kids, to me, were not nothing.

As a mother of teenage kids, I felt I wanted to make a change in their lives. I wanted to inspire them to join the profession, not scare them away. But most importantly, I wanted them to feel self-esteem, which they didn't have. 

And the biggest joy in the class for five years I so much enjoyed was this turning somebody and making them flourish, and turning somebody shy, who was under the hood, not participating, into raising their hand. Can I hear improvisations? I love them. So the system, the government tells the college, this is your funding. 

But in order to get the funding, we want 100% attendance. We want everybody to pass. We want these ABCD rules. 

Don't care what you do. Don't care how you get those results. But this is the result we want to show.

Where the corruption starts, that's from the top, I'm sorry. It doesn't start from the teachers. They're all with hands tied, trying to do what they can to retain their job, retain the funding, retain the department. 

They shouldn't be doing that, because they should care about the students. But my whole point I was telling before is that the student is the last person that benefits from such a corruption. 100%. 

100% Kat, so this will come out. This is what is going to be the backbone of the film. So, Cathy, when do we get to see this? When are we laughing with this? I don't know when, Ben, but Kat will be able to tell you that. 

But I wanted to say, just to distinguish, this is a story that is set in a sixth form college. To distinguish from secondary school. So, are you finding, Sharon and Sarah, that the large majority of people within your Facebook group are from secondary school? Because it is a different eduKational environment, isn't it? A secondary school and a sixth form college. 

We've got a spread. Primary schools, secondary schools, further eduKation, higher eduKation, alternative provisions. It's the institutional, organisational structure of a place of learning. 

There isn't one pocket in independent school, fee-paying schools. It is where you have that tiered power structure with children, teachers, and it makes its way up. And it's personality driven, because I always say this, and I do need to say it, it is not all schools. 

It is not all senior leaders. There are some exceptional senior leaders. There are some exceptional schools. 

We have got a very small proportion in real terms of the current life teachers who are in England, but it's more than enough. It's not just a tip of an iceberg. It's a good chunk. 

But are most of them from secondary schools? Spread. It is spread. It's spread. 

And it's the managers, it's the management, it's the heads, isn't it? A lot with the heads that, instead of supporting the staff, will bully them worse. And it's not just that. It can be the senior leadership team, but then it can be the dynamic within a department. 

It can be the head of a department bullying, but it can also then be an HLTA, a teaching assistant. It's the environment within which it's being bred. Sorry, if they put cameras in classrooms, would that make a difference? Sarah Dunwood, GDPR Safeguarding.

Oh, that's a big can of worms. From personal experience, I worked in a school where we did have cameras in some classrooms, and it didn't take long for the kids to forget that the cameras were there. So I would say probably not. 

And I think logistically, the privacy issues and all the rest of it, I don't think we will get to a point where that is the case. How about this? If we riffing for good ideas, body cams. If a teacher had a body cam on them like a police officer does, I am now recording your behaviour. 

That might be a good idea. Yeah, because actually, if everything's going well, you don't have to record. But if you're under attack, if you're going through, and imagine a body cam when you get taken into a room with a member of the senior leadership team. 

I'll have our discussion. Let me just record you. Just tap.

Yeah. I have it all here. It's all here.

Ladies, can I thank you so much for your time today. I really do want to thank you. I can't wait to see what this does. 

And I really hope it is the latch lifter into the exposure that we need. And that Sarah, in our dotage and old age, we can say, do you remember when we sat with Cathy Tyson and Kath? And it all went mental. Just after the premier. 

Yeah, I will let you know when the premier is. It should be in the next couple of months. They come down because we're going to make an event out of it.

Well, it's an absolute honour to talk to you. And it's very moving as well and concerning. We must get behind our teachers and we're going to need them for life. 

A teacher is actually for life, really. If it's not in your life, it's going to be in your child's life or your grandchild's life. And so the health of our teachers is very important for the nation, you know.

100%. And of that powerful, powerful ending, Cathy. They are important for the nation.

And personally, I want to thank you, Kath. If you'd have signed that piece of paper, girl, we would not be sat here today. So thank you all.

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.