079 - Suspension - Navigating the Hardest Days in Education

In this powerful new episode, Sharon and Sarah tackle one of the most difficult experiences any teacher can face: suspension from school.

They unpack what really happens when you’re suspended, why it is supposed to be a neutral act, and the reality of how it is often handled in schools. With honesty and compassion, they talk through the emotional toll, the fear, and the isolation, and offer practical guidance on what to do next.

From understanding ACAS guidance and TRA investigations to managing shame, union support, and how to write your statement using Sharon’s “Three Rs” (Respond, Reflect, Reassure), this episode is both grounding and empowering for anyone caught up in the process.

If you or someone you know has ever faced suspension, this conversation will bring clarity, comfort, and strength.

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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. 

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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, I always say imagine this, imagine you're going in front of the board of governors or there is a disciplinary panel made up of different people and I'm on that panel. The only thing I want to hear and understand is, is this person going to do this again? Have they really understood? Has this been a catastrophic error of judgement that sits around a fundamentally great teacher who contributes loads to the school, who's totally on side, who has really done something stupid, gets it immediately, has had one of those, oh I'm sorry, such an error of judgement and I'm okay.

If I'm set up as it's somebody who's minimising and blaming and throwing colleagues under the bus, you are going to do this again and you are not going to be a team player for this school and I don't want my children in a classroom with somebody like you. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Pit Pony Podcast with myself and my best friend in the world, Lady Sarah Dunwood. Hello Lady Sarah. 

Hello, looking very Sunday at the moment. You aren't, you're looking delish but I'm looking very Sunday. As always, standard and I want to spend some time on the episode this week, talking about things that come up a lot in our Facebook group and in particular come up with the support calls that me and Sarah do within the teaching profession. 

So we thought we would just spend some time in each other's company, digging into certain areas within the world of education and on this episode this week, we are going to be talking about something that happens to so many teachers and TAs far more frequently than you think if this has not happened to you and the subject of the week is suspension. When a member of staff from top to bottom has been suspended pending an investigation. Okay, so this week we're going to talk, not necessarily about disciplinary because disciplinaries can take place without suspensions, we are going to talk about the act of being suspended from school. 

Sarah, what and why do we suspend teachers? I think take it out of teaching and just make it about employees just at the moment because and I'll start with this, the legislation and all of the guidance to do with suspension applies to anybody regardless of whether they're employed in the public sector or the private sector and it's something that you and I and other guests have talked about so many times that there's almost this feeling sometimes when you're working in the public sector or certainly in teaching from our experience is that the normal rules don't apply but they do so let's go to that. So ACAS has got some really specific guidance on what suspension is and what it's for and it's fundamentally for an employer to make a decision to suspend pending an investigation and there's a whole variety of reasons why that could be done but suspension is supposed to be a neutral act so it is not a punishment and it's not to be used as a disciplinary tool. The reality of that is perception is such you've been suspended the automatic default that that we have as individuals and that other people around us have is you've done something wrong why would you be suspended if you haven't done anything wrong and you've done something really wrong really bad really serious because you've been suspended and before we go into you're right it is it is a neutral act of protection so to speak for all involved but it's the way it's handled at school. 

So in my experience like an announcement can be made that just to let you know that Mark Simmons has been suspended from school nobody's allowed to contact him nobody's allowed to discuss it if any of the children ask where he is you've got to give this statement and it's shrouded automatically in real oh I don't know there's something really serious here going on. Have you found that in your experience? I've been in situations where as a senior leader I'm aware of suspensions but they've never been announced at school wide level because you shouldn't because you shouldn't do that. There's a real issue there to do with confidentiality and again under the law and under ACAS guidance employers have got an obligation to keep the reasons for suspension and even and even suspension generally as tightly closed as few people as possible to know that for the confidentiality that sits around the employees right to privacy and for it not to be seen to be influencing the investigation or anything like that. 

Then mental health, GDPR issues, breach of trust, contractually there's a whole number of reasons why an employer should not announce that there has been a suspension at a large scale in a school setting senior team fine but then it comes to for me how tight-lipped are those people that you are sharing that information with? Is there true confidentiality? Is there definitely behind those four walls it doesn't get out of those four walls because that ultimately for me if a suspension isn't handled properly regardless of the investigation it leaves the employer open to grievance proceedings from the employee in relation to how the suspension was handled. So yeah I've never experienced the kind of somebody's that somebody's been suspended. I have experienced when somebody has literally been summarily dismissed for a gross there was there was no the investigation took place without suspension and then that person was summarily dismissed and literally packed up and walked off site but I've never experienced the suspension being talked about. 

Because what happens is in reality everything you've talked about and everything that you discussed then for the sake of the member of staff who's been suspended and it's not discussed and nobody's told but they are told not to contact that person yes okay they are told not to contact that person and also that person sits in absolute shame and fear at home that they have been suspended. So you take it you take it to this level imagine if it had been you Sarah when you were teaching you know your close-knit group of people who you are in a whatsapp group with okay and you are instructed that you cannot tell them you have been suspended. Now I think you can tell people you've been suspended but you can't discuss why you've been suspended there is there is a step before that but when somebody is suspended from school in the main this is how it happens. 

I'm going to use the expression again out of the blue. So I will get a phone call from a group member or sometimes Sarah their spouse because they're in such a bad way they're in such a bad way and I always do this when I'm on the phone to them. I ask them to start right at the critical point where they were brought into the head teacher's office and what were they told. 

I don't want the preamble of the politics and that kind of thing so I always get what were you told in that room because this is the reality of how things are handled in the main. Imagine you set off in the morning and you go to school and you are clueless about the day ahead clueless you've got your sandwiches in your bag you've got your books you know exactly what you're doing with year eight last lesson and then you might even have a parents evening in the evening and then you get into school and it can be before school has even started it can be the middle of the day at some point there's a knock on the door and maybe a deputy head or somebody comes to get you and says could you pop down to the head's office yeah is everything all right yeah yeah just just come with me you go in there may or may not be the school union rep there it could just be you and someone from HR and someone from the head teacher and the head teacher at which point the body and that human being starts to go into absolute shock as if they're about to be delivered news that somebody really close to them has died and I know that sounds dramatic but it really is the same unfortunately there has been an allegation nine times out of ten at that point they don't even tell you what the allegation is it is perfectly normal to not know we can tell you that it is to do with safeguarding or we can tell you it is an allegation from a member of staff they don't tell you when where or what but you are going home there are men they ask you if there's anything you'd like to get out of your desk fundamentally you're going home and you then get in the car and drive home in the most shocking of states and that's when I get the phone call well they haven't told me they said they'll write to me yes and they will when when and the first thing I say is right you need to brace yourself because every hour now is going to feel like a day and every minute is going to feel like an hour and we need to dig deep now because this could go on for quite some time and I think there's an important bit to note with that because whilst you being under investigation is the only thing in your mind and in your world for the people who are doing the investigation who are managing that process the everything else that's in their job and that they are managing does not stop in order to prioritise that investigation and I think we naturally assume that if it's that serious that I've had to be suspended and that there is an investigation then it must be their only priority at the moment to do that well that's absolutely categorically is not the case it's not. You think that you've been sent home and it's almost then like CSI Miami children are being interviewed staff are being pulled in the investigation starts there and then doesn't you're absolutely right their days go on and you are sat there I can't get hold of my union rep my union rep and I want a regional union rep and they're knocking it back at the union because at the moment they don't even know why you've been suspended so they don't send out the big guns until they know what it is and I've not even had my letter and there is this absolute flat panic because that person rightly so is sat in worst case scenario I don't know what I've done nine times out of ten they've got a clue nine times out of ten it's probably something that's happened the day before it's in and around that period and some people genuinely are clueless genuinely clueless and they can't even start to put a fight together a response statement or anything and then they go naturally to worst case scenario I'm going to lose my job I'm never going to teach again I'm not going to be able to keep the roof over my head but first and foremost during this time you are paid you will be paid and even if this goes on for 18 months two years five days you will be paid okay so you sit there and you genuinely don't know what you've done and you're absolutely right to be in shock because you are sat in shame because I will tell you now as teachers in the main we have not spent a lot of our time in trouble we are not the kind of people who have our collars felt okay we are not the people who are rule breakers nine times out of ten particularly our gen x's who this happens to quite a lot the thought of being in trouble is is horrifying so you're at home and you are sat in fear and I have spoken to people who have been suspended for some of the most serious allegations I have ever come across and I have um sat with people who've been suspended for stuff that I'm sat there thinking that's been that's been that's been harsh that's been harsh that could have been dealt with without that so you can't even sit there and and think you have to have been suspended for the most serious of stuff it can be yeah that I think that's really important because I think that we we default to oh well I it it must it must be something that's the equivalent of gross misconduct it must be something that is that would that's going to lead to me being sacked it it must be this it must be that and I think it's more likely of a sexual nature it must be embezzlement of funds they've hit a kid they've done the they've done the big ones they've done the really big ones and it doesn't it doesn't have to be like that it really really doesn't it and now in reality it should be like that it should be that if you are suspended it is because there is no other alternative because of the nature of what you've done but that is not our experience of suspension in terms of people that that we've collectively dealt with you and you know me on compliance through and through I go back to ACAS guidance which is suspension should not be the first protocol it should actually be really when you've got no other option and it should be because um because to not suspend would either put that member of staff at risk or put other people at risk or it might impact or influence the investigation because there are multiple alternatives to suspension even in a school setting multi-academy trust they can go and work in another school they could go and work in another part of the building they can be they can be working in part of their school building that doesn't come into contact it's awful it's awful um and there can be a whole host of reasons why why you are suspended okay but one way or another there is going to be an investigation and there is going to be an outcome and I'm going to because what I do want to say is there are some people who shouldn't be in teaching there are some people who behave in such a way that that they are suspended and then something happens simultaneously at the same time if it is safeguarding you will be referred automatically to the LADO and then what happens is so they go I've been I've been referred to LADO okay that is going to take its time so factor that into your timeline as well okay yeah and and any assumptions about teacher regulation agency so I think I think that's a really important one to do is safeguarding is is a referral to the LADO um that the school might have already taken advice from LADO prior to the decision to suspend which is why the decision to to suspend is done um but referral to a LADO can go can go multiple different ways the same way as it can with TRA. 

TRA can come back very quickly and go there is no case to answer here and and it's gone um but equally you can sit in the TRA pipeline for a good couple of years I want to do TRA in a bit yeah I want to want to section that in a bit I want to talk about this middle bit first about I've been suspended I'm now getting a bit more information I know it's been referred to LADO okay well that's good but even if the LADO come back and say we're going to let the school deal with it please don't think it's minimised what's happened here and I want to just talk about the the frequently heard attitudes that I have to what's happened so I speak to members of staff who are in trouble they have they have behaved in a way that is professional behaviour not becoming that of a teacher because what we are dealing with here are teachers standards and there are a whole host of things that you can do that do not meet the standards set out by that needed in the teaching profession and chances are you have done something that is below the standard expected of a teacher which is why you are facing a disciplinary or an investigation or whatever and the standards which which you've not met have resulted in this instance of an investigation taking place with you not on site and you're not in contact with your colleagues okay then I get to the nitty-gritty of what they've done what the accusation is and it can be a whole host of things and I have chosen specifically to take examples of conversations I've had and tweak them all so none of these are real okay you can be suspended because you have come under scrutiny for the way in which you are administering coursework or exams okay big one big one you can come under investigation because of the way you are conducting yourself with colleagues inappropriately things you've been saying inappropriate being a little bit too carry on you know sexually in a touchy yes okay so it can be exams this is not an exclusive list but this is in the main you're inappropriate with colleagues you are joking in a way that is not being received and you think it is something's gone on on a school trip they are real biggie Sarah something has happened on a school trip where they've not followed something and they're in trouble restraining kids in alternative provisions and pupil referral units massive massive shouting at children the way in which you're handling your behaviour management the way you've made a child feel or there's been a complaint or a TA has put in a complaint conduct on social media biggie okay I need I need people to be really considering what groups they are liking and sharing from particularly in this day and age all right so there's a whole range of things that you can be and within those areas I've talked about you know they range in levels of severity but it's really wide but the one thing that underpins all of this is you have fallen short of the standards expected of that the teacher and I suggest you read the teacher's standards document and and I think there's there's something that goes with that because you are in a position of tell it's Sunday afternoon my words aren't working you're held to a higher standard as a teacher than you would be as as the ordinary employee of an of another business and rightly so because you are in a position of influence and authority and and if you don't if you don't see that as something that that should be taken seriously then and then I suspect I suspect this is where you're going to go this is where people then subsequently do not take responsibility for their actions so what they do in the main and this is where I this is where I ask people to take a breath and really start to think about those standards but I don't want you to think about what is common practise in your school so bear with me on this if we could take a suspension and your investigation to its worst case scenario that it ends up at the TRA okay and I'll talk about the TRA now fundamentally they decide whether or not you can continue to be a teacher so let's assume you've been suspended for something you hold an investigation and your school dismisses you that does not mean you can never teach again doesn't because you still have the right to teach but if you are dismissed or if you resign from the post pending an investigation and you are dismissed in your absence your case gets looked at by the TRA to decide whether or not you should be prohibited from the right to teach and work with vulnerable adults if it meets a threshold for referral to the TRA yeah which a dismissal will yeah if you've been dismissed you meet that threshold okay is that what you mean yeah yeah if you've been dismissed there's no way they will not refer you to the TRA the TRA then listen to your case and it can be five six days in a courtroom it is a real hearing they review everything that has gone on in that investigation okay and then the TRA decide whether there's no prohibition order you can continue to teach the TRA decide if that's a year three years five years or you are prohibited from teaching indefinitely so all of this if you want to sit with worst case scenario it isn't being sacked it is being banned from the classroom and whichever way you think about it you are on that trajectory if you are being investigated if it gets to the end game which is the TRA they look at every single piece of evidence and information that you have submitted in your defence so how you are going to respond to the school's investigation could actually be held against you by the TRA because this is what happens let us assume somebody has been suspended for altering exams they have been very very generous with how much help they've given children in coursework and they have really really walked the line okay and basically what's happened is TA or another teacher in your department is really uncomfortable with your conduct and they have whistleblown they have gone to a head of department or a member of the leadership team and gone I am not happy with what's going on here or whether or not you have witnessed somebody restrain a child and you're not happy because the chances are it will be a colleague that has brought this to the school's attention this is where I see people anger themselves well I don't know why they're having a go at me everybody does it everybody does it in our department being generous oh my god you wanted to see what our last head of department did Christ he was practically writing it for them and they want to have a go at me because I've done oh no no no no no that is not a defence that is absolutely not a defence because you've got standards that you've broken it doesn't matter if every man and his dog is doing it you have not upheld those standards by saying everybody else did it you want to be what it's like in our school I've been suspended for making inappropriate jokes in the staff room should have heard what the head of French did on our night out no I don't care what the head of French did on the night out have you done what they've accused you of and I have to drill down with people all the time and have really really difficult conversations so I'm going to ask you have you done it have you helped that child too much did you put your arms around a woman's waist and jiggle her in the staff room yeah but I said can you just answer it without a but yes I have then you are guilty of what they are accusing you of and that is a real penny drop moment oh and therefore you can receive a series of sanctions because whether or not you only or you just or everybody else is doing it did you do what they said yeah right so please do not go into that first initial investigation with that attitude because of that kind of captured conversation could be played out in front of the TRA and what the TRA want is that penny drop moment from the get-go they want to know that somebody is safe to carry on teaching because they get and understand what they have done and they can reassure anybody involved in the decision-making process that it won't happen again Sarah you would be stunned because I know wouldn't I've talked to people but I wouldn't and I usually hand them to you because because I can't get that penny drop moment to happen I only I only left them by the side of the road for 10 minutes 10 minutes I left those year fives by the side of the road okay please stop and please don't tell me you've done it before yeah please don't tell me you've seen your head of department do because if you've seen your head of department doing it and you haven't reported it you are falling short of the standards that's expected of a teacher and I think there's something else as well when you when you regardless of whether it's um so so when you go to to TRA um the the threshold for the referral and this is a direct quote is that the teacher's conduct conduct is fundamentally incompatible with being a teacher so um it's it it's the more serious end of dismissal because you can be dismissed for that you might have done three or four low-level things over a period of time you've had a warning you've had a warning and off you go that that doesn't necessarily mean but but if you if it's serious misconduct it's going to go to TI. TRA ultimately if you've done something serious um they're going to put a prohibition order on and accepting responsibility won't necessarily mitigate against that won't necessarily stop it happening but it it might make the outcome how do I word this it might make the way that it's presented slightly less aggressive in terms of because because ultimately you have to take responsibility for things you have to otherwise the way it's all going to be against you in the first place anyway um but I think I think that's very true let's rewind let's go to disciplinary and investigation processes before we even get to TRA because the reality is not that many do get to TRA um but the same principle applies in terms of your disciplinary and that's where it is more more of consideration if you accept responsibility you acknowledge your own learning and you will articulate this so much better than me then then it kind of takes the wind out of their sails because they're they're not having to battle against you to get you to understand where you're at um I just I know some I always ask them to frame it like this and and I'm going to talk you through the best way in which you can capture your response in a disciplinary in a minute but I always say imagine this imagine you're going from to the board of governors or there is a disciplinary panel made up of different people and I'm on that panel the only thing I want to hear and understand is is this person going to do this again have they really understood okay has this been a catastrophic error of judgement that sits around a fundamentally great teacher who contributes loads to the school who's totally on side who has really done something stupid gets it immediately has had one of those oh I'm so at such an error of judgement then I'm okay but I'm sat up as it's somebody who's minimising and blaming and throwing colleagues under the bus you are going to do this again and you are not going to be a team player for this school and I don't want my children in a classroom with somebody like you now I'm not asking people to manufacture that level of accountability I work with them to really get them to understand the worst case scenario of what they have done and it's that penny dropping moment where nine times out of ten their attitude towards the investigation shifts their the way in which they engage shifts and the outcome is always always better because it can be this is what I tell someone to do right you are going to receive some headline some top-line information about why you have been suspended it won't go into detail because sitting behind those allegations and nine times out of ten it's not just one there's about two or three that sit on that letter that comes through the door they are going to want to ask you about those individual allegations and sitting behind that are going to be statements from witnesses who are going to be giving their version of events you are being asked for your version of events so let us let us say somebody has been suspended because they have shouted at a kid they've crossed out the work they've ripped up the book that kind of thing that can be all sorts of stuff let's go to what that incident was and I want you to do this in terms of your response I want you to do what I call the three R's I want you to respond I want you to reflect and I want you to reassure the first R is respond I want you to give a factual account of what happened that day a factual account of that incident that has resulted in you being suspended I don't want inflammatory language I don't want minimisation language I don't want one piece of evidence that says Miss Corley was shouting directly in the face of a child and then I've gone I calmly immeasured asked him politely if he would give an accurate response to what happened even if it feels it's throwing you under the bus a bit give me the factual response who was in the room where were you stood what did you say if you can't remember what you said whatever I don't want any judgemental language in that I want your statement of fact then the next thing you write is on reflection how could you have handled that differently and that I am telling you now is a powerful piece that is going to sit in your disciplinary what could you have done under any of the allegations that is being thrown at you and this applies to anybody what could you have done differently on reflection what would you do now and nine times out of ten you will find what you should have done in the policies of the school that you have been given it will either lie in the policy of how to arrange a trip or behaviour management policy or your safeguarding policy it will be there because if I was on your disciplinary panel that's what I would be going to do and then the last paragraph that you do is your reassurance let me reassure you that this will not happen again you can then bring in 16 years of a blemish free career examples of where you have acted in a way that's opposite to this and you have had a lapsed error of judgement but under no circumstances do I want to hear that everybody does it and here's the other one I don't want you to use because you're under that much pressure and you are stressed and you are drowning and you are overwhelmed then you're not fit to be in the classroom if you've behaved in this way because you've had that much to do and your workload is insurmountable and you've not been to your head teacher and told them beforehand that you're struggling and you're burning out then you're a worry to me so don't mitigate or use excuses like that simply respond reflect and reassure now if you are being stitched up royally then your response denies what has happened that did not happen I was not there this is not true your reassurance is I cannot reassure you that this isn't going to happen again my reflection I'm not asking you to take responsibility for stuff you've not done but in the main you'll have done it you will have done it to a certain extent it feels unjust because yes everybody else is doing it yes it's become practise at school but that is how I always advise people to handle themselves in the investigation the other thing I say as well is this when you are called in and ask questions they ask for your statement I'll give you the three hours statement then you will be called in as part of the investigation to answer questions they might want some more information you can at this point ask for the questions beforehand I've done it really nicely in order to prepare in order for me to give you the most in-depth responses I can I would be most grateful if you could give me the questions beforehand they may or they may not okay when you are being asked the question do not go into panic and people pleasing and think that you have to answer that question there and then you can halt what they are saying and say can I just make a note of what you've just asked me I want to reflect on it and I will answer it in writing because I don't want to answer it on the fly here so you can control the climate sometimes your union if this has gone on for ages your union can request the evidence that they have against you okay which you're entitled to you'd probably be entitled to it under a subject access request anyway but the unions ask for the statements beforehand but if you keep those three hours principles in your questioning as well respond to the question they've asked you reflect on what you could have done and reassure it is a structure that you can use when you are at the most heightened and stressed part of your life and and I really suggest that anybody who knows anybody who's going through this at this moment in time listens to this episode in particular because it is a real resource for somebody in the moment who is sat at home rocking on a settee going through this and they will and they will sometimes you can be locked out of your school emails so you've no access to stuff anymore you become isolated in the home because your friends can't contact you and they're too frightened to do so and that's when you've got to get the playbook out now how you manage this whilst you are at home on suspension and a lot of what I'm going to talk about Sarah applies to work-related stress as well when you are at home and you are off school whether you're suspended and you're off with work-related stress it's so easy to default into shame and you don't leave the house in the day you wait till 10 past three in case somebody sees you why is he not at work why is his car up the drive what's going on there this is really difficult but you have to really power through that level of shame that you are setting and actually we use this expression a lot start to heal on their dollar you are being paid you are actually being paid now so you've got all this time on your hands I know people who've gone about decorating the back bedroom they've sorted the garden out they've decided to go swimming every day they go to the gym they embrace it because they are not fitting in shame because they're saving the knowledge they're going to go back to work so they make the most of it but people who are rocking in shame contact your union there's the education helpline obviously there's life after teaching if you are going to post on life after teaching please don't make it obvious who you are the amount of oh yeah and can I can I talk about that as a sideline for those of you who are who are listening who are group members the number of posts that we have to decline because even though we as admins can see who the person who is posting anonymously is the realms of of feasibility that somebody could join up the dots because of the amount of information that is that is put into a post and the and the very fact that the group size is such um that hello to overseas listeners but but fundamentally nearly 90 of the group is based in the UK statistically there is going to be someone from your school in the group statistically we know from from experience that there are there are people going looking for stuff oh I've been called into the head's office yeah the meta irony is not lost on I've been suspended with screenshots taken from this group and so I'm just I'm gonna bring this to a close in a minute because I think there's been a lot of good stuff in there to get your teeth into if this is something that you know that you're facing at this moment in time but what I will say is this there can be many outcomes you can get a warning there's no outcome it's not founded you can get a warning you can get retraining you can be dismissed and all that stuff so there's there's lots of different outcomes but if you feel that the damage that's been done the damage that's been done your breach of trust you hate the school anyway you genuinely genuinely feel as though you cannot return which is very very common this is where your union comes into play the investigation carries out and then you can start to negotiate an exit it is incredibly common that teachers who are facing disciplinary whatever don't go back so don't sit in shame that you think you have to go back you can at that point go we're done can I cycle back I know you wanted to bring it to a close but a couple of things on that I think it is really important to note that even if it's not a safeguarding concern but certainly if it is resignation during an investigation and a potential disciplinary no no no no I no yeah I want to make that clear because a lot of people are genuinely under the the misunderstanding that if you resign it goes away and if it's a if it's a serious complaint if it's a serious if it's something that we would be tantamount to gross misconduct then regardless of whether it's teaching or another profession that disciplinary can and should if it's safeguarding there is a requirement in KCSIE that the investigation is seen through to to the end and that's one of one of the reasons why quite often you will know that there isn't a legitimate cause for an investigation if they offer you a way out if they offer you if if you tell us within the next 24 hours that you're prepared to go then then that's not real because they've got a statutory obligation to continue to investigate it and that's that's one of the things I say to people the other thing I would say is and we've mentioned it a couple of times but knowledge is is power it's the it's the thing that empowers you read their adult read your school's code of conduct for adult adults read their disciplinary policy read their grievance policy go on the ACAS website and read the guidance for employers in all sectors about how to carry out an investigation fairly how to conduct these whole processes because more often than not and you will have experienced this and I have too is when you can actually put in front of of of an organisation the the head to say actually yes I know you've got to do that investigation but you've not done this and you've not done that and you've you've prejudged this and you've not done this it actually makes it more difficult because actually they've muddied the waters in terms of the investigation and disciplinary process because they've not followed their own policies so I would always advocate for skilling yourself up making yourself the the policy nerd in terms of what what your school policies are and and finding the places where they've not followed their own policies and also looking out for um if you if you can't easily access a policy or you ask for a policy and and there's a delay in getting it just checking that that's not been tweaked whilst whilst it's been going on because that's really common it's really common I think one of the things you've got is you've got time that is the gift they have given you yeah and how you utilise that time whether it is going for a walk whether it is separating your mum's back bedroom whether it is going down these rabbit holes I'm obviously going to make myself popular again and I don't care but your union you're either going to get the best union rep in the world or you're going to get a chocolate fire guard take it or leave it I mean I know you might not be happy if I say that but in my experience that's what happens with your union members don't care um probably get slammed in our group now by all the union reps going Sharon Carly said this isn't it um it's true but that but that is the experience again you could you come to we we have had so many group members and and it happens every time it's mentioned on a post you can get a hundred comments and there will be an equivalent split between those comments of people who've had great experience and union reps or not and that has the reality it's like you have a pirate room lawyer go in with them and frighten that head of the head of that school to death or they've had someone who's gone on leave or lost the case or not followed an email and and and ultimately if um if if union executives don't like that then then they need to they need to look at the reality of the experience for members because members are paying paying monthly for something that they hope to god that they never need to use but in reality at some point probably will and it should not be a semi-lottery in terms of a whether you're going to get through and get some advice be whether that advice is robust because the variation of advice that we see in the group and even we've seen it where where union reps have been challenging each other about the advice that they're giving so and so as much as i am uncomfortable with you saying it out loud that is the reality i will i will do the counterbalance to that it is the reality it is a and it should not be and it's why people are considering spending thousands on on going to a lawyer instead of using their solicitor yeah so i think there's a lot that we've covered there a lot that we've covered on suspensions um investigations because of course you can be going through an investigation and not suspended still use my three hours by the way um because i don't think i don't think that's a that's a bad piece of advice generally it takes the heat out of a situation it's not easy and if you are off with work-related stress or with that suspension i always have my go-to's chimp paradox quieting down your chatter start journaling if you can't talk to people in school make sure you're talking to other people okay make sure you've got a really good compassionate family setup going on as well and use the group even if you don't feel you can comment in the group go and search suspension in our group and you will be able to get advice you will be able to see certain things and also do some research about the tra because it's all online all of the hearings all of the forthcoming hearings all of the hearing outcomes are online and you will be able to read the transcripts and you can actually find almost like an algorithm within them of how people conduct themselves so people have been referred to the tra they don't even turn up they don't even engage in the hearing they're not going back into teaching anymore they don't care okay they tend to get the harsher of the sentences to be perfectly honest you get some people who've gone there and you start to read and you go oh my goodness this person's in it up to the neck and they don't get the harshest of sentences because they have shown that level of remorse and repentance and they've done some work and they've done all sorts of different things but the one thing i will say that i always say to members who are who have been referred to the tra and it's what you've got to brace yourself for the local press trolls the tra yes they do they troll it they've got alerts on the tra outcome hearings and the chances are it will make the press so there needs to be a brace which is why your level of accountability and how you handle yourself is so so important even even in the early stages the other piece of advice i would give and this has happened i think over four five years sarah on six occasions people have decided not to go back into teaching and they don't care about the tra so they've gone into another route they've gone into another job and they know they've been referred to the tra and they don't tell their current employer then the current employer finds out that there's been this big misconduct hearing taking place and then they sack them hmm and the reason they sack them is because you've been dishonest yeah your behaviour has resulted in you being dismissed from a school and you have still been dishonest with your current employer so if you are pending a hearing at the tra right now and you haven't told your current employer tell them yes okay right well that was the that's heavy duty stuff for sunday afternoon if you don't mind me saying it was it was i apologise for the fact that listeners won't have seen it but watchers will have seen me glow bright red during the middle of that because i have i am the woman of a certain age you're having a tropical moment babes sunday tropical moment yeah yeah but in all fairness um we had we had a cracking day yesterday didn't we oh it was glorious yeah it was glorious the vintage emporium in stockport we went for a mooch round but you know what traumatised me more than anything when i got home i actually searched what you how old something has to be to be considered vintage right and it's you know what it's actually there's a time it can be no more than a hundred years old because it's not vintage then it's historical and yes it cannot be more than a hundred years old and 25 years ago so it's no younger than 25 years so but it's that right in 2000 so it's that thing as well it's something something popped up on my facebook before which was that um that teenagers are now referring to adults of our age as having grown up in the late 20th century and it just and it's true but it's like when we you and i were talking about the the the 20th century yesterday in terms of when that building was built which we thought was ancient it was built in the same century that it was built about 60 years before we were born this like but you know do you know what was interesting i was listening it was obviously yeah pulling a shift on the tick tock you know last night and there's this woman i went to school with she's hilarious and she said you know when people ask you to do feedback um and you have to scroll on your phone to get your age bracket and you get wheel of fortune but the wheel of fortune is going she said and then you get to 54 to 59 she said and then you realise there's only a couple left after that oh my god but no so what i did was i had a look i've been having a look at this right i've been having a look at the generations okay and what they called and this is the generational breakdown right so if you bomb from 1928 to 1945 do you know what that generation's called no silent generation they've been interesting baby boomers the 46 onwards aren't they welcome flicks to 64 yeah then we come to us the bad boys generation x 1965 to 1980 millennials 1981 to 1996 generation zed 1997 to 2012 and we're now currently in generation alpha which is 2013 to 2025 and do you know what defines what defines what defines the generations it might have come through four times on your end i only said it twice um it's to do with technology is it's to do with the relative technology in each of the generations yeah so i'm not sure whether it's whether it's the pre-alpha generation yeah it's my my james's um generation generation zed that's our jamies and ellies as well they have grown up there isn't a generation since them who hasn't had the internet but the gen pre-gen zed so x we didn't have the internet millennials didn't either because you've got millennia 1981 to 1996 and millennials 96 it did just the internet was just it but that's the critical bit it's to do with it's to do with technology and communications and things that were going on in the world it's not necessarily a fixed period of time so it's not like every 15 years we get a new generation correct which explains why 1946 to 1964 are the baby boomers because they came after the war didn't they when everybody yeah i don't know why we're called generation x there is some stuff online we could do a whole other podcast about that but i'm not gonna if you ask if you ask my uh if you ask my 25 year old he can tell you it all right but i have listened at some point and it's gone in one and out of the other but it was interesting going round almost living in our own how we used to live kind of thing seeing stuff that was in in not even grandma's house but in her house when you were kids i remember getting this for christmas that meant i saw that i had it my first house and apparently everybody was much smaller and sat on much lower seats and had much smaller hands and drank out of much smaller cups like cherry glass jesus christ i got almost like put myself a glass of wine in what could only be described as a small bucket of um yeah it was crackers wasn't it but um loved it anyway rambling on so sunday afternoon um obviously i got up this morning it was the kind of thing where you go for a crisp autumn walk or you start doing the back garden you know ready for back end or you decide to do a load of baking did nothing did nothing just doom scrolled fair enough and on that note i need a cup of coffee okay okay it's been glorious oh christ week we were doing a podcast thank you ever so much for listening to our podcast and this is why people have been saying they've missed the end bits and what of jesus thank you ever so much for listening to our podcast as always it is glorious to spend time with you um and looking forward to seeing you really soon on our next episode thank you 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