081 - Silenced by Support - The Campaign Update

In this powerful update episode, Sarah is joined by campaign co-founder Nick Smart to share the latest progress on Silenced by Support - the national campaign fighting against the misuse of support plans in UK schools.

Together, they reflect on how it all began, what’s been achieved so far, and the next steps in taking the movement from the Facebook group into Parliament, the press, and beyond.

You’ll hear about:

• The origins of Silenced by Support and how the report was created
• The growing national database of testimonies and teacher experiences
• The letter to the Education Secretary and MPs
• Media coverage and ongoing discussions with broadcasters
• The vital next phase: fundraising, mobilisation, and writing to MPs

This episode is both sobering and motivating - a reminder of why the campaign exists and how collective voices can bring about change.

Join the campaign:
Visit The Silenced By Support Website Here
to read the full report, join the mailing list, and contact the team.

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Contribute to the 'Silenced by Support' Campaign

If you've been affected by any of the issues raised in our podcast there are organisations who can help:

• Education Support
• The Samaritans
• Mind
• Andy's Man Club

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Thanks for listening 🙏

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

Transcript

Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Pit Pony podcast. And on my screen, instead of my usual best mate, Sharon, I have got Nick Smart with me. So the purpose of the meeting... Your other best mate.

My other best mate. The purpose of the podcast today, it's a special and we're just wanting to update in relation to the Silence by Support campaign, give a little background for those people who don't know about what we're doing and also let people know where we're up to and what's happening currently, because it gets asked about a lot on the group or people aren't aware of it on the Facebook group and which in a group of 170,000 is really not unexpected in that regard. So good morning, Nick. 

Thank you for giving me your Saturday morning. Where should we start? Where should we start? Should we start with a little bit of background? Yeah, let's do the background briefly, because a lot of people know this, but some people might not. Should we sort of go through... Well, first of all, we did another podcast a few weeks ago, didn't we? So people can go back and have a look at that if they want, you know, chapter and bonus. 

Yes, you were the first person who was on a video podcast with us. I know. Am I the first person to be invited back? Yes, you are.

A day of firsts. So you go back to the beginning and let's see if we can do a five minute summary. It starts before I was involved, of course, with you and Sharon and the group and the huge growth of that, which showed the extent of the problems within teaching.

Within schools, I should say, because it's not just teaching, it's not just teachers who are affected by this sort of stuff. Perhaps I should say at the top that the big thing that we're talking about is our campaign Silenced by Support, which is all about the way in which teachers are removed from the profession via a support plan. They're given support, but in actual fact, they're really being given a message that it's time for them to go.

So, yeah, so there was lots of background, wasn't there? But I got involved when I decided that I was fed up with it and I would get onto my MP about it, my MP, Dan Aldridge, and ask him to write to Bridget Philipson. But I was aware, of course, Sarah, that you'd written to Bridget Philipson yourself before and had a reply. So that's when I got in touch.

I couldn't get in touch with you directly at that point. So I got in touch with Sharon and said, can you put me in touch with Sarah? Because I know she's written to Bridget Philipson. And you very kindly shared the letter with me, shared the response with me, shared your own response to the response, not that you're not writing back, but in like, you know.

Yeah, I mean, that was quite interesting, wasn't it? It's probably worth it for listeners who haven't listened to the previous episode and perhaps aren't fully aware that there was, I went out to our group, gosh, summer 2024, and said, we've got a change of government. I'm going to write to the education secretary, throw everything at me, and I will try and organise something in terms of a coherent letter. And obviously, and this is the nature of things, isn't it? There's so many things that are not right within the system that my initial response, when I ended up writing everything up, was something like 50 pages long, typed, which is a report, it's not a letter. 

But the really common themes, and it was the really common themes that had been coming up through the group anyway, that Sharon had been supporting people with, was this thing to do with the misuse of support plans. And it's that word misuse that's really, really important. So I did write to Bridget Philipson and got a response back, sadly, which was, and I am going to use the term, and I've discussed this with you, I was mansplained too, about the importance of teaching as a profession, and blah, blah, blah. 

It wasn't a response from Bridget Philipson, it was from somebody within the DfE comms team. A number of hyperlinks on a printed letter, which was really helpful to documentation to do with appraisal, and this, that, and the other, which there have been some changes too, to kind of make it clearer and stuff like that. But fundamentally, the response did not address the central theme of the letter, which is there is something seriously wrong in teaching when people are being ejected from the profession in the way that they are doing at the moment. 

So yeah, so when you got in touch with me and were able to say that you'd got Dan, who was listening, and who was acting, I think that was a tipping point for us in terms of we might be able to actually mobilise and do something here. And also the great thing is when an MP writes to the Education Secretary, the Education Secretary has to respond. When an MP writes to a Minister, they do have to respond. 

We haven't got that response yet, but we live in hope. Also, the letter went to Helen Hayes, who is Chair of the Education Select Committee, so hoping we might get a response there as well. But yeah, that was how it, that's how I got involved with what you'd sort of been campaigning on for quite some years, really. 

Yeah, and then we sort of started firing stuff off to various places, didn't we, to just try and make a bit of a fuss. Yeah, so I think, didn't we, we put a call out for individual testimony from people, and I think as is the way with the circumstances of what happens to people, a lot of people end up gagged with settlement agreements that have got non- disclosure clauses in them, and I do want to come back to that in a minute. But after a bit of a kind of slow false start in terms of doing that, we ended up with I think about 350 individual testimonials from, or testimonies from people that you, then bless you, did amazing work with in terms of making sure that they were absolutely anonymous, that there was nothing identifiable, and I know you spent a huge amount of time going through and picking the 101, which they vary, there's some quite lengthy ones, there's some quite short and snappy ones, and then produced this beauty for us. 

There it is. The Silence by Support report, which it's hard reading, it is hard reading. And you and I, when we were putting it together, I remember we were sort of exchanging messages and saying, you know, I've just been reading through it, I'd spend a few hours with it, you'd spend a few hours with it, and we like, you know, sort of message each other saying I'm so angry, I'm just, you know, or just really, just really emotional about some of the stories.

I'd be sitting here in my office, and my wife would be sitting at this desk behind me, doing whatever she was doing, and sometimes I'd just turn around and share a story, and she'd be like, you know, we'd both be like incredulous at the, just bringing them all together is really powerful. It is, and it's all, so for me, it's almost like, it's almost like a work of fiction, but it's not, because some of the accounts are so, you can't believe that other human beings would treat people in the way that people have been treated. And it almost feels, I don't know, like over-dramatised, but it's not, it's people's realities.

If it was fiction, you'd be like, no. Yeah, did that really happen? Did it? But no, and I think I would want to signpost, and we will put it in the links in the show notes, but I would want people to go, if they haven't done already, go and have a look at our website, which again, Nick does all the work here, I just sit and yammer on. Nick's got the website up and running, and you can sign up on our mailing list there, but also the report in electronic format is there to read. 

And I know, even if you just go in and dip into it and take a sample, it's, it's, it's shocking, and it's interesting as well. I know that, I know that somebody has taken a, has shown a copy of it to their GP. There was a, there was a thread on our group last week, wasn't there, that somebody had shown their GP the report in the context of, of them experiencing the same thing. 

The GP actually thought it was an official government report in terms of what was in there. The irony being is that I don't think any government that I've experienced in my medium lifetime would, has ever produced anything quite as stark as that, which is, which is a shame. So yeah, so the report came about, didn't it, and that was, that was June-ish, and then you've got... I'm not, I'm not good on timeline. 

Yeah, it was in the summer. Yeah, it was June-ish, and then, and then Schools Week got in touch, didn't they? Yeah. And, and very, that kind of was like, oh, we need to do something quickly because Schools Week actually, in media terms, turned something around very quickly. 

It only took them four or five weeks. Yeah, so that was when I started sort of just emailing lots of people, really, just trying to make a bit of a, you know, sort of make some waves, and yeah, they got back straight away and said, yeah, let's do a, let's do a big thing on this, which they did, yeah, and they turned it around really quickly. I mean, you know, these things always take a few weeks for any media outlet, but, but yeah, and they covered the story really well, and, and it went out there, and it got a pretty good reaction, and yeah, and we, I did go through a bit of this in the last, so I'll do, I'll say it quickly because I did go through it on the last podcast, but yeah, I mean, basically after that, we set up a website, didn't we, and, and that's when we did another survey, so yes, only because we thought it was more data-focused, wasn't it, that, that survey, yeah, exactly, whereas the first one was, was gathering the testimonies for the, for the report. 

I guess we kind of thought at that point we need to have, you know, and I've sort of had a bit of a trade union background throughout, well, not only my school career, but before that, so I was aware that the phrase that, you know, it's not always the strength of our arguments that make the difference, it's the strength of our numbers, which is a bit sort of counterintuitive really, but that's the way it is, and, and so that's when we decided to sort of gather data from as many people as we possibly could who were affected by this, so we put out the survey, and we got a lot of responses, didn't we, 3,300 in the end, yeah, yeah, yeah, and directly lots of people who knew people who'd been affected, yeah, and I think when we didn't, when we filtered it out and took it to the, to the people who'd been directly affected, I think we, we got down to it, I mean, I'm a complete nerd anyway, so, so while I talk about statistically significant samples and, and all of that sort of stuff, but we did get down to a decent sample size of over a thousand people who'd been directly affected, yeah, so we used, so with a population of 600,000-ish teachers in the UK, then that's, that is statistically significant, yeah, yeah, and I think, so going from that, I think what we've done is we've now got a, we've got a mailing list, we've got at the moment about, about 2,000 on the mailing list, but obviously talking to people through the group, hence the, the purpose of this today, to get it out onto the group as well, and we're, we're now in the position where we're trying to, where we're trying to think about how we mobilise beyond the contacting MPs, which there's, there's a lot of that going on, and I know that a lot of group members are doing that, making exploratory contact with media in terms of sending the report out to, to key people and key channels and, and programmes and so on and so forth, and, and trying to get some momentum going now. So, we had our first group meeting last, no, not last week. Yes, it was. 

Yeah, it was last Tuesday, wasn't it? It's Saturday now, yeah, so it's like about 10 days ago. About 10 days ago. So, it was fully subscribed, wasn't it? Yeah. 

Yeah. We'd have, we'd have up to 100 on the call, and we were fully subscribed in that, so I dare say we'll do another one for others who wish to join, but it was great just to be in the same space as people. I mean, it was horrible that all these people had to get together because they'd suffered in this way, but it's quite cathartic really to, to be able to share a space with people who'd, who'd all been through this. 

And I, I think that's important for me, because the long, the, I think listeners and, and group members need to understand that when you're campaigning for change, it doesn't happen quickly. It's like, it's like moving an oil tanker and, and turning it around. This is, if we, the comparison is quite often drawn to the post office scandal, which in real terms, and I was only listening to a podcast about this last night, the problems all started with that back in 2001. 

So, I think, and in terms of campaigning, I know that Private Eye, for example, had been absolutely relentless in, in trying to bring something up about it every week in the magazine for a good decade, for a good decade. So, I think when, when we're talking to group members, when we're having meetings, when we're discussing it, how did I describe myself to you before? I'm on the, I'm on the pessimistic side of the middle line. I'm a realist, that, that things take time, because you're involving people and bureaucracy and all sorts of things, and it can take a long time. 

But that doesn't mean that things aren't going on in the background and that, and that people around us aren't being utterly relentless in terms of what we're doing. So, we want to see, and Sharon's not with us, but we want to see local meetups, regional meetups. We want to be, we want to be getting different groups of people together, because I go back to what you said, when we're talking to people, yes, the, the testimony is important, and it's the, it's the shock factor. 

It's the, the horror of how can people deal with that? But when it comes to it, you need numbers. You need, they want to know how many people is this affecting? How many local authorities is this happening in? How many schools is it happening in? Is it happening in particular multi-academy trust? They want numbers. So, that, that was where we went to the research.

And I think, for me, we want, we want the physicality of people meeting up so that we can actually get to a point where there is a, a big body of people. I would love to see a protest. Sharon has talked endless times about, about wanting to have a protest. 

Or is that the word? But yes, a big group of us at the Houses of Parliament with, with gags on, because that's what's, what's happened to so many people. But sat behind that has got to be people doing, doing things, taking action, being really coordinated, keeping the message going. And, and that's going to need, that's going to need money. 

Which is why when Sharon comes back, there's going to be a big push in terms of getting a fundraising committee together and, and starting to think about the ways in which we can fundraise. Because as an example, and I am going to say this, that report, which is beautiful, and it is beautifully, your print guy has done an amazing job. But I know that, yeah, thank you. 

I, I know that I was just getting, what did we get? Did we get 25, 35 copies? So that's, it was a 10 or a book, wasn't it? Essentially, after setup costs and all the rest of it. And, and that's been funded by 300 between us, didn't we? Yeah. So, so that's, that's out of pocket. 

And that's fine. We've accepted that that was the case. But to do a lot of the things that we want to do is going to take and some funding sat behind it as well, in order to cover the costs of things.

Another example there is the mailing list. Yeah. I use MailChimp normally, for, for bulk emails.

But there's a limit on the free accounts. You can have 500 members, 500 people signing up. So we've got 2000 people who've given us their email to be part of it. 

So, so I had to set up four different accounts to keep within the 500 limit. And then having done that, I found that MailChimp realised that I was sending the same content from a similar, you know, account and blocked one of them. So I set up another one, and they blocked that and did that two or three times and tried to change it a bit and stuff. 

So then I had to open another one with a with another sort of mail provider like that. So if we had a little bit of funding, not a lot, but a little bit, so we could just open one account and send out one email. And I think that's it, isn't it? Is that when when we do get to the point of about talking about fundraising, it's not for paying people, it's not for money, it is literally... We'll still be putting a lot of our own money into it.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. But it's it is for things like that, because when you don't sit in that world, you don't realise how much some of these things cost and running a mailing list and properly, so it's GDPR compliant and all the rest of it and using the right, it costs money in the same way the podcast costs money. And we self fund that. 

But anyway, that's a side issue. When Sharon's back, Sharon will talk all about fundraising and she will be all over that, because we want to we want to drive things forward. So I think I just want to I want to mention the media and and just come to a point about how it works with the media when it's not an immediate news story. 

So not something that comes up on the daily news or something that's come out that day or whatever this this is. It is a new story, but it's not a new story in terms of BBC six o'clock news. And having done some previous work with with media organisations, we did some with Sky. 

I did something with BBC Radio about three years ago, even even with something that's going to be on a live talk show or something like that, if it's a if it's a planned thing, actually, the planning can be quite a way ahead of when they're going to tactically deploy that particular thing. So where we are in touch with broadcasters at the moment, and we have sent out the report to some media, other media outlets as well. And there is one in particular that we are we are keen to work with. 

But those conversations have been taking place now. What month are we in November? Those conversations have been taking place now for at least 12 weeks. And because there is a process. 

So so we're looking at how how to get and how to get the story out there in the right way. And not short form necessarily, but a longer form process. I would love a documentary. 

But ultimately, I think what I would like listeners to understand is that when you're in the process of brokering something like this, it isn't the decision of the people who who are bringing the story as to how the story is shared. So there are editorial teams involved. There's a whole decision making process about what they do, how they do it, when they will do it, whether they will do it. 

And then if they decide that they do, that they're doing it, they then have to do their own due diligence and fact check everything that they are going to put out there. So there's then a second research phase. So Nick knows this, that quite often in the group, people will say, oh, there should be a panorama about this or there should be a dispatchers about this. 

Absolutely, they should. But I will quite often push back and go, we are trying to do this because it isn't the case that somebody is just going to pick it up and run with it. There's a whole process. 

So again, it's just that I want people to understand we are we are trying to get our feet in the doors and get the doors wedged open. But then when we get through the door, there's there's more kind of steps that we have to take on the other side and that they have to take because no broadcaster can put something out that isn't no reputable broadcaster can put something out that isn't fact checked to the nth degree because they have to also abide by all sorts of rules and regs. But we have got irons in the with that. 

Yeah. And yeah, we were talking the other day about how, you know, at this at this phase, a lot of effort goes into sort of turning around that oil rig or tanker or whatever it was is in our metaphor. But hopefully, you know, get to a point where, you know, the turn is complete and it sort of takes on its own momentum. 

So I think we're in that stage of the memory. We're sort of building support. You know, people are coming on board. 

People are joining our meetings. We're sort of showing our numbers. We've collected data to prove that this is a serious issue. 

But the data that we've collected will probably only point people towards collecting their own data. You know, ours is more of a survey, more than more than a kind of, you know, a proper poll that you would get. Yes. 

Done by a polling company or something. Yes. But it's, you know, it is significant and it definitely and it shows that there is absolutely. 

I mean, it shows, as we've said before, the headline figure that we share is a lot of data came out of that. But the big thing for me, I was when I looked into the data, I was starting to look for, you know, what's the gender balance? What's the, you know, sort of disability element? Both of those. Yes, is the answer to both of those. 

But also, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that just the enormity of the well over 70 percent of people who get a support plan end up leaving their job. So it's not very supportive, I guess. So. 

So, yeah. So but I guess my point is that our data will will the main point of it is just to prove that there is a problem to show that our sheer numbers show that there's a problem. Yes. 

And that actually and that's going to lead nicely into something else there, isn't it? That you and I had a bit of a an off camera discussion about the other day, which is there are organisations who would be better placed because of the structure of their official memberships to actually gather this type of information. Because so. So when we go back to the meeting the other night and there were a number of people who were reps at different levels from the unions and a lot of people on the call, to be fair, stayed anonymous cameras off with anonymous screen names. 

I completely understand that. But there were there were some representatives from from different unions as well, who rightly so talked about the balance needed in terms of perspective, because where we've been banging on, Sharon in particular, but but I came off the fence a little bit about this is that. The unions will have a sense of the scale of this because it's union caseworkers who are supporting people through the process of securing early release settlement agreement.

So I want to go to that because because quite often we talk about settlement agreements, it's disgraceful, it's this that and the other. And actually, the settlement agreement in and of itself is not the problem. It's the mechanism that gets somebody to the point where there is a need for a settlement agreement. 

It's the misuse of the support plan, the settlement agreement. In reality, for a person who's gone through that misuse process and is broken, the settlement agreement at that point in time is usually that person's best option at that point in time. And I know I've talked to people who have said, you know, three, four years on, I wish I'd fought. 

But at that point in time, it was all I could do to get myself out of bed on a daily basis. It was the most sensible option at that point in time. And that was the point that some of the union reps were making, because I really want to be fair about this. 

Union caseworkers are in a position where they have to advise on options. And then ultimately, the union member, the individual, has to take the decision for themselves. It's exactly the same when you're dealing with a lawyer. 

And I've got extensive experience with this. A lawyer will advise you, but then waits for you to give the instruction. And they will only take instruction. 

They will not let you go, no, can you decide which course of action is best? So the settlement agreements for me, there is a place for them, because actually for a great many people, it is the way for them to be released from their contract, receive their notice period in terms of pay and not have to step foot back in the building. And what is common within that as well is the non-disclosure clause, which might also sit with a non-disparagement clause. But I do have to say, NDAs in and of themselves are not a bad thing necessarily. 

It's when they are also misused. And an NDA actually should serve both parties. So again, I've been party to settlement agreements in terms of seeing them. 

And I know of people who've actually challenged their school back months after the fact, because it's come to light that the school has been saying things about that former member of staff and the non-disclosure element in the settlement agreement has allowed them actually to pursue the school because the school has broken the terms of the agreement that they agreed to. So it's a messy area because actually settlement agreements do serve people at a point in time when they might be utterly, utterly broken. It doesn't make it right that those people are there at that point in time. 

So we're not necessarily campaigning about settlement agreements. We're campaigning about the misuse of support plans that ends up with people having no choice other than to take those settlement agreements. Yeah, we would not want to have a campaign, would we, that said, you know, that it was anti-settlement agreement. 

Because imagine people are in that situation where, you know, they've been through the support plan and everything, and now it's looking like capability, and you don't have that lifeline anymore. You know, that would be a nightmare. So I wouldn't want anyone to think, you know, this is an anti-settlement agreement.

Absolutely. But I think that's where I want the unions to be a bit more open, is yes, fine, support people, get them their settlement agreements. But you have the numbers to do with how many people you have supported with settlement agreements, what the circumstances are that led to that. 

Because I would expect that the vast majority of them nowadays, in this current period, based on what we're seeing anecdotally, is to do with this misuse of support plans. People being told out of the blue that they're suddenly not good enough. And the support plan is not supportive. 

It is purely a tool to make people think, well, shit, it's time for me to go. And we talked about that on the previous podcast. Yeah, I think I was going to say the same thing. 

But also, and we said this in the meeting as well, of course, there is a place for support plans. People do need support at times. Of course, there is a place for not a disciplinary procedure, but a sort of a competency procedure. 

Capability. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, it's just the way it's used. 

It has to be used properly and fairly. And so, so often, sadly, when you get a support plan, it's just a step, you know, because procedures say that you have to have taken these steps before you get to capability. Yeah, it's a step on the way, isn't it? That's what it becomes. 

And the outcome is inevitable, sadly, in well over 70% of cases. And I think the other point for me with settlement agreements, and I think I said this on the meeting, and I don't know where the analogy came from, but it landed. More often than not, when people are at the point where they've decided that settlement is the only way, and it's the only reasonable way, because the reality of unfair dismissal, constructive dismissal, grievance processes, statistically, it is so unlikely that you will ever win in those circumstances. 

I think it's something like less than 5% that ACAS report. Industrial tribunals rarely go in favour of the employee, rarely, because the bar is so high. But the point that I was coming to is that quite often when somebody is at the point where they are agreeing to a settlement agreement, and they're signing it, they are so mentally unwell that they shouldn't be even in a position where they're making those sorts of decisions about their future career, their pathway, all of the rest of it. 

And I think I said, when you've got somebody who shouldn't even be allowed to go to the supermarket and make a decision about what loaf of bread to choose, they should not be in the position where they're being expected to sign a settlement agreement. And one of the things that we would really love to see, alongside references being standardised and centralised and a whole pile of other things, is that actually, you should be declared medically fit to sign an agreement like that, because I know of people who sign them when they are declared unfit for work by a GP due to stress and anxiety. So if you are unfit for work in those circumstances, you are not fit to be signing the legal agreement that binds you for the rest of your life. 

So yes, settlement agreements, not necessarily the bad thing, but I think unions have a lot more information that actually, even if it isn't centralised currently, there could be a way of doing that to help make the point in terms of what is happening. And I also think that when people are faced with, you know, a decision to get out of teaching, it's really hard to explain to people who aren't in teaching how hard it is to get out, because, you know, as we know, as teachers or ex-teachers, there are three deadlines, there are three points in the year by which you have to resign in order to leave two or three months later on. And all the paperbook says it's like a two or three month, you know, notice period, but it's not, you know, if you resign on the 1st of June, you can't start your new job until January. 

Yeah. Yeah. We did a whole episode about this a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah. Yeah. But that's what traps people, you know, people don't really understand that, you know, people kind of say, we'll get another job there, you know, if you hate it that much.

And you just can't apply for another job and expect an employer to wait, you know, somewhere between three and seven months for you, you know, you'll get offered a job on the 1st of June. Yeah, sure. That's great. 

Thanks. I accept your job. I'll see you next year.

So to get out of teaching, you have to make a massive leap. Really, your only safety net is to do supply for a while. That takes ages to set up, by the way, you have to get a new DBS and all sorts of stuff. 

So it's really a massive thing to get out of teaching. It's not just to apply for another job and do something else. So I think I know that's another thing that you raised in your letter to Bridget Phillips. 

Yeah. Yeah, it is. But it goes to why actually a settlement agreement might be the most appropriate thing at that point in time, because fairly normal. 

I don't want to upset any HR or legal people, but the evidence that Amelia Harper managed to secure in terms of the sky coverage that we got a couple of years ago and some of the research that we've done suggests that it's fairly standard that people get their notice period, so their salary for that period of time between. That seems to be fairly standard. And actually, if that gives somebody a bit of breathing space to then be able to have a couple of months where they know their bottom line's covered whilst they are trying to find that job that they can go on to, then that's brilliant. 

But obviously, it's also not brilliant. So I think where I want to go to at this point, because it is an update, I think it's just we will be doing more online things. We just haven't figured out what, when, and so on and so forth. 

So on that basis, if you're listening and interested in supporting us or you've been affected by this, by the misuse of support plans, or if you are the spouse, partner, loved one of somebody who has and all the rest of it, but you want to get involved, then visit the website, because the link will be in the notes underneath, and sign up to the mailing list and reach out to us. You can contact us via the website as well. And Nick, in particular, is very good at responding in a very timely way. 

Me, slightly less so, because I'm a bit more flaky. But we want as many people on board as possible. Well, yeah, I mean, self-deprecation is the key with me. 

So yeah, we'll ignore the fact that I am busy, and it's just me being flaky. But we want people on board, and in different ways. That might just be in terms of numbers.

That might be that there are opportunities to help with campaigning and fundraising and all sorts of things. But ultimately, it's never going to come from just the two people who are on this screen, or with Sharon as well. It's going to need a small army of people to get the momentum and get the numbers. 

And we're getting the numbers. I mean, it's just building massively. But we need every one of you. 

And one thing that we need every one of you to do, actually, is to please write to your MP. So we don't have a standard letter for you to send to your MP, because those are very quickly picked up as being, as soon as an MP receives three or four of those, they know it's a standard letter. But we are asking that people please write to their MPs, and then write to us, and let us know that they have. 

I'm keeping a database of the people who have. I've only got six or seven on it at the moment, and no more people have written. So if you think, you know, if you think I might have missed you, or if you've done it and you haven't.

So yeah, it's silenceteachers at gmail.com, the email address, or if you can just go to the website, which is silencebysupport.co.uk, you can contact us through there. But if you do write to me, to be able to say to Dan or somebody else, you know, all these MPs have been written to, so go and have a chat with them, because they've had some contact about this as well. And I think that probably takes me to one of the final things, actually, is you mentioned Helen Hayes before, who's the chair of the Education Select Committee. 

And ultimately, I would want an opportunity for us to be in front of the Education Select Committee to share testimony, to share testimony from mine and Sharon's point of view as well about how many people we speak to on a weekly basis, and have been doing directly for five years, who find themselves in this situation, and the emotional toll that that is creating, but also the real structural impact that that is having on the education system with the absolute loss of skill and talent and wisdom and experience, because we are leeching good people out of the profession. And I want to be very clear that we are not anti-teaching, we are not anti-school, we are not anti-senior team, because there are some absolutely superb schools, superb senior leaders, superb staff all over the country. But what we are is anti-people being treated in the way that they are being treated, because fundamentally, I don't believe we are far off a tipping point in education, where it's all going to fall down, where schools are not going to have the staff, that children ultimately, because that's right at the heart of it for me, that children are not going to have the benefit of the great teachers who've left the profession, and the ones that are coming in and coming through are in a system in some spaces where they're never going to become those experienced, wise teachers, because they're not going to last, because the system's not set up to support them.

So please don't think us anti-teacher or anti-education, we're not, we are not talking the profession down, it's the very opposite. Actually, we want the profession to be what it was when I joined the profession 25 years ago, when it was glorious, it was the best job in the world, and I think teaching is the best job in the world, but teachers and TAs and senior leaders across this country are being treated abominably in some circumstances, and it's not small patchwork, there's significant numbers of people that this is happening to, and we need to do something about it. I think I can climb down off my soapbox now. 

But you have to look after the people that look after the children. Yes. The trouble is, you know, a stress teacher can't help but take that stress into the classroom, as professional as you are, and as much as you can put your game face on when you go into the classroom, you know, when you feel dragged down by all this, you know, that reflects, you know, teaching, there was always a culture in teaching for years, I mean, my mum's a teacher, or retired now, my nan was a teacher, literally my first teacher in my, you know, I won't go too much into the anecdote stuff, but my first teacher was my auntie, my third teacher was my nan, I literally went to the school where they taught, and I know it's mad, and it was just, you know, so I know what the culture used to be like, and there used to be a culture of really making sure that teachers were okay, and then I think it got to a point where people thought, oh we're sort of, you know, we're sort of tiptoeing around teachers too much, and it's just swung, you know, so far the other way, so far the other way, it has. 

I guess one thing we should do before we wrap up is go through the four things that we are sort of aiming to do for this campaign, which are, these four things did go into Dan Aldridge's letter to to the education department, and to Bridget Philipson, and they are, luckily they're on my screen here, launch a national review of the use and misuse of support plans and capability procedures with particular focus on age, gender, and pay scale disparities. Number two is publish anonymised data on the demographics of teachers leaving subject to these procedures, so the age, gender, ethnicity, length of service, and pay level of people leaving, so data on that. We're asking for updated and strengthened statutory guidance to prevent the misuse of these procedures as a covert cost-cutting measure, and just reviewing the use of settlement agreement and NDAs, which obscure the true scale of systemic issue, because when people are gagged, that's when you can't, everyone just thinks they're an individual, and it's just them. 

Absolutely, absolutely, and it's not, it's not just us as individuals, is it? It's not you, it's, it's, it is, I think it is the genuine, the genuine definition of what systemic is, it's not localised, it's not, it's not individuals, it's much bigger and much broader than that, so we need, we need everyone on board, we will keep, keep you up to date through the group, you'll keep seeing my face, and, and Nick's, and Sharon's, and we will, yeah, we will come back to you when we've got more to come back to you with. Right to your MP, let me know. Yes, definitely, and, and, and if you have gotten, if you have gotten an experience with that in terms of your own personal testimony, that is very powerful, but just be careful, obviously there is confidentiality in terms of anything you communicate with an MP, I think, but please do be careful that you, you aren't spectacularly breaching anything in terms of writing, but I think that, that need for something personal and impactful rather than template focused is, is going to be of much more significance, and if we can get every MP in the country having been written to, and on, on Nick's database in terms of they've definitely received a letter, then when we, when, not if, when we do get to the point of is education select committee feasible, if every MP is, is getting contacted, that makes that more likely. 

So yeah, perfect. Okay. Thanks so much for your time, Nick.

Thank you, Sarah. And, and I will see you shortly. Please don't leave the studio though.

See you soon. Bye.