Setting Goals: How to Plan Ahead as a Teacher
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January 29, 2025
TLDR: Laura and David discuss professional and personal goals for 2025, providing advice on smart target setting for teachers.

In the latest episode of the Inside Voices podcast, titled "Setting Goals: How to Plan Ahead as a Teacher", hosts Laura and David explore the importance of goal setting for teachers in 2025, focusing on both professional and personal aspirations. The episode provides actionable insights into crafting effective goals and encourages teachers to adopt a proactive approach in their careers.
Importance of Goal Setting in Education
Setting clear goals is integral for educators aiming to enhance their teaching and personal development. Key takeaways from the discussion include:
- Reflecting on Achievements: The hosts emphasize reflecting on personal progress to motivate future goal setting.
- Balance of Goals: It’s vital for teachers to strike a balance between personal aspirations and professional development to prevent burnout.
Types of Goals Discussed
The podcast emphasizes two main categories of goals:
1. Professional Goals
- Understanding Curriculum: New teachers should focus on getting familiar with their curriculum and teaching methodologies. One host mentioned wanting to grasp the intricacies of stage-based curriculum like division at primary levels.
- Engaging with Students: Emphasis is placed on actively listening to students’ stories and recognizing their personal struggles to build a nurturing classroom environment.
- Utilizing Technology: A major recommendation includes using digital platforms such as ClassroomScreen for managing classroom activities more efficiently, which enhances both teaching and learning experiences.
2. Personal Goals
- Health and Wellbeing: The hosts share personal resolutions, including prioritizing health through better sleeping habits and self-care routines. For example, one host aims to make their bed daily as a step towards organization and mental clarity.
- Embracing New Hobbies: Trying out new activities like skiing was highlighted as a way to expand personal horizons and foster positive energy which can reflect in teaching.
Tools and Resources for Goal Setting
Laura and David underscore the importance of tools that aid in effective goal tracking:
- ClassroomScreen: This tool allows teachers to manage class flow effectively, offering features like polls, timers, and sharing capabilities which streamline lesson delivery and student engagement.
- Tech Integration in Teaching: They encourage fellow educators to embrace technology, which can facilitate better organization and engagement with learning materials.
Overcoming Challenges in Goal Setting
Laura reveals that overcoming imposter syndrome is essential, especially for those who feel overwhelmed by the demands of teaching. The hosts discuss practical strategies like:
- Peer Support: Collaborating with peers to create a supportive teaching community can help in regularly assessing progress and sharing best practices.
- Reflection and Adjustment: Constant reflection on personal and professional goals allows teachers to adjust their strategies based on what works and what doesn’t.
Final Thoughts
The episode wraps up with a reminder that personal growth is as crucial as professional development in the teaching journey. Laura and David encourage teachers to view 2025 as a year full of potential, pushing them to challenge themselves and strive for a fulfilling teaching experience.
Key Takeaways for Teachers:
- Set clear, balanced goals that cater to both professional development and personal well-being.
- Utilize tech solutions to streamline classroom management and enhance teaching effectiveness.
- Foster an environment of support and collaboration among peers to tackle the challenges of teaching.
Listeners are encouraged to adopt a mindset of positive vibes only and keep looking for joy in both teaching and personal pursuits.
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Welcome back to Inside Voices, a teacher podcast by teachers for teachers where we discuss all things education. I'm your host, Laura. And I'm David. And remember that in here, we use our inside voices.
Welcome back to Inside Voices and Happy New Year. We are glad to be back in the studio and glad to be back filming some episodes for you all. This one is just going to be a little bit of a goal setting. You know, it's important to set some goals, a little reset, refresh, see how we're feeling about 2025, positive vibes. So we've decided to positive vibes only. It's going well. To extend how are you feeling about the positive vibes only? Are we so on track for that? Oh, I keep thinking.
as I want a double cheeseburger. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I've sworn off of McDonald's, and I'm not had one this year. No, I have. No, I have. Okay. Before the six of January doesn't count. Before the six of January. And actually even before that weekend, I think I cut it on like the second or something. I had like a final fling. I think my final fling was like the fifth of January, like the Sunday before we went
And every time I drive past McDonald's, I literally celebrate. No, honestly, I'm like, oh, tonight's gonna be a real test because we went to school, obviously, went to training after we had this big presentation thing to do, big presentation. And then he...
You had a big presentation. Yeah, I went and presented something. It was not big. And then we just came straight here. So no dinner. Sorry. So tonight would be like the perfect opportunity for my dolls. I know. I know. But just have something in the house. You've got food in the house.
Anyway, yeah, we do. We do. How are we feeling about being back at work? How did you think it's been? I remember seeing an episode this time last year. I said, your class come back so different after the new year. And I always said, you would notice it with the younger ones. Do you notice that? No, it's that one. Sorry. You lied. No, I lied to you.
In fact, they've come back exactly the same. So I'm not sure where that one came from. I feel like the same again though, because I was doing writing this week and last week, and like my primitives are often independent right now. And I'm like, oh, you guys are just... Okay. Good job. I've never taught primitives, I don't know if that's good or not, but... It is. It's very good.
Yeah, I don't know. It feels much of a muchness to me, to be honest. It's kind of the same vibe. I think it's strange in a school because you say like the new year, but actually you're coming back with the same classroom and the same class. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't feel like a heavy reset to me. I mean, personally, I've set some goals to want to hear about them. Of course I do. I want to learn how to ski. Do you want to delve into that a little bit more? Like why? So we want to learn how to fly, but obviously,
He's not yet defined gravity. He is very much conforming with gravity. And actually I'm just sliding down hills now. I went to my first... He's a friend of gravity. I went to my first... He's a real friend. I went to my first ski lesson yesterday. And it was quite an experience, let me tell you.
He was actually ready for the advanced course, but unfortunately he joined Beginner, so he wasn't really able to press to that Olympic ski jump stage. So apparently I'm already incredible skiing. He's above average, obviously. Just look around my group and think I'm better than everyone here, obviously. Like naturally I'm better than everyone here, and why am I not a professional skier?
That's a good question. I think if you weren't a teacher, you probably would be... I think in 2020, for... I really lean into social media. And I think this year I'm going to lean into winter sports.
I actually every time I laugh in here are like cackle and that's going to be picked up. There's a wheeze. And I don't know where the wheeze comes from. It's just, he's really funny. He's really good at skiing. He's really funny. So I have many talents. Yeah, sets the tone, sets the bar high. What, um, you asked me about, like, your, my resolutions, what's like your one thing apart from McDonald's obviously, like what's the thing that you're at? Pause the vibes isn't really everyone does that.
Well, if you remember an episode where David spoke about this, I did one say in a staff meeting when I was asked about something, you know, you could do that's positive. I just, I don't mean it. I just came at it. I said, I'm not really a positive kind of person. And apparently everyone here. Kind of gal was what you said in a staff meeting. Positive kind of gal.
I feel like it was an insight though. Yeah, I'm not really a positive gal. It wasn't an insight thought that then became an outside thought accidentally. So, you know, being a positive gal is actually a really good one for me. But I think my issue is with you and I was like that new your diet kind of person, you know.
I need to focus on it being more of a health perspective than it being, like, a skinny queen perspective. You know? So I need to actually... I want to focus on, like, actually getting my good amount of sleep. So no, don't sit on your phone until one in the morning. Oh, and I'm going to make my bed.
I don't make my bed. I've never made my bed ever in my entire life. I'm so annoyed because I made my bed every day since the start of January and I forgot today and I came home and I was like, I forgot to make my bed. And I don't know why I think I don't know what happened. I just, I don't know. I thought it was forming a habit. Are you going to make sure you like?
your room and make sure your chores are done as well and make sure you get your homework done. I just don't understand. I do actually, you know, it's pretty tight. He's pretty clean. We're good, but I don't understand the point of making your bed when I'm going to get back in. Like, that's the first place I want to go. I want to go back to my bed. You know,
Oh, it's first port of call every day. Again, we've actually offended people who are parents in the first 15 minutes of the episode, because I'm like, the first place I go is back to bed, and they're like, the first place I go is to the snack cupboard. And actually, I'm coming on the next day, Ron. Obviously, they are just silly good schools apart from your skiing. Obviously, you're taking that very seriously. I don't mean you. I'm being a professional skier by the end of the year. I mean me.
What are your goals in terms of like teaching, in terms of the job, in terms of social media? Sorry, I didn't take you under the table. That's weird. Sorry about that. You know, this podcast, what are your goals in that sense as well? Do you have any? These are no goals. Not a big goal setter. I'm not a big like vision board. They just lead to disappointment.
Well, that was not a positive gal, are you? No, that's not really. I just can't think that far ahead, really. I do have a couple of predictable though as well, because we were talking in the car about how this time last year we were going down to bit. Yeah. And we were so nervous. We didn't know what to expect. We were like major impostor syndrome. Who do we think we are? We're going down again. Well, when you listen to this, it'll be.
That's today. Yeah. Let me today. Woo. Merry Christmas. Guys, we're at Bette. Happy Bette-ness to all of us celebrate. Happy Bette-ness to all of us celebrate. We will be there. And this year just feels like normal. Not normal. We're just going to run this town tonight. And we need to give ourselves a reality check because this is the biggest Ed Tech conference in the world. And we literally think we're going to be able to run around filming TikTok videos.
We run around with our phones and our tiny little mics quite literally we ran around sinking lip-syncing to high school songs in the last year. You wake up, it's raining and it's Thursday. We need Thursday. You're waking and it's Thursday. No, it's Monday. Monday. What's wrong with Thursday?
I think we filmed on Thursday. Oh, gosh. It's raining then. It's Monday. That's it. That's it. Great. Thanks for that rendition. But, you know, it's unpredictable, this journey. Well, I do have a couple of teaching goals, and I think a couple of people can probably relate to this one. My first big one, and I made a tech talk about this, and if you're not watched it, you can go and watch it. I made it at the top of the mountain. You, I really want to- That was not a mountain. It was the Copatric Hills.
That's not a mountain. Are you joking? At the top of a hill. Yeah, I think there's a bit of a difference. A bit of a difference. You know what? I just don't... This is not very positive, is it? You're being quite negative. It's just not a mountain, anyway. You're like very nervous. Well, it looked like I'm out into me. The scab. First thing I want to do is get to grips with the stage. I'm up. So this is my first year. I'm probably making a...
Excuse me, I'm just fully barbed. I'm probably making a lot of mistakes and getting to grip with the curriculum and when to teach things, how long things teach, just started division.
Yep, have fun with that one. Division at primary four is a real. I was going to say that. Fun time. My class kind of based. Don't jinx it. Don't jinx it. So yeah, grab kind of get to grips with the stage that I'm at big time. And then I think the next one I did make this a goal. I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if it's in my personality or in my character.
be nice. Yeah. Oh, I thought, no, no, the one was to like, make sure you like, take time out of your day to listen to the stories, listen to the check-ins. But the day is just, I just forget how busy a day is. See, I think you have to do that though, and the younger ones, because if you don't, they literally will be like, Mrs. Filton, Mrs. Filton, Mrs. Filton, Mrs. Filton, Mrs. Filton, Mrs. Filton. I know, I just,
Like, look up for your... Did you know when you're doing the register and they come to tell you stories and you're, like, still looking at the laptop, but, like, kind of less, did you know, like, do you know in that situation? Yeah, in that situation, I feel like I'm giving them nothing. And I need to, like, at least turn and face them. Because I'm, like, I'm still doing what I'm doing. Bare minimum, you know? Yes. I don't like getting interrupted though. That makes it sound like you're really mean and you don't listen to them. Like, that's not what we're going. That's not what we mean. Just means in the little moment. Yeah.
And the little moments where they tell me something that's really important to them and I go, oh, that's great. But actually, it's like their goldfish died and you're like, oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had this like major disaster. I'm like, that's great. Yeah. Go back to your seat. And I hadn't listened to a single word this day. I think.
That is a big one for me with the younger children because I taught primary seven for the last couple of years and that just wasn't a thing that they did. They did not divulge that much information. So I think that that's going to be a big shift to me but it takes so much energy. It does. It does. It does something you need to kind of make yourself a bit more aware of. Yeah. You know, it's a hard one. Sometimes I'm like, I don't know if I'm
cut out for the lower school. I think I'm your primary score. I think that's the hard thing before though I found that they're young enough that you can't really relate to upper school things and they're old enough that you don't relate to the lower school things. You're just lost in this sort of no man's middle ground. It's actually quite a difficult
It's sort of a sense that you're at the end of levels of most of the stuff they already know when you're just building on it, but it is difficult in that sense of not knowing where you lie in that. I love how green they are and how fresh and interested and want to learn and want to be there and love school. I love all that aspect because you don't always get that with the premise of in class.
But I just, I keep kind of slipping back into previous year's expectations where I need to like change that I think. Yeah. But that's just been taken. I think that's been quite pecky if that's the only things that you have to really work on then. Yeah. None, pretty much perfect. You're in a good position. Yeah, I'm amazing. You're in a good position. I'm just actually so good at this. I'm so good at skiing. Yeah, it's going to teach you all those things. What can he do? Yeah. Yeah. What about you? What's your?
I think with being in the younger ones, I've learned that I can come in earlier and pretty much get everything that I need to get done and then I can leave at like half three. It's wonderful. I love it. But I'm bad at them being like, oh, just do this. I'll just do this. I'll just do this. I'll just do this. And then I'm staying till half four and there's no reason for me to do. Do you know what I mean? Like no reason for me to be there. And it's not just because you're filming. I also love to talk. All right. Okay. So I don't talk in the morning because there's nobody else there. So I have no one to talk to. Except myself.
Should you want to do early mornings then? Early mornings so I can kind of leave. I definitely more of an, which is interesting to someone who does not like to get out of bed. But more of an early morning, like my brain is ready to work in the morning. Whereas by three o'clock, it's like those monkeys that bash symbols together in my head. That's what's going on at that point in the day. So I think I want to be really consistent with the time I actually get.
into work. But you nailed that a couple of years ago. I was quite good at that not working too much over my contract to doers, which was good. But then it starts to go right. I'll come in at eight or I'll come in like quarter past eight, which is fine. But I think I'm late in this morning. Me? No, I did. Oh, you did. I'm like, no, I didn't. I was there. I woke up. Thank you very much. My ski lesson, obviously exhausted. He was so tired. He was in triple bag flip.
Yeah, I was I was working on my pipe position and one on the front flip and I was just so exhausted. Yeah, why not obtain a clock? I'm sorry. Who runs a ski lesson to ten o'clock at night? That's quite late. I think it's because you have to get rid of all the kids. That's actually my bedtime. That's another one of my goals is like eight hours of sleep, so I have to be sleeping by ten o'clock. Which is really convenient because I actually want to watch Love Island. I also scroll on TikTok. No, I actually don't do that anymore. Really? Don't go on my phone after nine o'clock.
Could not be me. No screen time. I have got a lot. I don't think I'm actually ready for bed unless I've scrolled for like 45.
I actually can't relate to that anymore. It's so really quite hard. I think especially when you're doing this content creation malarkey, you know, that's also your job. Yeah, you want to know what's going on? People probably don't know. I don't know if you didn't or don't know, but like social media for us is also a job at this point. Like it is. It's also a job. So you have that certain level of you wouldn't just rock up to your job and do a terrible job of it. Because you didn't want to put the work in.
we come home and I claim it's research. I'm like, I'm literally, I know Daniel's like, um, are you on your phone? I'm like, I'm actually working. I am literally working and he was like, dignity noises over text, like sound effects, but it is a job now. So do you have any goals for that side of it? I know you've spoken a lot about teaching, but you have any goals of where you are. People are quite curious about how,
I know, yeah. There's a few other people that have kind of said that they listened to the podcast and wanted to try and things like that, you know? So, yeah, I mean, what do you mean, like, numbers or like... Could be anything, like, is your goal a certain numbers or goal to... So my goal before Christmas was, I don't know, hit this randomly. I don't expect to hit it. So I've seen them and love in the microphone. So if you can actually hear that, which I probably can, ASMR, mukbang, easy. I can just imagine listening to that.
in the car, and here and you do that, that's disgusting. Disgusting! Disgusting! Like a cup of cane sauce next to sort of dip in your... No, anyway. That's stuff. That makes me... That's so besides the point. The goal I had before Christmas was to hit 200,000 on TikTok. Nailed it. Crushed it, but kind of slowed after Christmas obviously, because that was just January blues. But it's so lockdown. But yeah, so I don't know, like, I don't know, a million followers.
I'm gonna have a million followers by the end of the year. He's so humble. He's so humble. Yeah. No, I don't know. I don't know. I don't like that number on it. The numbers are injectable. If you're wanting to do it, don't focus on the numbers side of things. I mean, it's nice. I love this. You get a little circle in this when you see that video go up, up, up in the news. There's nothing better.
But yes, we're actually going to do this little segment, I think, on TikTok where we watch and react to our old videos because I think we're just saying about the confidence change and how things have changed and actually how, you know, when he was presenting at this thing today, we're saying how this podcast and social media in general kind of gives you a bit of a confidence boost and how to speak in, not body language because
We're literally not recording with a camera right now, so that doesn't count, but it does sort of increase your confidence in these situations. It definitely does, and I think, like, standing up in front of whatever it was, seven schools or something today, like, that probably would have made me quite nervous five or six years ago. Yeah, with everyone staring at you. We're having a staring at you, but it's like something, I wasn't amazing, trust me, I literally was so unprepared. But what did you say?
That's what we say. Imagine the crowd in your underwear. I've never understood that. And I'm like, that's really strange. Why would I want the picture? I know. All these people in their underwear. And also, I don't really want anyone pictured me in my underwear, which is very weird. Yeah. So yeah, it does give you a little bit of confidence. I would say if anyone's wanting to do a social media thing, like go for it, you've got to be careful what you're posting everything obviously, but it does.
If you start to get good at it and it starts to go well, it does give you a total confidence boost. Even just film and stuff for your own. We started just filming stuff basically for ourselves. It wasn't going anywhere. It was pretty grim stuff. Just for funsies. It was really just for funsies, but then it kind of took off and it was... I've achieved like, we enjoy doing it. It's not something that we just do because you get a haul. Oh, I'll just...
Like it made me like throw a video out there. So cheesy. Okay. I don't think I actually wear on the cheese. I don't actually want to say it. Oh, I was going to say I was going to say it kind of made me not fall in love, but like get my passion back for teaching a little bit. No, it does because it kind of pushes you to be.
better and it's not from that perspective and I know I'm not doing anything groundbreaking in my classroom like I'm not I'm doing things that work well and I'm doing things that I think work well but it's nothing groundbreaking I think that's what sometimes people think when you say oh I post on social media that oh you're so
And again, you're so cocky, you're so confident and you're like, well, not really. Yeah. I just, I'm shading the little parts of the day. She's literally deleted her kind of like seven times. You literally could not be farther from the truth. So if you're listening to this because you don't like me or you don't like him, please pick on him because I will subscribe.
cry. I actually nearly had a mentee be over the Christmas holidays because someone posted a video saying that some teacher had left a nasty comment on their, a nasty comment on their TikTok. And then she obviously did some digging, whatever, I found out this person was a teacher. Very unfortunately for me, this person is called Laura. Yep. So the search bar on TikTok obviously comes up with a blue bit. And I posted a video in May last year, I've been like, Hi, I'm Laura.
I'm a Scottish teacher. Let me tell you who's quite mean on social media and it's not the children. It's the middle-aged women who were commenting. They were getting filtered for being that horrible. I have filters throughout my comments, obviously. But as any sane person would do, I like to read them to see what people are saying about me because I hate myself.
I decided just one day to click around and I was like, why do I have 12 comments calling me every name under the sun? Wait, I've not clicked on this. Can you tell me how to do that? Yeah, I can. I'm going to get my phone. Every name under the sun. And then there was a couple of comments that had gone through that weren't that bad. And it was like, so do you believe in telling people to dress their age? Or do you believe in teaching to be nice on social media? And I thought they were genuinely asking me. I thought they were like, curious about what I teach in the 1950s. I'm like, of course we do.
And then I went back to that person and I was like, can you tell me what you meant by this? I know it was like a week ago, but like, I have a lot of really nasty comments and they were like, oh, let me send you the link to the video. Contacted the creator and I was like, can you please clarify that this was not me because I'm gonna cry. I actually did cry. I did cry. I did cry. Then I got my dog. Did you actually cry? Of course I cried. Of course I cried. Did you cry on your own or did you cry to Daniel? Daniel was there, but he didn't really understand. I cry a lot. To be fair, so it's really like, oh.
Not again, I cry when I see cute dogs. I'm really just a bit of a Emotionally unstable person like security in permissions or like I was gonna be interested in this could be a segment. Oh Can you read it as appropriate to read?
No, yeah, but you know how I this isn't you Because I was catching a flight the other day and it was like I need to catch a flight. I'm running late here. Watch me make a stupid tick And then another person said stop deliberately writing 2024 the joke has passed
Yeah, enjoy now knowing that that button exists because that's horrific. It can be. I don't even remember what we're talking about before that. That was quite painful to actually read. I didn't even read out any of the worst ones. I'm kind of in a low place right now.
It's kind of burst my bubble a little bit. It's kind of just ruined my entire day. Yeah. Anyway, the whole point of this episode was kind of to see what teacher's goals are for the year to kind of talk about ours, even though not many of them have actually been to do with teaching. We've kind of lost the plot and it's, um, genuinely, I don't actually really know what you just did there. Well, I can keep seeing dust in this light and I think it's coming off of me. Strange sort. Sorry. Sorry.
It's time for listener voices where we hear from you, our listeners. Obviously some people are as delicious as us and just put some quite funny things. I can really relate to this one, keep my desk tidy. I know you can't relate to that. My desk is a hazard zone. At least it shows that I don't sit at it though. I don't actually sit at my desk at any point.
I don't know. I actually have to go window in my fashion where I can literally just stare at you and find out if you do sit in your desk, but I don't actually ever look out that window. But that's not the best I had actually. I never look out the window. Anyway, stop replying to children sarcastically. You could probably do with that one.
Oh, okay. Oh sure. Cry about teaching once a month instead of once a week. That personal growth. Yeah, and do you know what? A growth. Yeah, she's not saying stop crying. No, we're not putting it. It's like, you know, when people are like, oh, I'm going to go, I'm never going to eat chocolate again in my life. Firstly, do you hate yourself? Yeah. Secondly, why are you going to call Turkey with the chocolate?
Do you have two bars a week instead of seven? Why are you going to cool turkey with the tears? Exactly. Don't need to go cold turkey with the tears. Everyone needs a week now and then. Once a month. Perfect. Exactly. Once an hour, once a month, whatever is good for you. Don't remember the last time I cried, but yep. Okay, whatever is worse. We can dig into that whenever we want. Are you? Try and control my face more in staff meetings.
Yeah, I need to work on that one, not just in staff meetings, but just generally in life. I feel like it takes a long time for things to process in my mind and staff meetings, so sometimes I make faces and it's not even remotely related to what's been said, I'm just not on this planet. Yeah, I give that an eyebrow raise a lot. I'm not in the room. Yep.
Um, as our colleague said, do you want to write that down? So you remember it? No, no, I don't. I will just ask everybody else. Yeah. No, you've written it down. Yeah, you've written it down. I haven't written it down. I will ask you. Yeah. But you wrote it down. It's great for me. I'm thank you for doing chat at work. Thank you for your service. I really appreciate it. So maybe that should be my goal. To be the person that makes that sound. Yeah. But then the issue is, right? I went to write it down. You remember my staff meeting notes.
When you first came yesterday and then I couldn't remember the time we said to write it down for so I ended up not writing it down That went from my brain in like 10 seconds like my my colleague said to me Oh, we'll do such and such on this day and I was like cool And then she went do you want to write it down so you don't forget and I was like yes
went to my desk and I was like, what day? Did you say Thursday? Did you say Friday? When in the afternoon are we doing that? So I tried. I really tried hard. It just wasn't meant to be. Rather than relying on the people around me in my life to actually organize my life for me, it would be more me writing things down in my own dieting. Rather than waiting for the follow-up email, always get a follow-up email from pretty much everyone in my life.
When I first get my planner in August, I literally write down everything. I put it on my dieting in the front part. Have I looked at those pages since? No, no, no, no. And one would not expect you to. No. So actually, I do have the answers, but I just forget that they're there. Anyway, you know... Guys, it's time to be real. It's time to go. And that can't be real. He's back and follow me. Why you're back and be real? No. No, okay. Why are you always at the airport?
Um, don't want to tell you that either. Well, actually it's pretty obvious. I'm just gonna keep talking through this burial because you know, we've got an episode. Oh my goodness, I can't get an absolute belter. You did that the other day as well. It looks like it made sense to be really interesting. Same automatic response to anyone to an email to say that the emails will be answered within a week.
I'd love to have that kind of boundaries in. Wow. I like to reply instantly. Unless- If I don't reply instantly- I'm not doing it. But it's not getting replied to it. I need to pin things to the top. I've got a 20-pendy move. You're actually very similar to me and annoys me when you do it to me, so it's alarming that I do to other people.
Okay. What did I do? When you just don't apply it, I had to be like, oh, I love how many questions you answered. I said two voice notes. And then this morning you messaged and we're like, I just love about you that you asked them. My questions. They were honestly like five seconds. The voice notes. That was so funny. I was highly. I don't think you can play the first one. No, I'm not playing them, but like you literally said this morning at 10 past eight. I love how you answer so many questions. It's my favorite thing about you.
I just completely fast. I do that all the time, so I do understand that some some break a world record. That's what you're going to do. There must be a really easy. There must be a really easy world record to break.
Like there has to, I know people probably think this is time. Yeah, when I was a kid, I used to think about this all the time, because I was like in the Guinness World record, it was like a fruit book, and I used to think if I pogo stick with like skipping, or like if I pogo stick well, like- Does that sound really funny? Yeah, or something, and you're like, what is going on here? There must be one that's like not being invented yet, you know, that would be quite easy. A lot of clean my discs, be more productive during my PPA, so my non-class contact time, but I feel like I'm actually quite good at that.
No, I've got that down to the team, yeah. I kind of put my headphones in and just go, whoop, here we go. Noise cancellation. Oh, yeah. I still can't find my earpods. Oh, do you know what's interesting? Well, it's interesting to me. I lost it. I forgot my earpods on the way to Belfast. I bought another set. Of course you did. And the airport, because I was like, I need headphones. So I bought another set. So excited. And was it? I know. And was like, right, that's fine. I've got two now. I've got a spare, so that's where you'd lost them in Belfast. Of course you did.
Completely lost and then was like wow like a month later. I was like I just couldn't find my iPhone. I spent a lot of time in Belfast
And then a month later, I went on to my iPhone and was like, find my iPhone. And it came up and there was in a cafe in Belfast. There must have fallen out in my pocket. So someone in my life, someone... Just a friend. A friend or maybe someone else went and got them from the cafe. How cool is that? That's so nice. And now they have a pair and I've got a pair.
We've got matching pairs. We've donated them. Yeah, and because they were so new, there was no earwax on them. Oh. So I let them keep it, let her keep it. That was so nice. That was so nice. You're such a good guy. I did actually say, and the text message I said, if I need them back, I'm taking them back. Oh, OK, so there's times and conditions. Yeah, it's temporary. As long as I don't lose mine, but then I've just lost mine. I'm like, wait on my headphones.
See, for someone who's the organized educator, you're very unorganized with losing keeping track of your items. I tell you about my coffee today. No. That's why I went in microwave to break. I got my greatest coffee. Stuck in the microwave. I know you're not supposed to do this. It says, on the cup, do not microwave this, but whatever. Whatever. Microwaved it. Left it in the microwave. Oh. Forgot it. He'd take it out and drink it. Made a bagel. Had break. Went back. Yeah. He went at lunch. Someone opened up my room and was like, there's left a coffee in here.
I just left that in there for a couple of years. That would be me. Yeah. So I just, I'm, for the organized edge care, I leave things and lose things all over the place. I think I'll get ADHD.
Yeah, we've, yeah, we've, we're diagnosed. That's my New Year's resolution is to not lose things as much. I got a New Year tag for Christmas, so I can. I can go on your keys. It can go on your keys. Please put them on your keys. Yeah. That's still one of my favorite things that we're just, no, I was walking to the shops in your car. I'm just going to offer you and stand there with attempts in the guy lunch time. Like, please save me. That was off on memory. No, it wasn't. Well, I enjoyed that. That was hilarious. But we'll take a little bit of a serious turn to end the episode that.
We're thinking about just bettering ourselves professionally, personally, overall. And I think if there's one tip or tool or bit of advice you can give to someone who's wanting to streamline their classroom, organize, like just better their professional outlook, their professional experience, what are you telling them to go for? No brother putting on the spot. I think
If you had to ask me this a couple of years ago and maybe Buddha said something like, I don't know, get a reward system in place or that you know something like that. But this time I've completely, particularly this year, I've completely changed the way I teach.
based on one website and one website alone. I'm not even, this is not even like a, I'm not hyping this up in any way. We have literally, you're the same. We have literally changed the way that we present things to the kids, the way that we do things. And that's classroom screen. So if you don't use classroom screen, you need to get on it. There is a free version, but there's also a pro account version where you can save your screens and everything. That's the only difference. Yeah. A lot of people still use the, like I used the free one until this year when I was sure I was going to use it. Yeah. Every single day.
I just went for the pro one because I didn't want, I wanted like my screens all saved. So that's why I turned off at quarter to nine to do. Because I knew, I don't know that every morning, but I knew that I could get away with it today because I had all my screen done. And actually, do you know what I did? I went at quarter past eight, I was ready to leave the house and I jumped back into bed for five to 10 minutes.
I did. I was fully ready to go. And I was like, do you know what? I'm so cold and so like grumpy in January. I'd jump back into bed and I got my phone out and did some stuff on classroom screen on my phone. And then I went to school and it was already there. I got my morning slides sorted. I just changed like one or two lines of text. I got my, I think I had a text with Paige or a stage, a mass stations to just change. To change up quickly. Guided reading stations and things. So I literally was changing one or two bits of text. I did it from the comfort of my bed. Over and over again.
We've typically followed the same structure, so all I need to do is add a little bits, but they've added the share feature now, which has actually changed the game for someone who teaches, team teaches, and then teaches in a base with someone. So we do writing, for example, on a Wednesday, we do writing, and usually one person will lead out and the other person will be supporting.
or whatever they're doing out with leading the lesson itself. And what we used to do is make two slides that were pretty much identical. Same learning, tension, information, but obviously whoever's not leading the lesson has to listen out, you're building the success criteria and then they run over to their laptop and like, type it up. And then, you know, you're trying to replicate what's on there, so.
Typically my classroom screen looks like learning, tension, success, criteria, maybe like a little drawing part where I can put say keys to this was keywords. And then underneath I maybe have an example of what it is we're doing and I'll colour code it so we were goal setting I think this year. So green was personal goals. Amber was academic and in red was, I can't remember what red was, personal academic and hobbies, hobby, sporting or something sort of goal. So everything's on there, the videos on there that we watched, which is embedded and then it doesn't play adverts. That's like my favourite thing ever.
Yes, when you put a YouTube video on those, we know Adverse, love it. If you're someone who likes lo-fi music, piano music in your classroom, and it's like playing nice, self-music, and it's like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do,
No, I would use that every morning, so every morning on my morning screen I've got my timetable up and I love that the image is timetable one, so it's like a timetable and you can check it off and the kids are like, can I check off? When you've done something so you've done your numeracy, you can get the kids to check it off, you can get a timed one as well so that they can learn the times.
I've got then my like embedded PowerPoint from Canva. So I've embedded a live PowerPoint where I can change it on Canva and then like click through it as quickly as I can on classroom screen. And then in the corner I've got this like calming
So there's a bit like aquariums on, sometimes I put like slime and all that stuff. And the kids are obsessed with it. So when we do our morning check-ins, I just make it a little bit bigger. I like expand it slightly so that they are all like completely engrossed. And I'm just like talking over them. It's hilarious. I love that. But then you could now share that, which I love. So like instead of us now having to run behind and like type our success criteria whilst the other one's talking, I'll just press share link, fire the link over it.
puts everything that I've just done over to the other screen. So it's like identical screens, both sides of the classroom, everything's there, everything's done. It's honestly a game changer. It's so good. I just think it's a tool that's very versatile, especially if you're wanting to see visual cues. So like I have up our continuous provision in the morning, the choice that they can make. And I like to just go over my iPad, take a picture of the tough tree and then it appears on my laptop because I'm on my, I don't need to, you know, take a picture.
Upload it, put it into a slide. Yeah, you can never find a picture on a laptop. No, and then you have stickers. DCI 101, DCI. So it's an 4-2-3-5-7. And it's just, but then they have obviously embedded pictures themselves. They have screen stickers you can use, but so rarely I need a picture. It's usually just if I want to have a picture of like the actual example. It's just as such.
A good tool. And then I've got up on like, so I literally never changed my slides from like, unless I'm doing a different PowerPoint or something for like a topic lesson. But I've got my guided reading set up. Yeah. All ready to go. I literally just have to change the stations on there. I've got my numerous stations. Yeah. I've got my fantastic priorities to their plays. And with our numerous stations, you can also just have up like a pole. I always make my pole really small and just put up at the bottom. Yeah. So the, cause when a child did check in 43 times last week on the field and check in in the morning starter,
I'm priced every single button. I was like, oh. Yeah. Yeah. But also when people were really sad because they had the like, I could face like 10 times and I turned around. I was like, what are you doing? So they had, they were like, I was going to hit the orange 10 times and the green 10 times when they just hit the red 10. So I was like, Oh wow. Looks like the class are really not in a good place right now, but actually we're fine. We're okay. But like you can then just highlight them. So I have everything and I have things just really small, like a video or my poll, whatever I'm going to need later. And then
Did you know that if you put something off the screen, I didn't know this until recently, if you like... We love top tips. If you like hold it down and drag it and drag it off the screen as if it's it going away, it goes away and then a little button comes up for it. So you can have like 10 buttons, so this is what I did during inspection. So during inspection I had like all my questions and everything for my plenary that obviously we all do plenaries all the time. I had my plenary ready to go and I had like...
four or five plenary questions based on how I thought the lesson went. Ah, that's a good idea. She didn't obviously this better than know what they were. You had five prepared. And I was just like, it's definitely number three. I brought number three out and it just appeared on the screen. And then you can highlight it and it makes it the whole screen. Yeah, that's a good idea. I was just like, oh, this is so good because you can hide things off your screen and get, if you don't like a clutter screen, you can just get rid of stuff.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing them a bit, because they're doing a bit this year, and I'm looking forward to going and speaking to them, because I feel like there's so many tools that I've not explored on it. Yeah, today. I'm looking forward to speaking to them at bit. I don't know what to stand there at. So if you're listening to this and you're going to bet, I would recommend going over to see them because it's one of those ones. You're not going to have to pay for it. You're not going to have them to go to your head teacher and be like, can we have budget to go because the answer is probably no. Yeah. So.
This is something you can do, doesn't need to be school-wide, it doesn't need to be like, although we say that, it doesn't need to be school-wide, but we showed it at a training, and I think every single person uses it now. It's just a game changer, but it's just one of the things you can just take and run, but I'm actually really looking forward to seeing them and seeing how it goes, and also all these things that I've used to building. There's probably so many features that we have barely scratched this office. Absolutely.
We're feeling positive. We're ready for 2025. No McDonald's. I'm going to be really curious that if this podcast is still up and running, which positive vibes, of course, it will be. But it's only if you know if he can take a break from his world championship skiing.
If I can fit it in with training, if it's a Belfast. You're going to have to fit into your schedule when you are a world champ. So if we can get him back from his adventures, we can maybe listen to this episode and play some of it back and try and evaluate these positive goals. I'm sure. Bring back that positive teacher. The end.
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