Teach Sleep Repeat is the podcast for teachers who need a laugh, a rant, and a reminder they are not alone. Dylan and Hayden dive into the real highs and lows of school life from classroom chaos to staffroom gossip. Listener submissions bring out the funniest disasters and most relatable dilemmas, while guests join to share their own unfiltered stories from life in and around education.
Send us your favourite teaching stories! E-mail: teachsleeprepeatpod@gmail.com
217. Term 1 Madness, Kids Being Gross & Hayden's Baby Arrives!
Hayden is back after one whole week of paternity leave, with a 10-day-old son called Albie (who Dylan has already renamed Albatross). We talk about how much calmer you are second time round, which parenting "rules" turn out not to matter and which ones really do, then get properly stuck into why children are so gross: snot bubbles in Reception, the Year 6 residential room nobody wants to open on day three, and a crisp eaten straight out of the bin.
Then your questions. One listener's school has put a twilight, a parents evening and an open evening in the same week. Is that unreasonable? Short answer: yes. We get into directed time, why an open evening should replace something rather than just be added on, and whether teaching really is harder than other jobs. Plus, after our Bridget Phillipson interview, would new Education Secretary Lucy Powell ever come on the show? Lucy, the invite is open.
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21 Sept 2026
216. The Craziest RED FLAG School Stories Ever!
Once a year we ask you for your school's biggest red flags, and once a year you absolutely bury us. Nearly a thousand comments on Facebook alone, so we've pulled out the worst of them and gone through them one by one.
A memo banning anyone below SLT from drinking ground coffee, after a colleague was caught with a filter mug. A member of leadership asking a teacher if she knew what "professional" meant. A skirts-only school that told an NQT to leave the interview there and then if she'd rather wear trousers. An open plan school with no staff room and hot desking, which sets Dylan off on private schools, class sizes and what the people with actual money choose to do. Staples that had to match the backing paper, coloured in with permanent pen. A fire alarm set off to stop a lunchtime union meeting. Five compulsory parent phone calls a week, logged in three places, because nobody wants to pay for an attendance officer. A suit jacket rule enforced on a woman eight months pregnant. Being told to call the children "clients". And a school where teachers weren't allowed a sip of water in front of a class.
Somewhere in the middle of it Hayden runs a riled-up meter on Dylan and gets him from a two to a nine, and there's some baby news too. Fair warning, the language gets away from us on this one.
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England has just landed in the world's top ten for reading, maths and science. Good news, surely? Dylan and Hayden are not so sure, because the same PISA results show reading ability falling off a cliff worldwide, and the countries where children use AI the most are falling behind the fastest.
Here's the article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgy6n0l4rdo
First, though, it is episode one from the new office, complete with a slight echo and a metal works next door. Dylan is fresh off a sleeper train to Edinburgh (think bunk beds, a shower that doubles as the toilet, and a mate who is six foot three), and he has some explaining to do about that Scottish teacher pay post that got a few people worked up.
Then two listener questions. With AI able to manipulate images, should schools stop publishing pupil photos altogether? And which subject did each of them love teaching far more than they expected? Hayden's answer says a lot about what league tables miss. Dylan's ends up in a confession about marking writing without actually reading it.
Honest, a bit echoey, and back in business.
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Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
33,664
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.0 / 5
5 ratings
Spotify
4.9 / 5
338 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 91 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
95
Social presence
97
YouTube
76
Engagement
92
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