Latest / Let Them Fly - Heather Harries Ed Hub / Toni Lunn Talks About English & Psychology

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Toni Lunn Talks About English & Psychology · Let Them Fly - Heather Harries Ed Hub

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning and welcome back to Let Them Fly with Heather Harris.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today I've got guest Tony in the studio with me, and we're looking at all about revision and waste study and English and psychology.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: A very experienced teacher, so we're going to explore lots of things that we all really want to know.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, Tony, welcome.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining us.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into teaching.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start there.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, it feels like a long time ago now.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, when I was young, I really loved English.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've always loved doing things like writing and reading obsessively.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I really thought I wanted to be an English teacher until I studied it for A level, and it kind of killed off on me a little bit, I'm not gonna lie.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I also discovered psychology sort of at random at A level.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I absolutely loved it.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I fell in love with the subject.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: I found I was kind of good at it, surprisingly.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um I didn't expect to be because it's you know very science focused and it wasn't something that I'd really done before.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So after my A-levels, I studied psychology at university and again absolutely loved it, but I just really didn't find the thing that I really wanted to do just yet.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I discovered something called Teach First, which is a training program for teachers.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and the idea of that is to go into the sort of most underprivileged schools in the UK.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, as a young enthusiastic graduate, kind of bring what you can in that sense.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it really opened my eyes to the sort of um challenges that students face in the classroom, but outside the classroom and and how those, you know, environmental factors really can be a barrier to education.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it made me incredibly passionate about supporting children um from all walks of life and making sure that whatever I do as a teacher is is all about removing those barriers and being a part of building up their confidence and their knowledge and um and then at the end of the day their progress so that they can do their absolute best.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I, yeah, I was a t an English teacher originally, um, even though my degree was psychology, and then have been setting up GCSE psychology at previous school, head of department, and um took on a pastoral role at previous school in the UK as head of year 11, which I absolutely loved.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was hard work, um, you know, looking after kids and their well-being and supporting, like, say, all those different aspects of their lives, not just within school, that can be barriers to their progress and personal growth too.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, all of those factors are really important to me as a teacher.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and here we are eight, nine years later, I think.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Feels like a long time.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's really scary, isn't it?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: The the teacher is they just fly.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it feels like five seconds since I was a newbie.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then also if I, you know, sometimes I'm asked to say what subjects I've covered and and things like that.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the list is literally endless.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I like I say, I started in English.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've been head of theatre studies for some reason.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whether I'm qualified or not, I'm not entirely sure.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've you know covered um MSc, moral, social, cultural studies here in um the UAE, which was a new one to me but fantastic.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've taught all sorts of like life skills and things like that.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's really cool how in teaching there's always an opportunity to do something new, which is great when you, you know, can get a little bored easily.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always fun.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what I love about your you as a teacher is that you're just so enthusiastic, you're so dedicated.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um it just spills out whenever we see you approaching students.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I always tell the story of one of my first ever teaching groups that um they said to me it must have been May, June time of of our first year together.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, uh, Miss, when we met you, we thought you were really scary.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, good.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Have you know, I've set the boundaries.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then they said, but now we know you're just a big nerd.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Brilliant, thank you.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, my my I think my whole thing is I love why I teach.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love teaching, but I also love why I teach.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I will talk about books, I will talk about psychology all day long, and the kids have to stop me, basically.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really great.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean a passionate teacher is just the best teacher because you're not just passionate about yourself, but you're passionate about the students as well.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what's so important.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, it's I think seeing how kids progress and how they grow and learn to love a subject that originally they will tell you they hate is uh is one of the best things that that you can do.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think psychology is one of those, but they come in with these ideas of being able to read people's minds and then suddenly it wasn't about that at all.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a tricky one.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: I find I recently had a conversation with a student who said, When are we gonna learn the fun stuff?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like schizophrenia.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Whoa, hold your hold your horses a little bit, you know.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it it is funny.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think I I kind of had the opposite with English, where they come in, obviously learning it from a young age, you're thinking, oh, it's boring, Shakespeare books, whatever.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then they kind of love it when we do, you know, the good books.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas psychology, they come in, like you say, thinking, I'm gonna read minds, I'm gonna manipulate people, and then I teach them, you know, here's what a neuron is, and here's how the brain is structured.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they're less interested in brain structure than I would think.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: I loved learning about the brain, but they're they're less interested, and it's a bit of a tricky one to be like, no, I promise this is interesting.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know right now you don't think it is, but I promise, I promise that it is.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's quite a lot of theories, isn't it, in psychology?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, there's a it's a lot of content, and because it's something that is essentially c the skills are essentially untouched until you pick it up in either pr usually you're 10, sometimes you're nine if if you're lucky, but um they're completely new topics and skills, so when they start, it's incredibly overwhelming, depending on which um specification you do.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: You're looking at eight or nine topics that they've never touched.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about like why, why and how sleep works, or you know, the the structure of the brain and the central nervous system.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: These are like really challenging topics.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: When I was first I first studied in A-level because there wasn't a GCSE, and this is only a decade ago, you know.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So now bringing it down to GCSE, it is incredibly challenging.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I find that it does it takes a little while for them to for it to click.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I will always say that to students, particularly the I tutor, sort of saying, I'm desperate, I'm not, my mocks are terrible.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I always find that it kind of it does take a while to click with the with the maturity of going into year 11 as well as the time that it takes to collect all that information and the sort of methodology around how you talk about psychology, it does take that bit of time.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it does, it does click eventually.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: How valuable do you think psychology is as a subject?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I well, I mean, I personally love it because I think it's fascinating and because I think people are weird.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's great to learn about.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but for me, when you when you study psychology, yes, we learn some topics that may not seem that interesting.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: But for example, um, one of my favorite topics is developmental psychology, um, which is essentially understanding how children go from you know babies where they have no language, they have not really much cognitive capacity and things like that.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then they get to, you know, the age of like 14 and they can suddenly have these incredible abstract and hypothetical conversations.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we're learning how people learn.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so interesting.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're, you know, a big sister, a big brother, or if you're a parent, or if you're working with young people, you know, you want to be a teacher, developmental psychology is a huge part of being a teacher, um, and educational psychology if if you continue with the study.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then of course you've got things like language, thought, and communication, which is all about, well, it's kind of the mind-reading side of things, you know, it's the reading the body language, thinking about the different types of communication that we use, verbal and nonverbal.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then all within that, you're essentially just learning how people work.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's a huge, it's a huge thing as a young person to figure out the world, not just from your own perspective, but someone else's perspective.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then how you can make those perspectives sounds super manipulative, but how you can make them work for you and how you can befriend people and how you can, you know, be in a workplace or, you know, make judgments and things like that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's so many skills, not just the things that go into the exam paper, but there's so many skills that you pick up from psychology.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I personally think it's I think it's one of those lovely subjects that sits along so many sets of sub of different that you can do it science, you can do it humanities, you can do it art even.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: It it it does fit into lots of things.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, when you know, at the moment we are talking about children learning to sit an exam, which isn't you know everyone's favourite thing.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but those skills are a big part of it, the writing skills, the scientific reasoning skills, you know, all of that sits alongside whatever other subjects that that you're learning about.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I know, I mean, I know nowadays you teach um English as well.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're gonna leave the psychology for me, which I have to say is absolutely fascinating.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: But leave and you do, you were an English exam board marker for a while, is that right?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I have marked um for the English exams.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna start with I do like marking because I always love to see the progress from students.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Exam marking is is hard, it's a big old task.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: We get, you know, uh depending who you're working for, but you get around 300 exam papers as just your basic and then you can take on more.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that that is so overwhelming sometimes to look at and and you open them and you it can be a bit of a slog to be honest, but it is so worth it as a teacher.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, I learned so much as an examiner, you know, what the exam board are looking for.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously I've marked things prior, you know, my own students' work, but having to mark students' work that you've never you've never met the kid, you don't know who it is, and see and try and figure out what they're going for for one, um, and then fitting it into the criteria in a way that the exam board, you know, it's you do mark on your own, but then it it's corroborated by other markers and things like that.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So then, you know, you have discussions around, okay, why did you give this mark and I gave this mark?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so you you learn an awful lot from it.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course that means I take that back to the classroom and I'm like, guys, this is what they're looking for.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is the stuff that I was trained identify and to award for and to not award for, you know, the things that we might have thought they would want.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they don't, maybe it's something different.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's an incredibly valuable experience for myself and for my students.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think the anonymousity of marking exams, because I think when you know the student, you kind of know what they're getting at, even if that's not what they've written.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So in your mind, you think, yo, Jack wrote such and such, and this is what he was getting at.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, when there's no day when you don't know the student, they've got to write it correctly.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we're all guilty of it as teachers.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I taught that lesson where I said the rest of the sentence that they didn't include in their essay, you know.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Want to help our students, we want to, and I will always, when I'm marking, fill in that bit of sentence that they missed, sure.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it does mean that when you have that blind version, it's really quite, you know, interesting to figure out and to also see as a teacher again what we take back to our student, the different techniques that other teachers have clearly taught them, like essay structure and things like that.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you think, oh, that's really interesting that they've clearly been taught to structure in this way, use these particular skills, and to see how each different version of teaching it um fits into the exam criteria.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's very interesting.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And do you do literature and language?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, I've trained for both.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, COVID prevented me from actually marking the language uh too for too long, but the but yeah, I mean I love marking literature, it's just the one that I find more interesting myself.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love books basically.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Language, because um obviously depending on which mark scheme you're doing, you have a very uh it's a fairly short piece of text that the students will will analyze in the first half.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you've got your creative side in the second half.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I do love the creative side, it's really interesting.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: When I teach it to students, particularly as a tutor, and as we get toward the sort of end of year 11, I do talk heavily about maturity because it is the creative part.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to either do something like write a speech, like something persuasive, um, and then the other half is to write like a descriptive, maybe like a story.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I find that as soon as they hear the word story, it becomes once upon a time.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: I got up for school.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, I'm like, these kids are 16 and I know that they can write better than that.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And something just seems to happen sometimes in the exam.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I really like to talk about the necessity of that maturity, the creative writing.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the first half with the text, because it's you know a slightly shorter piece of text, you get fairly repetitive answers.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, when you're marking 300, they all get a little bit the same.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: But what is what, you know, for students, what is really good is it it does make it a little easier to stand out.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you have something perceptive to say, then that could really make a difference when your examiner is getting a little bit bored and they go, Oh, that's an interesting new, you know, new idea.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then the literature, of course, I'm such a book nerd, I absolutely love reading, I love every book.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's cool to see you get a little bit more variety in the answers.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do think because it's often a 30 or 40 mark question, depending on on your exam board, students get a little bit lost, so maybe a little bit scared of the size of the question.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: So preparing for it is really, really important.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: But when you get someone who clearly has read the book and got the book, um, that's such a nice feeling as a teacher to think there's there's kids out there that do get it and that have, you know, taken taken it on as well as they could have.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, it's a really interesting, you've got like a sort of a big picture marking thing, and then you've got this almost ladder of skills that you see the students build up through the paper.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really interesting to to mark the two different sides and see how different the skills are.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: English has so many, such a wide range of skills across the the two.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And can I ask, what's your favourite book for the English literature textbooks that they're studying?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's such a difficult question.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would have said Lord of the Flies a few years ago because I absolutely adored that book.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I learned it myself at GCSE and adored it.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I taught it too many times, I think.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and after a few years running, switched over to an Inspector Calls, and I absolutely adore an Inspector Calls.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's just so brilliant, and I love the the fact that it still makes me want to, you know, do a march today.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's so really exciting.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fairly good because I think um as an adult we see that, but I think for a child that goes in spectacles, why am I doing in spectacles?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I actually I taught it um the first time during COVID.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had I had studied the book before, but never as never as a teacher.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um I chose it during COVID.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the reason, maybe because it's quite short, I suppose.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I taught it over Zoom calls, and this was with a class that I had not had for too long, and they were super quiet.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: They did not want to talk to me, they were so there was just lots of different students, and they didn't really like gel too well.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I found, and this is where I started loving online teaching, they were the most vocal they've ever been in the chat box, but honestly, it was back and forth, constant conversation about this text.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I had a lot of young girls in there who really kind of felt a lot of the emotional trauma that some of the characters faced in there.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even though it's an old text, they still related to it, and it was so good to see.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when we got back after online teaching, they were so great in the classroom.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was so happy that they'd they found the way that they could communicate, and because they bonded over this text, we as a class just gelled and it was it was really great.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's so lovely.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, that's kind of that's your moment of teaching where you just go, Yes, I hit that point.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was nice.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the other thing that I know you teach and you teach for us, um, particularly is study skills, and that's something that I'm very passionate about.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm a great believer that you know there's two things students need to know.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: One, they need to know the content, but two, they need to know how to be able to actually study.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So they need the learning part, and they need to know how to write the exams.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know you cover all of that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a bit about your best advice for students when they have to study, because there's an awful lot to learn, isn't there?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a mountain to go there.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think when we look at a timetable, you know, how many subjects students have, and then within each subject, there are so many different skills, and then of course the content on top of it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: So um, for me, I think the thing with studying is having having studied psychology and how memory works, essentially.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And any students that study psychology, they will cover this.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Your your brain encodes information in various formats.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we might have it in an auditory manner, in a visual manner, spatial manner.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: The most important thing is semantics, so the meaning of the stuff that you're learning.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um there was a a theory a while ago about learning styles that has kind of been debunked in the sense of if I wanted to teach you, my goodness, let's say geography, which is not my specialty, um, if I wanted to tell you what the UK looks like, I wouldn't describe it to you.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't tell you it.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't listen to it auditorily.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I would show you a picture, because that makes the most sense.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we what we want to do is look for the type of encoding that is going to help lead toward that semantic understanding.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and further to that, when you are recapping topics that you have covered, transforming into different styles of encoding is so incredibly useful.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh when I look at study skills with students, I will always cover the different techniques that we do.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, flashcards are an old faithful, uh, they're not my favorite, but I think that they're really useful.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I love anything that has movement, anything that you can physically, you know, lift a flap on a page or or post-it notes, things like that.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, those are really great.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then also transforming it into something like a mind map, something that's super visual, something that's got that spatial kind of movement to it.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's the same information as an essay, but it means that in your brain, what's essentially happening is you you have these, you know, connections between the different schemas and the different knowledge that you have.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the more different ways that you build those connections, the easier it is to recall them.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's essentially what we need to do.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So my best advice is to take whatever information you have and transform it into as many different ways, essentially, as you can.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, that also includes the essays, which I know are the most boring version of version, but um, we do need to practice the the you know, the longer answers and things like that.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: But once you've got the little bits in your brain together, maybe it's through pictures, maybe it's through sound bites, whatever, it will be so much easier to put it on the page in the full sentences that you need for the exam.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think I mean um for me, the worst child is the one that comes with beautifully written notes that they've lingerly copied, colour-coded their revision notes are immaculate.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're beautiful, but they've copied text directly from a book and then they can't remember it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because in in the way you're saying that's because they haven't encoded it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, essentially, um, you know, we we can we can look at a wall of text all day long, but your brain is not going to remember that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the example that I love to use, um having done like theatre and stuff when I was a kid, if you were learning a play and you always had the script in your hand and then you got on stake and took the script away, your brain has never had to fill in the blanks.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: So before you get to the big day, before the big show, the exam, you have to make your brain fill in the blanks.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're always looking at the wall of text, there's no blanks there, it's all there.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you do it as a mind map, if you do it, you know, flashcards hiding it from yourself, cover the answer, those things that seem really simple and almost old-fashioned, um, they are the ways that you force your brain into recall and strengthening those neural pathways that that will bring the memories back.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's association, isn't it?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the more you try to remember a paragraph of text that's just irrelevant to anything, the less likely that's going to happen.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then what other techniques do you suggest for studying?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, let's let's give spill spill all.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I think my favourite one to recommend is called blurting, which is kind of what it says on the tin, where you basically blurt out everything that you know.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Do it onto a piece of paper, scruffy, and this is this is something that I always say to students I will tell them if this piece is going to be pretty or scruffy, because some students will immediately think, okay, I've got to get my pens out, I've got to get my ruler out, gotta make it gorgeous.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and I love that, I love colour, it's brilliant, but not every piece of your revision can be beautiful because you will never get anything done.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: You will start again and you'll keep that in a frame and you'll never use it.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So blurting is a scruffy technique.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Grab a piece of paper, set yourself a timer and a topic, nothing too massive.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't just do psychology.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I might do memory as one of the units.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you set yourself a timer, two to four minutes potentially, depending on how big the topic is, um, and write down every single thing that you can possibly think of, just absolute word vomit onto the page, um, all messy, however you want it to look, basically.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then after the timer is up, you get out your textbook or your exercise book or your web page, um, and you grab a different color pen and you fill in the bits that you forgot.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that is so brilliant because you are essentially testing yourself for one, which we have to do regularly, um, with your different color pen, you are giving yourself a new revision list.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that you've just written in a different color, you now know you have to go back and check over.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we're also practicing things like time pressure and exam, you know, the things that we have to face in the exam because you've got that timer there, you've got it watching you.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a big part of what prevents students from studying is they think, oh, it's gonna be four hours of writing out things.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that doesn't have to be the case.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: That can be a 20-minute activity.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the same with things like if you want to do something that's kind of like flashcards, so you've got that movement and that cover the answer thing.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is really difficult to explain over a podcast, but essentially it's about folding, folding paper in a way that you hide the answer under flash.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like a kid's pop-up book sort of thing.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, so there's you can do it in like a sort of star shape, or you can use post-it notes if you write some answers on the page and then pop your post-it note over the top with the question on top.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: These are really good because flashcards they take a really long time to write out.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Students don't always use them appropriately.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you can lose them really easily if you've got a wedge of, you know, 45 flashcards.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Drop them, they're gone.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas this, you can have it in a book with these sort of flaps and things like that.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or I like to in an exercise book kind of fold the corners in.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you create these two big spaces that you can write underneath.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it just means that every time you get to that page, it's hidden from you, and you've got to test yourself before you can look at it.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so these these elements of doing the test, you know, quick test, see where you are and what you're missing, and then you go back and look at those bigger things like YouTube videos are phenomenal.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing auditory processing and encoding.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what's really great is yes, you've listened to your teacher, and I will tell you now the teacher is the expert.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it's very helpful to hear it in a different way.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: So tutoring is great because you can have someone else teach you the same stuff, just in a slightly different method, and that can just help click.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: It just it just consolidates it is so it's going over, isn't it?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so yeah, I love you know, find the expert YouTube channel for your subject.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know the one for English, I know the one for psychology that are brilliant.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they're usually shorter than a lesson, you know, you talk in 12 minutes probably, and that's so great because again, students do not need to sit for four hours on the same thing.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: So these little chunks are super, super um effective.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and when it comes to organizing a revision timetable, those chunks should be considered.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I will recommend the Pomodoro technique and take breath because it's students, you know, it's overwhelming how much they have to cover.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So breaking it down into 20 minute segments, and then in terms of your memory, we all know that if you step away from something, you know, you need you need a break from from that.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: But when you do step away from something, it allows your brain to embed that information into your long-term memory.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: So Pomodoro method, if if you're not familiar, is uh is 20-minute chunks with a five-minute break in between, and then after four of them, you take a longer break.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's apps for it, there's a whole website about it.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um but each 20-minute, I always recommend, should be a different topic.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: It should be a different thing because you let your psychology settle into your long-term memory whilst you're working on your maths or whatever.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's a really good method.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And again, because it's little short stints, far more manageable for students in terms of not being tired of making a start.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things is that students, exactly like you say, parents are like, oh, they're upstairs, they're revising for four hours.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's no child that's sitting for four hours, revising.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: That is that is very correct.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the another thing that's great about the Pomodoro method, you can get apps that will physically lock your phone.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can get, I just discovered this recently, there are YouTube videos that are timed to the Pomodoro timer.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: They play music.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them do, some of them don't.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you prefer music, if you don't, but they also do like a chime when it's the start and when it's the end and things like that.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a really good way to force yourself into this is the revision time.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: Four hours is too much.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: In one no one can do it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can't even be motivated to do that.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know I can't do it, so I don't know why I would ask a 16-year-old to, you know.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um so, but you can go, I can do 20 minutes, that's fine.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then I get a five-minute break and I can scroll on my phone, or I can oh, and another one I will recommend please leave your desk if you're doing, you know, your five-minute break, leave the desk, walk around the house, do a quick lap, grab something to eat, and then go back to your space.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Make that your space where your brain is working.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, it's just a far more manageable way for students to do that.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And don't pick your phone up and go on social media because that's never five minutes.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: That is that is the thing.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can, yeah, phone is good because it breaks you away from the thinking.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we need our brain to like melt into nothingness a little bit.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, the the doom scrolling is absolutely a thing.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why, that's why the the YouTube video with the timer or the app, it will literally turn your phone like you can't use it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really helpful.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you're like, right, okay, now I physically can't use the thing that I want to be using.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So so there are there are good ways to kind of it's a bit, you know, Pavlov's dogs, you're gonna, you're gonna, right now I'm into I'm into revision mode and things like that.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: So lots of timers and things out there to help it feel less overwhelming and keep you in that structure.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna feel so accomplished when you do them as well.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, big thing is obviously reward yourself.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: If at every 20-minute task you get a cookie, you go and get yourself a cookie.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: I do not mind.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, maybe something a bit healthier, maybe some carrots.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: It works.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: But it's I rewarding yourself for it's hard.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: What you're doing is hard.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: So rewarding yourself for those things are super important.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, giving yourself that little brain break is super important.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what what what would be your top team to motivate students to actually Um Do you ask this from a student perspective or a parent perspective?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the student.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: As a student, I think it is about finding the thing that is your intrinsic motivator.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we all love a reward.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Personally, mine's donuts, don't worry about it.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: But we all we all love an external reward, absolutely.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: But we need to find the thing within us that feels like an accomplishment.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that can be really tricky if you know you this subject isn't necessarily for you, absolutely.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: But when you see the progress that you have made, that is such a big motivating factor.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: So my biggest advice for students is never compare your grade mark to another person in the classroom.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: What you should be doing is having yourself a little list of every time you've done a test or a quiz or anything like that.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just jot down, jot down the thing that you got, the mark, whatever it was, and you will see the progress.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: You will see where it goes up, even if it's one mark each time.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds silly, but it's gonna give you that little one fuzzy feeling that otherwise you might not have noticed if you didn't check what you got last time.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Not what you and the person got this time, what you yourself got last time compared to now.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if it goes down, we shouldn't be scared, but we should use that as an okay.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: What am I missing?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: What am I lacking?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, motivation, yes, absolutely reward yourself.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do the fun things, have the fun treats, but look for the thing in in your own progress that will motivate you internally.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna feel really good because you're you're the one doing the hard work.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, teachers are also doing hard work.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not uh teachers are doing hard work as well.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, students are doing the hard work at the end of the day, and they're gonna sit through those exams and they're gonna be really tough.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So they need to feel as though they really worked themselves and they can be proud of what they came out with, and that's that's the way to do it.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in terms of you're saying, you know, see what you're doing, see your progress, do you suggest they draw little hour charts to show the hours they've studied or something like that?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, fabulous.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Things like that are great.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Having, you know, well, uh for a for a Pomodoro excuse me, for a Pomodoro, I would always have I'm such a visual person, so I would l physically have a um a timetable.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: You tick it off, highlight it, maybe even highlight it with what colour you feel like it was that time.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was a red one, I didn't do too well, I didn't work too hard, or green.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I nailed that subject.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Those things are great.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Anything where you're mapping the changes that you've made, and obviously ticking off where you've done the thing that you have told yourself you're going to do is gonna make you, you know, feel really good.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I have them for myself during the day just to remind me to do things.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, I highly recommend doing those things.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna ask that the question that all the parents ask is how many hours a week should students be revising and when should they start?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um start now, start yesterday, start three weeks ago is my first answer.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, I I have every single year on results day a student will say to me, I wish I'd started revising sooner.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it sounds like an old wives tale at this point, but I promise to you that I have had it every single year.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Someone says it to me.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I always recommend starting as soon as as you can, essentially.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um in terms of hours a week, that is a difficult one to put a number on, in the sense that there are other things that are important, obviously family setup and things that are happening at home.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Those things, you know, take priority quite a lot of the time.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I will never recommend that students drop things like sporting activities or hobbies.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: If they are things that are completely all-consuming, then they may have to be reduced.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell students, you know, year 11 is gonna suck.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be rubbish, but it will be worth it in the end when you get your, you know, it is gonna be hard work.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you should still be doing sports if you do sports.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't, go for a walk every now and again.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you need to have that exercise and and those endorphins.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um in terms of hours, I always recommend to plan for evenings during the week to be filled with however Pomodoro, however many, sorry, Pomodoro chunks you can fit in.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I always kind of math it in the sense.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and these things will depend on your your family situation and your hobbies, but there should be some kind of learning every day because the more that you revisit something, even if you only have an hour, is still making those connections and building those, you know, neurological pathways.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it should be touched every day.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: However many hours you can afford is important.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then also you you know you have to do a little bit of maths on how many subjects you have in order to cover them all.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um so putting a number on it is incredibly difficult, but I would say that students do need to be touching something every day.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and when there is a big chunk of time available, we're trying to get the GCSEs here, we're trying to make the progress and do the best we can.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got to use that tag, you've got to kind of fill it up as much as you can with reasonable breaks.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and I think you're right.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: If it's 20 minutes, you've always got 20 minutes.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: You've got 20 minutes before supper.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, mum when mum when supper ready, 20 minutes, right?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna do 20 minutes.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're setting yourself a target you could only start with an hour, it's much harder to fit that in.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: But 20 minutes can be fitted in in the car going to school or or at any point.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: So they can start, they start as as early as they possibly.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, obviously with the whole as well, you know, we have some students who are the other end of the spectrum where they are so conscientious they want to do every working minute revising, to which I would say get some sleep at some point.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: There needs to be a cut-off, you know.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Children children need eight to ten hours of sleep in order to be productive and for their brains to be functioning at a high enough level to do the work.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Ludo all this burn out before the extra.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I we see a lot of those students that come February, they're actually over it.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: They are and and and that's too soon.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: We need them to peak in May, not in February.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I guess we're having this conversation, you know, slightly early in the academic year.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I'm saying, yes, do do a bit every day, but it shouldn't be, you know, five, six hours every day, because it's like you say, it you'll burn out, it's overwhelming, and um you need to allow for the other things to also to also be important.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for that.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm going to touch I I'm because I'm so excited for you.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've I know you've published a book and you're in the post of your second book.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to just to explain how do you actually just sit down and write a book?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thank you for mentioning it.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's one of those funny things um that is uh funnily enough very similar to making yourself revise.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of do just have to make yourself sit and write words.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um I read uh Stephen King's autobiography, obviously, phenomenal author, prolific author, who talked about when he's first started writing, he set himself a challenge of 2,000 words per day.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: And even if he didn't if he sorry, he couldn't leave his desk until he hit his 2000.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if he hit it at 9 a.m., great, day's yours.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um if he hits 2,000 words mid-sentence, he will just stop, which to me is insane.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: I could never do that.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: My memory's too bad, I'd forget where I was.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but those things, it's you know, same same as with student sim revision.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: I literally have myself a checklist of what I do every day in terms of how many words I write, how many pages I edit, um, you know, things like that.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: At the minute I'm in the editing phase of my second book.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a novella, so it's a little bit longer.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's you know weird to read over your own stuff.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that students can probably relate to as well, where you think, oh, is this any good that I actually did?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's really difficult to find the um the confidence in yourself to put it out into the world.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's been a little bit of a struggle, personally, you know, I don't mind sharing.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's been really gratifying to do as well.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, feedback from my first book has been really great, and I've got a sort of online community that's really supportive, which is really nice.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, essentially finding finding the structure of the day is really hard.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Finding the structure of when you get the words done and things like that is is challenging, but it's honestly um word vomit for a few months and then read it and fix it for a few months as well.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just way on saying, I've got a great idea for story and then to write a story, or how did you kind of decide you're going to write?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good question.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: When I was a kid, I wrote something for um a coursework for my GCC.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was in year nine or ten.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was really short, but I had this idea for something.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And my teacher, it got full marks, not to brag, but it got full marks way back in the day.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um my teacher told me to finish it.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: She said it was great.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: She um enjoyed it and said to finish it.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, okay, this is quite cool.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote a load of it.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: I still have it somewhere.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure it's terrible because I was only, you know, 14 or whatever.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was a really cathartic experience to do.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I like science and things like that, but somewhere in there I'm also a creative.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: I can't draw, but you know, I'm a creative.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I like to put things out like that.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so yeah, as I've got a bit older, it was a few years ago.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I think it was a lockdown thing where I just had this idea for a story based on I used to sail in Scotland with um my now husband, and I just thought of this thing and I just started writing and it just started happening.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it's when it happens, it's great, and the words just flow out, and then some days you write no words because nothing's coming.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, there is a bit of that element of just something, just I do care what's gonna happen, just the story could develop as you start writing.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's a debate among writers.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can be a planner or a pantser, is what they call it, where you just like go for it and see what happens.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm definitely the second one.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't plan, I just write and see what happens.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've recently written a scene and finished it and gone, oh my goodness, I don't know where that came from, you know.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so those things do just kind of happen.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you have to go back over it and see where the errors are, where the structure is, and and make it actually, you know, good, something that people want to read, which is why having other people support you with that is really important as well.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: People read my stuff and tell me where it's rubbish and that helps.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it's I've not read your stories, I'm going to read them, but it sounds uh amazing.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just think that so bra and so brave to actually publish.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think to write is one thing, but to be brave enough to publish is a different level.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate that.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's um it's a bit of a it's a bit of a thing to open yourself up to the world, definitely.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was scarier than I expected it to be.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's generally been, yeah, positive reception.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I got my first two-star review, and it didn't hurt me as much as I thought it would, you know.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's you know, we we put these things out into the world, we give it our best, and hey, sometimes it sticks and sometimes it doesn't.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: But on the whole, it's been really positive.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel, yeah, I feel proud of myself for having given it a go.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And is the second book harder to write than the first one?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: The the second book that I'm working on, I started years ago and I didn't touch.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the first book is actually the second book.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote them I was I've releasing them backwards for no particular reason.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: The first one is a collection of short stories, so it was a little easier.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like a a gateway to to opening that up.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the next one is a a full book, so that's a bit more bit more work on the editing side of things.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's well, we can't wait.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: And when when are we going to finish that?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do we know?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm working on it as we speak.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully the next couple of weeks it should be finished-ish.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'll see what happens.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then how long does it take to print?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it depends how you do it.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: So um, if you just self-publish like I do, um it you can do it in an instant.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can publish anything you like tomorrow.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's really, really easy.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm actually looking to work with an independent publisher for this next one.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a little bit more of a slow process.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be honest, I don't really know how it works yet.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna find out when I actually submitted to the back and find out later.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Tony.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: As as we know, Tony is one of our most loved tutors.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: She's been with you've been with us two, three years now, too.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, two.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a while.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm very, very requested.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing for psychology, for English, for study skills, and now obviously for writing books.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, yeah, we'll have to run some kind of uh course on a writing book.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: You never know, it could be out there.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: You never know.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as always, let them fly.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about how do we engage our children, how do we engage our families, and how do we just make things happen.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much, Tony, for joining us today.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.