I'm quitting teaching, I've decided, AIBU?

Because she is sick! Mental health is still health. She is not choosing to be sick, the situation has made her sick. I’m disgusted by you.

Why it's not ok to ask genuine questions is also a mystery.

A lot of people on this thread seem to think that the resignation dates /having to work out the term before you can leave, is some harsh notice period exceptional to teaching.

3 months notice (in jobs earning 35k plus, which most teachers are these days if FT) is absolutely standard in loads of industries and professions.

Lots, and lots of people, have to work out a 3 month notice period before being able to leave a job they are unhappy in. Deciding in advance that you are going to be sick for the entire 3 month period is taking the piss.
I have every sympathy with OP feeling too mentally unwell to return next week. Fair enough, take some time, get signed off for 2 weeks, see how you feel.
You cannot know in advance that you will definitely, definitely, be too sick to work from September til 1st January.

I've been in jobs where I knew I had to get out because it was a toxic environment - I experienced bullying and witnessed work mates being bullied in one role. I gave my notice, worked my notice period and then left. I suffered financially because of it. I understand not being able to take any more and having to get away.

I'm planning to go off sick. I think I need to prioritise my mental health above all

But why not line up another job over the summer?
And before anyone starts, I too work at a secondary school. I haven't worked at a single toxic one though, so the OP has been unlucky.
Good luck with your future plans. It's just not how I would have gone about things.

I suspect the OP would have qualified to be off sick months ago but carried on battling against her illnesses for the sake of the kids.
Don't beat her up for choosing to go now.

Not too sure about your maths, September to December is 4 months on my calendar.

@thequickbrowndog thanks for being open about your health.

Why, absent obvious fibbing, people cannot take poster's accounts of their own lives at face value is a mystery.

Yes I agree with this. Waiting for others to fuck up, and watching them do it, when it would have been so easy to help out....

DH left last year and hasn't looked back. He got out by taking early retirement, he had already had one cardiac event with the stress of it all.
We have lots of friends who have quit, some have gone to roles in the private tuition/NHS/civil service.
One is a therapeutic foster carer on £52k.
You have valuable transferable skills!

So pleased you are happy to accept that a doctor will make the decision not you.

She's deciding to be 'off sick' for the duration of her notice, while she's being paid.

I did use some of the days off sick. About 8 weeks.

I was sick. I drove to work on the last day of teaching (which at the time was just a 'normal' day. I didn't know then jr would be my last day) wishing I could crash my car and end it all. With my small children in the car. Was the most horrific day of my life. I broke down in the toilet to my husband at 10am. I carried on teaching all day. I could speak properly. I asked to go home and was told there was no cover.

I just snapped. I couldn't do it anymore. After years of so much stress. Was awful and I hope to god I never ever experience it again.

@thequickbrowndog please if you feel you need it seek help. Have a look on the Facebook page there's lots of advice and support and fellow teachers experiencing the same sadly.

Werweisswohin - When you are in a position and you want out, you just do that, get out. Maybe the OP did not know for sure at the beginning of the holidays and the looming new term is the trigger. Are you a teacher? Have you faced the disruptive, soul destroying atmosphere of so many modern teaching classes? It sucks the very life blood out of you.

They cannot* *just change school. If they found a berth on Tuesday in the most heavenly school ever they'd still have to work their notice.

Good job a doctor can make that decision rather than someone on the net who has never met the OP and wouldn't know her is she bumped into her in the street.

You can relax and enjoy your Sunday knowing a qualified professional will make the decision.

Of course your experience is valuable, but none of us know if a complete stranger is telling the absolute 'truth'.

It's also not even just about telling the truth regarding the bullying situation, but whether that then equates to being signed off sick - it justifiably could, but it's not 100%.
Nobody should be bullied at work, but the answer to stopping it isn't automatically being off sick. Long term bullying may result in needing to be off sick, of course.

There are posters here who have no understanding of burnout. No idea that you work and work, your physical and mental health fraying all the time, constantly feeling that it's you who is the problem, that you just need to snap out of it, ride it out, keep going. This is the career you trained for, the thing you know how to do and you worked so hard to be good at it. So many people are depending on you, you can't fail so you push and push and push and then one day without you seeing it coming, the collapse happens. Maybe it's the morning when you just can't walk out the door to go to work because your legs buckle underneath you. Maybe it's a quiet day in the holidays, when you've had a moment's rest and your body has told you in no uncertain terms that it needs to heal and you cannot go back again.

There is so much grief and sadness in losing that part of you, that successful identity you had, the plan for your future and everything you worked for.

You can't plan a breakdown according to the local authority's notice period, or accommodate their supply issues at the cost of what's left of your mental and physical wellbeing. Burnout is a long, insidious process and so much damage has been done before you even realise you're on fire.

But why wouldn't you just change school?

So 6 weeks paid leave then 3 months sick pay till Christmas? Letting colleagues and children down. Nice.

She is not ‘choosing in advance’ she is saying right now her mental health is in the gutter.

you are creating a weird scenario where you are coming up with assumptions. It’s very odd.

Have you never been so unwell that you know already that you won't be fit to work in a week's time?

I have albeit years ago. Soul destroying (work related but not Teaching) anxiety impacting on my physical health too - GP was of the opinion that it left me vulnerable to Impetigo.