AIBU to feel overwhelmed balancing teaching, leadership, commuting and home life?

Workload in many schools is getting out of control, and the lack of funding is a huge part of that. I'm in middle leadership with no ambitions to move up until my youngest is pretty much grown up, and even though my school pays lip service to workload concerns (kick out at 5, wellbeing committees, follows the Burgundy book, in theory), staying afloat is only possible with strict boundaries.

See what is immediately necessary to get through the next day, and the next week. Prioritise that - everything with a longer deadline can wait. See what you can delegate - remember you should have a team to support you. See what can be ignored (from experience, a lot - my professional growth folder, for example, was empty all last year and no one checked, because it was obvious I was doing my job).

Make your teaching load easier - what can be self-assessed, what can be live marked, where will a video do the same as teacher instruction, allowing you to have 5min to complete paperwork?

Automate what you can at home, and lower your standards. My grass is unlikely to be cut more than once before the garden is put to sleep for winter. I always cook slightly extra and freeze portions to make when I'm dead on my feet during the work week. Bills are paid by DD. Cleaning is done as I go along, never as a separate job. I never iron.

AI does posters, announcements, graphics I can't immediately find. It helps formulate letters/ emails/ bounce ideas off of. Yes, it needs checking, but it can do a decent job when something quick is needed, even just a question summary for a video.

And Friday evenings and Saturdays are sacred family time. No work, even if I fall behind. I work Sunday afternoons at the most. Holidays and one weekend a month are pre-planned with something to look forward to.

Those are the practical things you can do. If you already do all that and it still isn't enough, quit. No job is worth you killing yourself over it.

I feel for you - it is very hard to balance a demanding full time job with a child, a marriage and running a house. My job used to involve travel every other week as well.
I never used to be able to see my friends in the week and ultimately lost a good friend (single) who was not understanding when I left a weekend away early just to be able to see my family and to cope.

Having a cleaner will make a big difference, and in your position I’d skew my social life towards the school holidays. Essentially you need to list out the tasks and ensure the workload is organised and shared. Is husband doing shopping, laundry and your child’s school admin or do these also fall to you? Does he do his own ironing? I never ironed anything while the kids were at primary.

Good luck in figuring out what you can eliminate. It gets a ton easier when they start bathing themselves and reading their own books so you lose that 2 hour bedtime routine (with my kids this happened about age 8-9.)

Others have talked about work - it does sound odd to have a full teaching quota plus leadership, though I’m not a teacher so don’t know what’s normal. All I would say is keep the balance - don’t give up on the leadership role and the money, try to get it adjusted so you lose more routine stuff and it works for you. Women are quick to prioritise life over money as these replies show, but a decent career gives you a lot of freedom in later life.

@ThrallsWife But you are not a head with a full timetable ! This job is ludicrous and the school owners are taking advantage. My DDs were partly privately educated and heads had no teaching commitment at all. The op seriously needs to renegotiate her contract. I’m sure there’s no money but in a private school that means closure. So it’s not about how to manage, it’s the folly of having, in effect, 2 jobs.