Any other teachers crippled with exhaustion every holiday?

[Bobblebasket]

It’s half term, I’m a primary teacher with various areas of subject leadership. Im absolutely exhausted, so much so I feel I’m wasting my time feeling like a zombie. Met a colleague in passing today who assured me it’s totally normal to feel so tired at half term and it’ll be fine because we will all be fresh ready to return next week.

I guess my question is, in other full time roles, do you get to every period of annual leave and feel floored with exhaustion? This definitely isn’t a ‘my job is harder’ type thread, I enjoy teaching, I don’t want to leave the profession but I would like some energy! I have two children myself, both at junior school. I have been a teacher for many years and have always felt bone tired by the time holidays come around, I would like it to change!

Oh and the behaviour. That’s what exhausts me the most.

Have you looked for a different job? Why would long term sick be the answer. The same problems will be there when you return

Is that your opinion or is it backed up somehow?

I'm not a teacher but I was a sahm mum when my children were younger and I was on my knees with exhaustion by half term!

I genuinely can't understand how you get through the 6 weeks!

Yes, private sector consultancy and I don’t have enough leave to get a proper break. All my leave goes on my DCs school holidays and trying to juggle and I only get 25 days. I spend my life exhausted with no break to recover and sleep.

Oh dear, I didn’t mean for a teacher bashing thread!
I qualified at 21, so I have very little to compare my job to aside casual jobs I had as a student. I did see that quote once that was something like “teaching is a job you have to work before you get to work, so you have work to do at work. Then because you had no time at work to do work, you have to work after work to catch up on the work you didn’t do while at work”. It certainly stands in my experience, I am ignoring the box of books that need attention for another day or so, plus various other tasks.

I don’t believe I have a victim mindset, my class brighten my day (and I genuinely mean that!). I just wanted some insight into annual leave and levels of exhaustion in other full time roles. I tend to work 8-6, Monday to Friday.

Yes teacher here aged 54 with an 11 year old still in the juniors. I’m literally dead on my feet. Over the weekend I relaxed mostly apart from a food shop. Today I’ve tidied up a bit and relaxed. Sat on sofa for most of the day. I’m so tired. Going into London for the day and meeting up with extended family later on in the week

I did consider posting there. I miss the old days of the TES forums being available!

I work full-time in a high pressure role, and yes when leave comes around I am exhausted. DH is a teacher and so I can compare- we are about the same. Except I get less leave. I have an extra day this week to make a long weekend, then plough on to a week off at Easter.

I am in a fairly high pressure managerial job, dealing with people a lot. When I also had young children I was so tired , I often spent parts of Saturday in bed in darkness I was so peopled out.
I can imagine teaching to be 10 times as demanding though.

I train adults in Health and Social Care, and am away frequently up to 5 nights at a time. Was away 5 nights last week and am away 4 nights this week.

I have A/L next week and need it- I'm flagging now! People don't release how talking all day in front of people, asking and answering questions can be so tiring. That's even before the admin work kicks in!

Unfortunately I only get 5 weeks A/L so haw to use it wisely. I take a week at Christmas, a week in Feb, a week in March as I find the winter months harder to deal with. Then a week in April/May, and a week in September.

In my previous life I was a Primary School teacher- that's definitely harder than what I do now mind you!!

I'm exhausted too, and live for my annual four weeks vacation.

Life is hard.

For me it’s the context switching that’s most tiring, especially since I’ve become a DSL. Dealing with safeguarding meetings that are really sombre and horrifying and then just heading straight into reading a book about a bear catching fish with some Year 1s immediately afterwards. The behaviour is also very tricky atm and the flood of ChatGPT emails from parents.

Try FE teaching; all the stress and hours (often longer teaching days from 8.30 till 4.30) of teaching but you only get standard annual leave, not the 13 weeks that teachers get!

I also find it hard to switch off in holidays when out with my own son. My brain is so used to constantly risk assessing and spotting danger I seem to always zone in on a child who’s climbing something they shouldn’t or too close to the edge of something.

I don’t agree it’s harder than healthcare workers, I’ve done both. Everything you’ve said about teachers is the same as nurses. Try 13hr shifts in ED right now, I can go an entire day with no drink passing my lips, always masking because I care, on my feet the entire day and can’t let my guard down for even a split second. You can argue patients (fair enough) and visitors are always demanding and only see themselves as the priority, same as children. It’s physical and mental exhaustion. I can easily do 24000 steps, multitasking to the extreme but also carry the emotional load and frustrations.

And also the stress of very unwell patients where it can be life or death decision making. That’s a special type of stress only healthcare workers will know. We also take our work home, training is now in our own time due to trusts financial constraints. Different type of job but pressures are as intense as each other. At least teaching no one risks death.

It looks way harder than my job as an A&E doctor!
Yes we have plenty of pressures but the sheer relentlessness of teaching is on another level. My parents were both teachers, I was adamant I would do something else!

I agree with the nowhere to hide aspect , I find this incredibly hard

Special agent blond · Today 21:26
I don’t think it’s any harder than nursing, ward doctors, surgeons, dentists, care workers etc. It’s not special, just an exhausting career as it involves caring for the public, and it’s hard because taxes are spent on these services. The benefits are great - generous sick pay, maternity and pension, automatic pay rises.

You know how your own kids tire you out and kind of suck your brain out? Imagine how someone else’s would make you feel? Now times that by about 30. Or in the case of secondary 150 a day.

And the maternity pay is shit. And the pay rises are not automatic. You have to pass the shitty pm crap to get it.

I guess my question is, in other full time roles, do you get to every period of annual leave and feel floored with exhaustion?

I am not a teacher, but do feel floored with exhaustion during every period of annual leave thank you for asking. It's not a competition though, and I don't feel anyone should feel like that as a result of their work. We're all dealing with a world of work with overwhelming complexity and constant connectivity which is exhausting. We're required to constantly make decisions inside and outside of work, which is exhausting. Social norms that used to govern behaviour have broken since covid down making other people more difficult to deal with. I don't know what the answer is, but working life in the 21st century is hard.

Someone said earlier on here, it's because we really really care about the job.

On the tiredness front, to be fair that's why we gave regular holidays, in order to re charge. I knowthat isn't a great work/life balance. Just prioritise yourself and family during that time , the classroom will still be there when you go back, whatever.

Sorry I keep posting in dribs and drabs because things keep occurring to me. I think also it’s the fact that everything now needs to take less time and needs to result in quantifiably more of something. You see it in every aspect of life. In schools this means any kind of downtime, or social time, or things that are worth doing because the pupils might enjoy it or it might improve them in some way that is nebulous and can’t be measured (reading a book of the choice on a beanbag, writing a random story of their choice, drawing a picture for their mums), is getting sidelined. This is part of why we now have the explosion in SEN. It’s a pressure cooker.

Apologies for my horrible grammar and long sentences. I am a teacher but I am also quite tired 😃.

Yes, have gone down with the standard start of holiday virus. I think it's such hassle to be sick during term time my body just saves it all for the holidays. I've been teaching for nearly 20 years and I've always been sick during the holidays, even before I had my own kids. Now I'm older and have less energy anyway the term-time seems so relentless. I just find being with all the small people all day so tiring. I had office-based jobs prior to teaching and it was never so tiring because you could have quieter moments of the day. It's always better to post in the staffroom section on here or on other forums like reddit though or you will just be accused of being a victim.

Plenty of parents complain on here about how tiring it is looking after their own children for a week during half term. They just cant seem to understand why it might be tiring teaching kids all day long for several weeks.

I dont know.about teaching in.schools but I work in professional services in a university which is very stressful at the moment. I work 4 days a week and I am getting older (in my 60s.now).but the stress is such that I spend most Fridays asleep or lying on my bed or the sofa reading and dozing. Pretty much all day, not every week but most Fridays. Sometimes I am so shattered I do the same on Saturday or Sunday and only really do anything on the other day

I think it is stress related for me, partly because I struggle to sleep when worrying about work and that leads to sleep deficit which I end up catching up at the weekend. The bone tired exhaustion some weekends is really bad.

At Christmas I had two weeks off and really only felt OK and fully rested at the end of a period of doing almost nothing between 27 Dec and 3 Jan and I really mean pretty much nothing apart from a couple of desultory short walks up the road on a few occasions thinking they would help, all the while feeling exhausted while doing it and worse after . No proper housework, no going out , no admin, shopping, cooking or clearing up (DH did all that). Really nothing except laundry and the very basics of tidying/ cleaning bathroom and kitchen daily plus lying down and sleeping.

I felt back to normal when I went back to work on 6 Jan , but was exhausted again within a few weeks