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!

Yes, you’re right. We’re all lying about lesson planning. Ffs. 🙄

I’m currently planning for next term for year 6 in primary. Not only do I have to consider the requirements of the national curriculum, but I also need to make it accessible for the children and their various needs. I need to use a dyslexia friendly font, make sure nothing is on a white background (visual stress), ensure any worksheets can be easily adapted so all learners (whether at year 6 level or any level below - there are some who are working at yr1 level) can access the learning. I have to somehow make it engaging and fun, because otherwise the children with ADHD will switch off quickly, and build in brain/movement breaks so that processing can take place. That’s for each lesson, 6 lessons in total.
And that’s just one subject out of 10+.
We could buy a scheme, but we’ve no money. It’s a humanities subject so all facts need to be up to date and research shows that schemes need to be refreshed each year in order to improve outcomes, so we can’t just rely on previous planning.

In that case you need to speak to your school as the curriculum has drastically changed in the last 25 years. Multiple times.

@KillTheTurkey Im a secondary school teacher and my husband is a doctor and we have had the comparing stress and tiredness conversation.

His reply was that in his job patients can potentially die...😲😬

This also applies to nursing. I’m not saying one’s harder than the other, you couldn’t pay me enough to be a teacher because I know I’d be dreadful at it, but both are certainly emotionally draining, underpaid for what you do and have the added bonus of absolutely everyone else thinking they know your job better than you or could do it better.

To answer your question OP, I’m not a teacher but yes, I feel absolutely exhausted during my days off & often come down with random viruses whenever I take a break.

Hi @Bobblebasket in response to your original post yes I do find myself in a state of utter exhaustion each holiday. I started coming through the other side of it yesterday, so that's 3 days of my holiday wiped out.

Something that's increasingly bothering me however is just how much I seem to put life on hold during term time. Once I'm on the teaching treadmill, there's so little time left (certainly not during the evenings and I spend half a day each weekend working too). I find myself thinking 'just get to holiday and you can relax" only to be too tired and exhausted to properly enjoy the time.

My next half term resolution is to find simple, easy ways to enrich the working week without getting behind at work. I've written a list today. So far, I've got:
Do nails
Read for 15 minutes each night before bed
Face mask
Exercise at home (need to get much better at this)
Text/phone friends
Plan holidays & days out
Baking
Crochet

Not a thrilling list, but they're all things that so easily get overlooked when my head is full of the endless teaching tasks on my to do list. I can easily go through a full day without doing anything whatsoever for myself. I'm sure I'm far from alone in that - and I know it's not limited to teachers by a long stretch

None teacher and yes I’m tired for my holidays normally, especially if it’s been 4-5 months since my last break. However it doesn’t last the whole week and I am not extremely tired after 7/8 weeks at work.

I am fortunate I can flex my hours, take a longer lunch break (sneak in a nap) if I need to. If I had to work 8-6 every day in the office I think I would be broken

The ‘just leave’ thing.
We are, as pp have said. And many who can’t yet, are busy planning how to.
My youngest DC is pretty much through school now and I’m glad because I can see the patchworking heads need to do to staff fully secondaries. I began teaching 25 years ago this September coming and the spread of staff specialism is nothing like it was then.
I hope you can rest and recuperate op 💚

Genuinely, I’m trying to be helpful, do you use MS Office for your docs? the accessibility checker and immersive reader are excellent tools (I have a dyslexic kid but also produce / publish written documentation that has to meet accessibility regulations)

Many teachers do choose to do exactly that.

I'm a cover supervisor so have the full class facing side of it, but minus the planning/ marking/ data. A major pay cut compared to what I could be on as an experienced teacher who'd been up the pay scale, but probably not vastly different per hour worked as my hours are neatly contained.

We've been short-staffed and had lots of illness this winter. I've had a lot of double and tripple covers of multiple classes together. Out of 25 periods a week I've been having 40+ classes. On the days when I've had many multiple covers, my brain is far more burned out at the end of the day from the constant alert mode compared to when I've been in a classroom with a single class.

How I haven't been ill (despite umpteen teenagers popping out to vomit, or just looking grey because of the attendance data obsession) I do not know. I attribute it to vitamin D and fresh air. Maybe spending so much time in the larger, high-ceilinged hall is healthier than the smaller classrooms?

On balance, I love the job but that constant being on performance mode, vigilence and decision making is exhausting. On duty days, it's about 18 mins to realistically fit lunch in with no break time (and then the kids moan about cutting in the queue... I point out that I've done my share of lunch time queues since 1986)

I've done other jobs (inc NHS) but the pace of work was different. A bit more ebb and flow through the day and more even pace in the long term. In schools, the pupils get tired and more challenging as the staff get tired and everyone depletes in energy at the same time.

DH works long hours in the private sector, but he has more flexi at managing his hours and pacing himself. If he's drained from travel/ events, he can adapt his hours to recover rather than waiting until a fixed period of annual leave. That said, it's not uncommon for him to be ill early on in a holiday.

Im not a teacher. Im fucked every holiday, I'm worn down, work shifts, inc alternate weekends. And I have to fight for a 2 ish % pay rise annually.

So exhausted that I managed to turn the car engine off instead of turning the heating off whilst driving about this time last year. That was one of my final clues to hand in my notice. That and I couldn't actually string a sentence together to talk to DH in the evenings from exhaustion.

I've been out since August, and I'm just starting to regain little bits of myself. It happened so gradually that I hadn't realised how much teaching (post-covid) had destroyed me. I'd been teaching close to 20years and used to be able to have hobbies, do things with the children, do my share of housework etc. The last few years I wasn't physically able to do any of that. Things have got to change.

I was a teacher for 20 years and yes, the exhaustion at the end of each half term was unreal. I left teaching 5 years ago and now work in what would be considered a senior, stressful role. When I left teaching I was worried how on earth I would cope without the holidays. I discovered very quickly that you don’t need them!! Yes, I need a break after a few months but definitely not after 6 weeks and I never get to that point of physical and mental exhaustion.

Yes. 😊The immersive reader - we currently have to share laptops across 3 classes and some of them are on their last legs (they run out of battery quickly leading to frustration!). It's an ongoing issue.

I got tireder and tireder. Ended up with chronic fatigue syndrome which I’ve been told is as a result of a burnout out nervous system from teaching.

I’ve worked in many different fields , as have some of my teaching colleagues- and yes, being the main go to ( social worker, nurse, educator and counsellor) for 30 children - who seem to have significantly increased health and emotional needs compared to 5-10 years ago - is bone shatteringly, mind numbing exhausting. One teacher left to return to nursing because she felt “ more in control” there ( and had slightly more flexibility re holiday dates). I think nursing staff on wards on their feet all day making life and death decisions have it hard as well - anyone I know working for the nhs( including GPs) also get utterly exhausted- the common denominator being not being able to switch off. In many other fields if a stressful situation crops up you can take 5 mins out for a coffee and a breather and reset , many teachers are still stressing about lesson plans/ marking etc on Sundays/ late into the evening. The constant noise level in schools and rush to keep time is an added stress - particularly now time tables are so crammed , prescriptive and results driven .

I was so burnt out at 60, I had to stop working on health grounds. Before quitting, I was taking a few weeks off at a time (several times) because I was so exhausted. I also hated myself, was aware of the judgement I was getting in my department and was on a roller coaster ride of self recrimination and depression.

I started out loving it, but the Ofsted tyranny that began ruling schools absolutely destroyed me.

Exactly what happened to me.

Agree . They are fabulous indeed but come on. Be real.
There are many other gruelling, tough, emotionally exhausting roles out there as well as teachers.
And those people within those roles do not get the holidays, the pay increases etc that the teachers get.
And that’s a fact .
And I am in education so I understand fully what the teacher role is.
And btw I am already wearing my hard hat because you’ll all berate me for saying this.

…….

@IstillloveKingThistleI too work in education ( HEI) I am well paid and my job is hard. However, the stress level for secondary school and primary school teachers is off the scale. Teachers do not get the ‘holidays’. My husband used to spend most of them prepping and marking. So please stop with this ill informed ‘they get nice holidays’ crap. It’s not a fact. After our young children used to get to sleep he would start working in the evenings until 2am. He works in FE now and his life is transformed. His pay is also shite but he has got his life back. I would be interested to know where you work in education because you seem to have no knowledge of the actual experience of primary and secondary school teachers.

There are many other gruelling, tough, emotionally exhausting roles out there as well as teachers.

I don't see anyone on this thread disputing that. But we get tired. We are allowed to say that we get tired. It doesn't take away that other people are knackered too, but we are tired and should be able to say that without being dismissed as moaners who don't know what real work is etc.

That’s all pretty basic planning though isn’t it??

Lesson planning involves making sure that the activities feed into the objectives and are delivered effectively - the adhd etc is a bit of a red herring as it’s often just good teaching (excluding extreme cases which may need a bit more adaptation but across a school this should be clear)

font / background just change the template on whatever - assuming PowerPoint - and that’s it done forever, you don’t have to constantly faff with it. It helps students with dyslexia and doesn’t harm anyone else.

your schools pretty unusual if at this point it doesn’t have centralised resources that are being adapted for current students - this is very frustrating and I’ve been there but you can do them now and have them there next year.

The hardest bit is adapting for the y1 level student but if you’ve got the above sorted that’s what the time can go into, working on individual students needs or small groups.

Missed your bit about research showing updating is needed - would really like to know a bit more about that as I haven’t seen it

@IstillloveKingThistle Can you be more specific about what you mean by working "in education?"
I'm always a bit sceptical of people claiming they know all about the stresses/realities of the actual teaching job when they aren't actually classroom teachers.