To think a lot of people are jealous of teachers' holidays but...

[Pengggwn]

...too bitter about it to admit that they wouldn't be teachers themselves?

Just that really.

I have seen so many comments and threads aimed at dissecting teachers' pay and conditions to a forensic level, people complaining that teachers are available over the summer to answer their queries, people arguing that teachers should be working anyway or claim to be working even when they're not (I'm not, at least not for the next month).

And yet, we are in the middle of a teacher recruitment and retention crisis. We can't recruit and keep well-qualified teachers.

Where are all the volunteers??

I do not have the hardest job in the world. By a very long way. I also don't get 13 weeks holiday and work 9-3. Both myths.

I left teaching 5 years ago. From the other side of the fence, I can't believe how hard decent schools are finding it to get Maths teachers. Lots of cover lessons in many subjects, no Maths teacher for 3 months at one point, constantly changing staff. All I can think is that it must be even worse than when I got out! So sad for the children though.

I do think that way too much is expected of teachers and that there needs to be much more support from specialists for children who have additional needs, be that social, emotional, mental or physical health issues or learning support requirements.I think that if teachers campaigned for this extra support the general public would get behind them.

Education seems to be a big victim of the political system with new requirements being made frequently without consideration of how to resource them.

I don't think it's sensible for anyone to have to work more than 45 hours a week on a regular basis as this is likely to take a toll on health and relationships. It's highly irresponsible for the public sector to engineer jobs in this way.

There are huge issues with plenty of other jobs, not just teaching, so if teachers claim their jobs are harder than other people's jobs this is clearly just going to get other people's backs up. As others have said, it should not be a race to the bottom.