I am not sure I agree that Teachers have absolutely exhausting jobs - much more so than most jobs - as said by man on r4 this morning

[RevolutionHere]

i am not sure what my dh, former welder would make of this statement

this is an argument regarding long summer holidays,

Ah yes it's not tiring of course 🙄

It is emotionally draining. Being there for children,trying to support them when their home lives are shit. Encouraging them when they think they are worth nothing. Being verbally abused by students and their parents. A work load you end up taking home because you can not finish it in your work hours with all other demands on your time.

Yes it is exhausting. For teachers and teaching assistants. And most people would not last a day.

Ha! That’s a whole other conversation about social norms and expectations and division of labour. Yup, I know I fell into the trap too , in more ways than one.

Wrt the holidays – this is my take.

Yes it is a lot of holiday time. However I spent a good chunk of that time in (admittedly non-contact, non-mentally exhausting) work. The only time I actually did no school work was the first 2-3 weeks of the summer. I spent some of most half term days planning, marking and prepping.

I also viewed the long break as a bit of payback for my hours in the working week – I reckon I used to work about 60 hours a week in term time (contact and non-contact time). I am fully aware that others work similar hours in certain jobs – but I bet they don’t do it for less than £30k a year (it’s more now I know but that's what I earned 7 years ago with my degree and post-grad qual).

The holidays are a great perk if you have school-aged DC – especially when they are getting too old for holiday clubs etc. Even when I was prepping and marking I could be here for them. So that was a massive advantage of teaching for sure.

Interestingly, when I left teaching lots of people said I would miss the holidays – not really. I now get 25 days plus eight-10 days of B hols, so that's up to seven weeks – and most of that can be taken to suit me. Day off in early December to sort Christmas admin and shopping? No problem! Week in early June when the weather is nice and the days are long? go for it.

OP working long hours as a welder would be physically exhausting, the occupations are so different it's hard to compare.

My late DF was a teacher and it was mentally and emotionally exhausting, also my dsis worked as a Head Teacher and it was highly stressful.

Comparable jobs in terms of stress would be social worker or police officer; the level of cuts and what is expected makes it worse.

I am not a teacher - nor would I want to be, it’s a tough job that everyone feels free to criticise.

I am part-time and most degree-educated people I know of my age earn less.

He could leave at 3.15 every day and not mark a book, leave the work to the rest of his department to pick up and the school would keep him on with that background.

Some of your replies OP seem pretty anti-Teacher

I don’t think of manual labour work to be particularly exhausting. Physically demanding yes sure, but I feel the term exhausting carries an implied meaning of mental fatigue and burden. I do think teaching is an extremely demanding job, I don’t envy my children’s teachers one bit. Even the long summer hols couldn’t compensate for what they have to do during term time. I am acquainted with very many people in manual jobs, trades etc and for the most part I would say they have a comparatively easy life.

But no-one is contemplating extra weeks of school or making holidays shorter.

So, as it stands, you are paid an agreed salary over 12 months and benefit from long holidays. I don’t understand how, practically, being paid for 40 weeks and having 12 weeks’ holiday is any different from being paid for 52 weeks and having 12 weeks’ holiday. Is thee any difference other than semantics?

If I was told that my private sector agreed annual salary was now only going to cover 40 weeks a year and I would have to take five or six weeks unpaid, inflexible summer holiday, two weeks at Christmas, half-term breaks etc., I would be delighted.

As it is, I have 25 days annual holiday of my choosing (if I can agree the dates with my team) plus Bank Holidays. And a terrible pension compared with teachers, so I certainly can’t contemplate retiring in my mid-50s, as I understand many exhausted teachers do. (Good luck to them, they’ve earned it, but it’s not a privilege open to most in the private sector).

Teaching is a totally exhausting career. My husband band I both taught for over 40 years, in Primary Education
As a teacher/ mum I was completely draIned.
We ( I especially) were so relieved when none of our three daughters wanted to follow us into teaching.

I don’t think many teachers can retire mid fifties any more. Well they can I guess but they won’t be receiving their work pension at that age. It is still a good pension, I’m not denying that though.

Well I couldn’t be a teacher. Academically I could but the thought of being in a room with 30 kids would make me go insane. And I am not in the world’s easiest job (clinician in healthcare) but I deal with one patient at a time that talks in full sentences and listens to my clinical opinion. I have 4 young kids and work three days and I wouldn’t trade the difficulty of teaching for the holidays. The holidays (in my opinion) are an absolute necessity for teachers and very well earned. They are literally responsible for the next generation of professionals and often the only stable and consistent person in some children’s lives.

I really loved working in a school!! And the holidays were awesome. Saved a fortune in childcare. Never felt like I had a break as it was straight into child rearing at the end of every term but that’s life.
never really got why the teachers moaned so much but some professions are just whiney.

You know I thought that about my job too. Its not that much more tiring than most jobs etc…
And then Covid hit and I got to watch dh wfh.
Well I learnt something. Yes some jobs are much more tiring. When you need to be fully concentrated on the person in front of you. 100%. That’s a very different experience than you’re in a meeting where no one will notice if the slack off a bit, dint concentrate etc…. And it’s exhausting. The worst thing? I used to do the same job than dh 😂 but the outlook when you’re in there (oh it’s hard work) vs how it looks from the outside can actually be enlightening.

Same goes for teachers. They need to be 100% focused on the students. No time to dream, miss an answer or look at a text. Nope. 100% focus on the classroom. And just that is exhausting. Much more than most jobs where your attention can wander off.

Theres a reason why teachers are leaving you know. That, in itself, will tell you a lot about how easy or hard tge job is.

This isn’t me coming for you. I’m a teacher, and it’s the end of term and I’m exhausted.
I’m not saying my job is harder than others, but it is exhausting. I leave my house every morning around 7:30 and very rarely get home before 6. I work weekends because there’s always so much that needs to be done. I very rarely have time to eat lunch, as I’m usually setting up for afternoon lessons and doing lunch duty.
Yes, I now have six weeks off, but I’ll be going into work all next week to set up my classroom. I’ll also need to spend more time planning and making resources. During half-term breaks, I end up working about 70% of the time.
As I said earlier, I’m not claiming my job is harder than others, but it is both mentally and physically draining. I receive messages from parents at all hours, including weekends. I have to input data which takes hours and create resources. Since I work in a special school, a lot of physical resources are needed.
I spent around two hours per child writing their end-of-year reports and sourcing photos for them. I’m also required to post on the parents’ forum three times a week. All of this is done during my evenings and weekends.
As a teacher, you genuinely never switch off.
So yeah it’s bloody exhausting.

You’re right OP. Teaching is so easy that it is almost impossible to find anyone to sign up to train for it anymore.

So soon your worries will be over. There will be no more talk of exhausted teacher because there won’t be any full time teachers.

I’ve been part time for nine years now and I couldn’t ever go back full time because it meant never seeing friends or family and constantly working evening and weekends to keep up in exchange for mediocre pay and very shitty attitudes from parents and students.

The holidays are the only attractive job perk. Of those go we won’t be able to recruit at all.

And I’d also like to point out that I’ve missed loads of friends weddings/ family funerals and important hospital appointments because schools struggle to get cover. If they can’t cover me then I can’t go. I missed my own uncle’s funeral because there was no cover available.

So you weren't a teacher?

You see this is why a lot of people raise eyebrows about the narrative that teachers have the most exhausting job. Tell it to a waitress who is on their feet 8 hours a day dealing with the general public including the drunk & entitled but unlike teachers have no authority and just have to put up with the shit in case they lose their minimum wage job. Have a word with yourself

The great teacher pension (that my parents have who are 70) is gone and the ones currently in service will not receive as much

and I think it is a good point about holiday flexibility you always have the holidays with your children!

I think it’s definitely a perk that helps retention. I am a teacher. My friend gets paid more than me, gets flexible working so can accommodate things like appointments and child pickups, can work a 9 day fortnight and still get paid full time by working still less hours a day than I usually do. We have broadly the same educational level. Without the holidays I would absolutely be looking at leaving teaching which offers none of these perks and clearly can’t do but does have the huge perk of the holidays. Teaching is a very demanding, inflexible job compared to many other similar professional roles. Without the holidays there would be no hope of keeping people in the profession.

I don’t think that’s surprising at all. The reason teaching is so unattractive as a career is because teachers themselves are so unhappy doing it 😆 can you think of any other profession where the people doing it are vocal about how awful it is?

I’ve been that waitress, there’s no comparison

As long as you work in the same LA.

Never heard a teacher moan about holidays, aside from the price of holidays in the holidays!

I’m not talking about individuals. I’m talking about the data over the whole population.