Opinion: Letter - Long hours drive out teachers

I was constantly playing catch-up.

To read, then, an article saying teachers' working lives are not so stressful as to merit six weeks' holiday is enough to make my blood boil (Editorial, 21-27 April). No-one is saying teachers' lives may be more stressful than those of social workers or health professionals, but they are longer.

Most of these people are not doing another day's work after their job.

I spent all night, most days, preparing work, marking, organising residentials, preparing assemblies, planning displays and doing assessments.

Most other children's professionals work far fewer hours. I think Donna Murphy needs to find out what it's like to be in a school. After 29 years, maybe, like me, she'd have had enough. Perhaps she should have found out what it's like before she wrote the article or asked herself why, if teaching has such fantastic holidays, there is a shortage? There must be some reason we're all leaving.