Teachers' burden

A report by the Office of Manpower Economics (OME) has confirmed that teachers have a longer, more intensive working day than they used to. And it finds that an unacceptably large amount of teachers' work (25%) is done in the evenings, at weekends and during holidays, leading to exhaustion, stress and low morale.

Among the reasons for the increase in workload are pre-Ofsted inspection preparation, government initiatives, burdensome and labour-intensive lesson planning and external demands from local education authorities and the Department for Education and Employment.