Tomorrow a lot of teachers will be on Holiday where I live (actually, I’ll have to teach the whole week myself). For the people who still think we are having way too much days off, well maybe this can be inspiring.

The Times Higher Education wrote about a new report on overwork and what is the conclusion?

“Teaching professionals who work unpaid overtime put in an extra 12 hours a week on average – the highest of any profession, a new study claims. According to data from the Labour Force Survey 2013 obtained by the Trade Unions Congress, 54 per cent of teaching and education professionals in schools, colleges and universities do extra unpaid work each week, more than any other group of employees.”

But of course these are figures published in a press release by an union, so let’s take a look at an official source, quoted in The Guardian:

“Primary state school teachers in England are working almost 60 hours a week, according to a survey by the Department for Education – a sharp increase on the previous survey.”

On the differences between primary and secondary education:

“The latest survey found that teachers worked 59 hours and 20 minutes on average, while their secondary school counterparts worked almost 56 hours.”

But there is one group who has even got to work more a week:

“The worst-off in terms of workload were headteachers in secondary schools, who recorded an average of 63 hours and 20 minutes a week.”

So, to be clear. We don’t have a lot of days off, we are just compensating the many hours (unpaid) overtime.