Teachers in England and Wales are burnt-out and barely functioning. Solving that will help young people and their families too

Tis the season to be jolly, unless you’re a teacher, in which case you are most likely a zombified wreck tenuously held together by caffeine and chocolate bars that aren’t even made of chocolate any more.

In the popular imagination, teachers finish at 4pm and have “all those holidays”. Yet at this point in the year, most I know are barely functioning. Colds are battled for weeks on end as we stumble through brief lulls in the day as though dazed, unable to string thoughts together. The half terms are, yes, a perk, but they are also a necessary buffer against complete burnout.

Lola Okolosie is an English teacher and writer