Comments by "David Getling" (@DavidGetling) on "Teachers' strikes: 'If I had a pound for every time someone said "but you get long holidays..."'" video.

Hard as it might seem to believe, a lot of teachers really are worked to the bone. And if they stay the course they find it very hard to change schools, because most begrudge paying classroom teachers near the top of the main scale. In fact, a fair number of old more experienced teachers are bullied into resigning, so that they can be replaced with cheaper ones. This is why there is such a chronic shortage of decent STEM teachers. Anyone worth their salt is very unlikely to want to teach in a UK state school, when they can get other jobs that are better paid, with far fewer hours, and much less stressful. But it doesn't have to be this way. In Canada, where teachers are well looked after, people fight over the very few vacancies in Canadian schools.
3
What you get very much depends on how you treat your staff and what you pay them. Do you really want the kind of people that teaching now attracts teaching your kids? Particularly in STEM subjects, anyone who is half decent can do far better than become a teacher. With the odd exception this means that schools generally get the dregs at the bottom of the university barrel.
1