We are only a couple of weeks into the summer holidays, yet several teachers in our online staffroom can’t shake off the thought of work.

Unfortunately for some, it would seem the holidays are far from relaxing. Cest shocked other posters by admitting to doing four to five hours’ work a day, which will soon be upped to seven hours.

Hopefully aer won’t be clocking up as many hours of planning with her system of “if it’s sunny I sunbathe, if it’s not I work”.

Debbs1004, on the other hand, admits to starting off with good intentions, “but other things seem to then take priority, it’s amazing how clean my kitchen is ...”

However, most forum users agree that holidays are for relaxing, and like erp77, the work can be left until the week before they go back.

The mad rush at the end of the summer holidays may be stressful, but I’m sure teachers will count themselves lucky after hearing about grim work experiences that have been shared on the forums.

FigmentOfYourImagination once had the, err, pleasure of working at McDonald’s and says: “The floor was greasy... the smell of the clothes was horrible ... and I was dumped on to clean the men’s toilets.”

Worse than that is dande’s experience of castrating lambs in the outback. Dekka, on the other hand saw that as a pleasant change from having to muck out 200 pigs every morning.

The talk of farm animals made passionateteacher very glad to be a teacher. I’m sure we’d all choose a classroom full of children over 200 pigs any day ... wouldn’t we?