Deadlines were piling up, Lizzie felt overwhelmed. Reports, GCSE marking, parents evening. She was on her last legs. She’d been teaching for years, surely she should be better at managing her workload than this? Surely she shouldn’t have missed her son’s first swimming lesson earlier in the week?

By Friday afternoon, she was on the verge of tears, feeling inadequate and craving a takeaway and an early night. She anticipated her husband complaining again about her lack of energy, which he couldn’t or wouldn’t believe was the reason for their crumbling sex life. But it was.

As Lizzie made her way to the car at the end of the day, she bumped into her much-vaunted colleague, Matt, the department’s only NQT. They started chatting.

She asked him: “How was your week?” “Brilliant thanks, and you?” he responded. “Not the best, I’ve just got so much to do that I haven’t done, I’m completely exhausted,” she smiled, with frailty. “Ah, I never take work home!” he beamed with wide eyes. “Home time is family time. I always ask anyone who takes too much work home - are you working as efficiently as you can?”

Lizzie desperately tries not to lambast him in her head: “You martyr, boasting about this work-life balance you seemed to have obtained like a breeze!” It was part anger and part jealousy: did he have any idea what teaching and bringing up your own children is really like?

The other side

Matt had a great weekend. He’d been away with his girlfriend to Bath and enjoyed a civilised, slow-paced weekend interspersed with some serious partying. He’d been a bit worried on Friday afternoon as he had seen Lizzie Morris, his experienced colleague who he deeply respected, walking to her car, almost in tears. He could feel the workload crushing her and felt sympathy.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but think she was a martyr, always going above and beyond, always willing to tick every box, even to the detriment of her own children. He would never do that, he said to himself. The plentiful strategies he’d keenly embraced for reducing workload so far were working, and above all, he wasn’t afraid to prioritise.

Monday morning came around and he was asked to go and see one of the assistant headteachers. “You still haven’t submitted your pupil progress reports for your Year 8 groups,” they told him.

These were typed comments, almost like a report card for every student that teachers were required to produce every half term. Matt saw them as completely pointless - and perhaps they were. He’d dodged doing them. He’d been asked a few times for them but he’d just said to himself: “No - this lesson planning and this marking is more important and I’m not sacrificing my holiday for it either, plus no one will bother reading them!”

He’d posted copious shots on his social media accounts of the weekend in Bath, with the hashtag “wellbeing”, and received several pats on the back from teacher friends and colleagues: “Well done for putting you first, have a great time,” they’d said.

“Matt, take a seat,” said Julie, the assistant headteacher. “We’re a bit concerned because you haven’t done your pupil progress reports for this half term,” she said. “We’ve asked you a few times but you still haven’t produced them. Why?”

Matt was visibly angry, he’d felt starved of recognition for what he had been doing and this felt like a kick in the teeth. He exploded. He couldn’t help it. “Sorry, but I’ve worked my arse off for the last two weeks, we’ve had a parents evening, had to submit data and I’ve got a couple of GCSE groups too!”

“Matt, calm down, you seem to be getting a bit aggressive...” Matt took a deep breath: “I simply haven’t had time.”

Julie reacted and said: “Every other member of staff has done them,” to which his final retort was: “But they’ve sacrificed their lives in the process.” With that, he stood up and walked out of the office, slamming the door behind him as he went.

No winners

Matt was visibly shaken, he bumped into Lizzie on his way back to class. “Are you ok?” she asked, with a look of grave concern on her face - she’d never seen Matt look like this. “I missed the pupil progress report deadline and just got a reprimand for it,” he said to her.

She tried not to smile. She’d never missed a pupil progress report deadline. Ever. She’d always budged stuff out of the way to make sure it was submitted on time. She was most certainly in the good books. Matt was not.

“It’ll be OK Matt, just go and apologise and get it done for tomorrow,” she said, trying to be helpful. “What?” he exclaimed. “You think this is my fault? All I’ve done is been sensible about my workload.” Lizzie simply couldn’t resist a parting shot: “But are you working as efficiently as you can?”

Rather than react further, Matt simply thought: “You martyr, lauding the fact you never miss a deadline even when we both know it’s to the detriment of your actual life.”

Two so-called “martyrs”. Two fantastic teachers. No winners.

A tale of fiction.

Thomas Rogers is a teacher who runs rogershistory.com and tweets @RogersHistory

For more columns by Tom, view his back catalogue

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