YET again one of your correspondents has come out with the same fatuous arguments pointing out how easy it is to be a schoolteacher – long holidays, short hours etc, etc.

If only he knew! As an ex-teacher myself I know how demanding the job is, probably even more so since I retired.

Quite apart from the actual task of teaching children in the classroom, there are the endless meetings, copious paperwork, marking, planning, meeting parents. I could go on. It’s a job you cannot leave when you go out of the school gate.

So much work and thought has to be done at home in term time and during the holidays.

However, having said that, I do believe that the teachers’ strike is foolish. In disputes that occurred when I was still teaching I cannot remember any benefit coming from ‘industrial’ action by the profession.

Rather it had the opposite effect of annoying the very people whose support was needed – the parents. It really is a case of the teaching unions shooting the profession in the foot.

RICHARD COOK, Southampton.