It’s suggested teachers make around 1,500 decisions a day

It’s suggested teachers make around 1,500 decisions a day. Split-second stuff, mostly. That’s more than a brain surgeon although I’m not suggesting the decisions are more important. The brain isn’t built to do that for six hours without a cost. It’s called decision fatigue. By three o’clock you’ve made hundreds of micro-calls. Who needs the toilet. Who’s lying about needing the toilet. Whether the smell from group three is a wee or a forgotten yoghurt. By the time you walk out the gate, your brain is genuinely cooked. Every teacher carries that home. Every single one. Whether you go home to kids, to a partner, to an empty house, or to a life that looks nothing like anyone else’s. Decision fatigue doesn’t check your circumstances at the door. Teaching drains the same brain regardless. The research shows that for teachers who are also mums, the school day isn’t the end of the decision-making. It’s the warm-up. The latest ONS figures show UK women doing nearly an hour more unpaid work every single day than men. A Starling Bank survey of four thousand UK couples found women reported nine hours more household admin a week than their partners. A full working day. Every week. 72 per cent of women said they did the majority. Only 18 per cent of men agreed. So picture it. You finish fifteen hundred decisions in the classroom. Your brain is a wet flannel. And then straight into the second shift. World Book Day costume. Dentist appointment. PE kit. What’s for tea. School photo money. World Book bloody Day costume again because you’ve forgotten. If you’re a mum-teacher running on empty by half five, you are doing two of the most cognitively brutal jobs back to back. And if any dads reading this are nodding along thinking yeah but we share things fairly, go ask your partner what’s actually on her list this week. The research is pretty clear that the dads doing the asking are usually the ones overestimating. I’m guilty of it myself.