I READ with some amusement, the letter entitled The changing face of Britain' published in the March 15th edition.

While the author is quite correct in many of his comments about the current situation with our society, he couldn't resist having a dig at the teaching staff being the only professionals who knock off at quarter past three for the day'.

I'm married to a primary school teacher and get really sick of the same old comments being trotted out about teachers having long holidays and short working days and would like to set the record straight. Contrary to popular belief, most teachers don't arrive for work at 9am each day to start teaching, have a leisurely lunch in the staff room, then leave school at 3.15pm.

Much of a teacher's work goes completely unnoticed or unappreciated. To mention just a few of those unseen tasks, there is the preparation for lessons before the school day starts, lunch breaks that are not taken in the staff room but spent supervising children during THEIR lunch breaks, tidying up the classroom after the children have left, marking books and completing the mountain of administrative work that needs to be done.

Then there are the weekly staff meetings, talking to worried or anxious parents etc. Oh, and don't forget the after-school clubs, parents' evenings and social events, such as the Christmas disco and various other fundraising events, which teachers are expected to help organise and run. Many then go home and spend at least part of their evenings and weekends marking and preparing lesson plans when most people are spending time with their friends and families, which is why most teachers are provided with laptop computers, so that they can take their work home with them.

Teachers work excessively long hours when all of these invisible' tasks are taken into account and the job frequently involves a working week of at least 60 hours, sometimes many more. As for the long school holidays, well, they do go some way to compensate for the long unsocial hours during school time but few people realise that teachers still go into school during holidays to do such things as removing displays and preparing for the forthcoming term. Even taking the holidays into account, teachers have a far from easy life. It's a job that most people would be either incapable or unwilling to undertake and they ought to be appreciated for their hard work and dedication.

Philip Brookes by e-mail