Why I love teaching / Why I quit teaching

Schools in England are struggling to recruit enough teachers, as many quit their jobs in favour of another career.

The Department for Education says it has already spent £1.3bn on the problem.

But MPs are calling for more active efforts to deal with the shortage, which is often caused by daunting workloads.

A former and current teacher spoke to Newsbeat about the pressures - and pleasures - of the job.

Rosie Martin, 29, left her secondary teaching job because of the volume of work and the long hours.

She's not alone: figures last year showed that almost a third of new teachers who had started jobs in English state schools in 2010 had left within five years.

But Izzy Tyrell, 23, a primary teacher in Birmingham, says: "I think I am one of the few teachers who can honestly say I enjoy my job."

They took us through a typical day as a teacher - busting some myths along the way.

Rosie gave up teaching because of the workload

The working day starts long before pupils arrive: Fact

"A typical day, if there ever is a typical day, normally begins at six o'clock," says Izzy.

"That's when I wake up and I get to school for just after 7am."

"Every day I teach around six lessons and have an hour lunch break at 12 - but most teachers work through [their lunch hour] so their day can end a little bit earlier."

That's exactly what Rosie, a former secondary school teacher in Devon, says she used to do.

For example, eating "normally involved inhaling a sandwich while setting up for the afternoon or dealing with detentions for behaviour or late homework," she says.

'Home time' is five minutes after the children leave: Fiction

The bell goes, the children leave and the school goes quiet. Right?

"For most teachers this is simply the start of endless meetings or a five-hour planning, marking and general admin session," says Rosie.

She used to finish her day around 6pm, but arrived home with a pile of marking - just one of the reasons she decided to leave the profession.

"My laptop was open at the ready to catch up on emails, write up lesson plans," she says. "Laminator and scissors (were) normally warming up in the corner at this point too for resource-making purposes."

Workload is a big issue for teachers: in fact 90% of respondents to a 2014 poll by the National Union of Teachers said that the amount of work they had to do had made them consider leaving teaching over the last two years.

As for Izzy, her schedule is similar to Rosie's, but the difference is that she doesn't always take work home.

"At 3:15pm when the children go home I tend to mark, assess and prepare other things until about five, sometimes six o'clock," she says.

"Sometimes I do none of this: I go home at four and don't take any work home with me. It's up to me, I decide."

Teachers get weeks and weeks of holiday: Fiction

Rosie says that during the school holiday she used to write reports and spend a lot of time preparing herself with texts for the next term.

Rosie says she spent most of her holidays marking coursework

"I'd often do revision sessions for exam groups in the holiday as well, going into school and do whole day workshops," she tells Newsbeat.

"Of course I didn't mind doing these," she adds.

"If anything, this was the bit of my workload I took the most pride and enjoyment from.

"I think the holiday and working day generalisations are the biggest barrier for teachers. The amount of times I've had to smile and laugh along whilst someone makes yet another reference to the so-called 'easy life of teachers', 'all that holiday' blah blah blah....

"If that were the case the profession wouldn't be at the crisis point it currently finds itself."

Working with children is lots of fun. Fact. (Most of the time...)

It's half term this week at Izzy's school but she chats to Newsbeat from her classroom as she gets ready for the next term.

"A typical day for me consists of a lot of laughs and a lot of fun," she says.

"My class are only six and seven and they come to school smiling and leave school smiling, so I do too.

"That's why I love my job."

Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat