IT starts on a Sunday night, that feeling of dread, that feeling that I am not fully prepared.

Despite having worked most of the weekend to tackle my schoolwork, it always seems that there are never enough hours in the day.

It affects my life, my health, my relationships and my sleep. I have been a teacher now for 21 years. It was not always like this. In fact in my first years of my teaching career I had time to pursue hobbies, interests and, most of all, to enjoy my job and not spend every living moment panicking or suffering from total exhaustion.

Teaching in 2015 is not the job I went into. The last three years have been complete madness and today I do believe that the actual face-to-face contact with my students is a very small part of my job, despite teaching full time.

My days are swallowed up by endless bureaucracy, which is all based around inspection and league tables. With the introduction of academies, and particularly multi-academy trusts, the stakes are high.

A poor inspection or slipping from the gold standard of “outstanding” to a lower category or a dip in exam results can have catastrophic effects on the “business,” as many multi-academy trusts like to call themselves.

If you are a categorised by Ofsted as being “good” or “requires improvement” there are further pressures. Ofsted and league tables dominate our schools. Every moment of our working day is about providing evidence for inspection or ensuring that we push our students to breaking point to achieve exam results that must improve year upon year, or questions will be asked.

Because of Ofsted we have to make sure our lesson plans are submitted. These must show progress, differentiation and outcomes. Eighty-two per cent of teachers state that lesson planning is unnecessary and unproductive.

As teachers, it is absolutely right that we prepare lessons to this standard, but to produce lesson plans in such detail for each lesson, and to resource and assess each lesson takes huge amounts of time.

After 21 years, I am able to plan a lesson and deliver a lesson. I do not need a paper plan in front of me to demonstrate what I am doing every minute of that hour.

But it is vital evidence, I am told, to demonstrate progress for Ofsted. As teachers it has become trendy to engage in lengthy written dialogues with our students when marking exercise books. Fifty-three per cent of teachers state that excessive marking is a huge bureaucratic burden. Yes, we must assess and give feedback.It is part of our job, but why can I not offer verbal feedback as well? It is much more personable.

But verbal feedback cannot be evidenced or produced when the inspectors arrive. Therefore I am not demonstrating that I am doing my job correctly to the people who seem to matter most in education — the inspectors. As teachers we are subject to observation, and so we should be.

However, observation is far from supportive in the present climate. I used to welcome the challenge that observation brought, a fresh pair of eyes that allowed me to improve with new ideas and techniques.

However, now observation is linked so closely with capability, and a few 20-minute snapshots of your lesson can lead to capability procedures — hence more pressure to ensure that you are teaching to what your observer classes as “good” or “outstanding.” The implications are huge. This in turn has an impact on workload.

We rarely use textbooks and we have to plan many activities during lessons that demonstrate that we have differentiated, have taken note of the learning styles of our students and that we can evidence outcomes. Each lesson, of which there are 22 per week, takes many hours to prepare and resource. Schools now are data-driven.

Again, this is more evidence for inspection.

At the end of every lesson we have to submit grades for effort, progress and behaviour. We need to show progression.

I went into teaching to share the love of my subject, to educate, inspire and make a difference, not to be part of this culture of accountability that affects my life and that of my students to this extent.

People outside of education say to me frequently: “It’s nine to three and all those holidays.” The reality is so different from this perception. Holidays now become the time when I attempt to catch up on my schoolwork, to make resources and prepare for the new term.

I, like many of my colleagues, would happily agree to give up our holidays in order to walk away from school at 5pm every night without the marking, preparation and so on.

Something needs to be done about teacher workload. I have seen so many of my colleagues burn out and leave. I have seen grown men reduced to tears in the staffroom. The system is at breaking point.

Most teachers work in excess of 60 hours per week. We are accountable — there is no getting away from that, but to this extent?

In order to begin to address teacher workload we need to look at Ofsted and the impact that it is having on the day-to-day running of our schools. I agree that Ofsted inspections should be no-notice, but to have every school day dominated by Ofsted and its tiresome regime?

It is madness and we are not serving our children correctly.

How can a few 20-minute observations of teachers and a scrutiny of pupil work evidence the quality of teaching? These inspectors do not know my students — how they learn and their often very complex home lives.

Please let us do our job, trust us as professionals to educate and inspire and instill a love of learning into our pupils that will flourish.

Support us with quality continual professional development.

Allow us as teachers to learn from each other, to support and inspire each other, to share good practice.

Take the threat culture away and the hideous regime of paperwork and evidence. Allow us to do what is best for the children in our care.

•  Wendy Exton is a member of NASUWT.