I feel the same. However, what kills me the most is that I am starting to question the relevance of my subjects (Economics, Business, and ICT to KS3). If you asked me to honestly say whether I thought that what I teach is equipping kids for the real world of work, I'd have to say no. My main subjects (Business and Economics, and there's more Business than Economics going on in the teaching world these days) generally require students to remember facts and write essays. My school is a production line where all the senior leaders care about are grades, grades, grades and maintaining Outstanding status. We have a couple of students who will leave with 16 GCSEs across 4 BTEC subjects: Travel, Business, PE (with no physical element) and Childcare Studies. How is it possible that they don't do English and Maths? Surely they'd be better off with 8 GCSEs incl. Eng, Maths and Science?
I know education is a political football that politicians like to kick around but I personally think that there's a lot of room for improvement. Not to make teachers' lives hell, but to allow the students to get ahead in life. Then again, if you take a back to basics approach you may create another elitist system which isolates students who don't find it engaging. This profession goes over my head. I just don't know how we can best provide young people with an education ...