THE teaching profession has been plunged into a state of crisis with intolerable levels of stress according to a schoolmaster from St Helens.

Bill Bradbury, a teacher at the Hurst School and secretary of the St Helens and Newton branch of the NASUWT, reckons the reasons are plain to see as teachers try to contend with:

classroom disorder

mountains of paperwork

stress of Ofsted inspections

plus a possible 20 per cent loss of teaching staff due for retirement.

Teaching says Bill is no longer a career that many people want to take up. He maintains that a large proportion of the young people who enrol on teacher training courses end up opting for other careers, because they can't take the pressure.

In a letter to the Sunday Times, Bill said he even knew of teachers who are prepared to resign rather than face the terrors of a third Ofsted inspection.

And as a result of the decline of those wanting to take up teaching posts, the retirement of teachers and the loss of teaching staff due to stress related illnesses, he feels that pupils could soon be paying the price with the school week having to be cut -- some schools in Britain have already had to go down the line of a shorter teaching week.

Bill explains: "Gone are the days when teachers got on with the job of teaching their pupils. Now lessons are backed with the copious writing of notes concerning the lessons being taught. The amount of paperwork that teachers face today is horrendous and many find that their spare time is taken up with paperwork.

"Add those pressures to the stress caused by Ofsted inspections and it is little wonder that many teachers are absent due to stress related illnesses, creating more pressures on those still teaching.

"One school in Wigan has already sent out letters asking parents not to send their children in on a particular day due to staff shortages, this could well happen in countless schools throughout the country."

"Ofsted inspections are putting extra pressures on teachers. And having experienced their second Ofsted I am hearing with regularity from my local members that 'I am resigning before I put myself through that again'.

"These are not weak teachers, but those who cannot take the stress any longer, Ofsted being the final straw. Free weekends for most teachers are a thing of the past as they complete mountains of records for their following week's teaching and now more people on their backs with performance management.

"Add to this, constant poor pay awards which already Local Education Authority's say for 2001 they can't afford , and it's little wonder that teaching is in a state of crisis."