TEACHERS at the EIS AGM in Dundee yesterday swung behind an immediate ballot on industrial action over heavy workloads.

Glasgow Local Association delegate Charlotte Ahmed said that increasing workloads were badly hurting on the health and wellbeing of teachers and that staff “were visibly wilting under the pressure.”

Ms Ahmed warned that teachers were burdened with a seemingly unending workload and it was affecting their teaching, leading to teachers blaming themselves and feeling as though they were failing their pupils.

She said there was “one message that will get across to employers and is to take strike action or action short of strike,” adding: “Without the issue of strike action our employers will simply not move on the issue of workload and our health and our pupils will suffer because of it.”

Carolyn Ritchie told delegates that teachers “had had enough” and that it was “time to take action.”

Ms Ritchie warned that teachers on average were working 33 per cent more hours on top of their contracted 35 hours per week and said it was a “sad state of affairs” that according to research only one-third of teachers would recommend the job.

She said that she personally knew three young teachers who had quit not long after finishing their probationary year, one went travelling, another left for a job unrelated to teaching and the third went to start her own spiritual retreat abroad.

Delegates also voted to strongly oppose any cuts in support staff, and called on the EIS to advise members in the school sector not to do work previously done by support staff whose jobs or hours have been cut by councils this year.

Megan McCrossan said that “classroom assistants are invaluable” to her role as a teacher and in supporting pupils with additional needs.

She said that classroom assistants did a range of important tasks from making sure that children who came to school hungry were fed, to spending one-on-one time with pupils with additional needs and keeping classrooms and playgrounds safe.