TEACHING has become more stressful than ever due to "punitive and crushing" surveillance of teachers' performance, NASUWT president Dan McCarthy said today.

Mr McCarthy, an English teacher from Essex, told delegates at the union's annual conference in Birmingham that teachers "change lives."
 
But Mr McCarthy warned that "observation overload" and excessive workloads had "very clear outcomes: mental ill-health for the teachers and the children. And more money for consultants."
 
He said teaching was an “intrinsically" stressful profession, but it had become "more stressful as the challenges of poverty and inequality have worsened."

Teachers, however, have been made subject to increased monitoring rather than being supported, he said.

Mr McCarthy said: “There is more ‘surveillance’. Surveillance that is not positive and developmental, but punitive and crushing.
 
“I have been told by colleagues that they are not just thinking of quitting teaching but that they have considered taking their own lives.”
 
Mr McCarthy said teaching was the “foundation for civilised society,” but that society needed to "work harder to foster and support teachers."

He added that today's curriculum was too narrow, saying pupils needed "an English curriculum that is about creativity and expression" and subject criteria "which encourage speaking and listening," not just teaching towards exam results.
 
He told delegates: “Together we must continue to fight to give teachers the conditions where they can give our future generations an educational experience that respects who they are, where they come from and what they can and do achieve, as well as one that is fun, fulfilling and engaging.”