SEVEN friends and colleagues who taught in local secondary schools have left the teaching profession early in recent years. I left at the end of December and am unlikely to return. We are all in our 40s and 50s and were all experienced teachers. If this is being repeated across the country, then we should all be worried about the quality of our education system.

When I entered the profession in the 1980s, teachers were trusted to get on with their job. Things have changed since then: accountability measures were introduced; league tables and targets began to influence the way things were done. Obviously, some degree of accountability is a good thing but recently the level of scrutiny and interference has actually got in the way of good teachers doing a good job.

Inspirational, motivational school leaders have been replaced by increasing numbers of autocratic bullies. Teachers are being made more accountable but less responsible for what goes on in their classrooms. The results achieved by my own classes were consistently good or excellent, Ofsted rated my teaching as outstanding and yet I was being told how to teach my lessons and how to mark my books.

I was rarely praised but often criticised when students failed to meet their targets.

When cuts were made to teaching time, I argued that I could not deliver the curriculum content in the time allocated but I was expected to achieve the same results nonetheless.

So much emphasis is put on exam results that the students are now “spoon fed” to pass their GCSEs. Study leave has been replaced by revision classes, little wonder that many students fail to meet the demands of independent study for A levels.

Ironically, I am now enjoying teaching again. Since leaving my job, I have been inundated with requests for private tuition. My students and their parents have nothing but praise for the work I have been doing with them. I will experience the same set of nerves at results time but if my students fail to achieve their goals I know that I will not be blamed. I am being trusted to do a good job.

If there are any school leaders or governors out there reading this please trust your teachers to do their best for the students.

Claire Seaborne, former Chemistry teacher at The Wensleydale School and Sixth Form, Hunton, Bedale.