TEACHERS are feeling so undervalued and under pressure the workforce is on the “brink of a crisis”, a union has warned.

Gawain Little, national executive member for Oxfordshire of the National Union of Teachers, said education was being "cut to the bare bones”, and the effect was being felt by teachers in the county.

His comments came as a leaked staff survey from Cheney School, carried out in March, provided a snapshot of the mood of Oxfordshire’s teachers, with many feeling the pressure of “unreasonable demands”.

Eighty-nine out of 102 survey users said they always or often worked well with their team and 56 said they could always rely on their line manager for support.

Jolie Kirby, who has been head teacher of the school in Cheney Lane for nine years, said the school had to make changes after having its budget slashed by £400,000 – qualified teachers earn on average between £22,000 and £37,000 a year.

She said: "It would be a fair comment to say that the constant changing educational landscape has brought in additional stress to schools and at Cheney School the leadership team has taken significant steps to support staff and monitor their well-being.

"We are mindful that these are indeed challenging times; all our staff are having to juggle many responsibilities, testing their resilience and flexibility.

"The decisions that the leadership team have had to take and implement and the level of accountability staff are facing are shaping a new work approach which we firmly believe will be beneficial to all."

Over the last nine years the school has been rated by Ofsted as a "good school, ambitious and outward facing" and for the past five has had 100 per cent of their newly qualified teachers continue in the profession, bucking the national trend.

But Mrs Kirby, who has 22 years’ experience, said perhaps the UK needs to take a leaf out of other country's education systems where head teachers decide the curriculum.

Earlier this month 20 schools in Oxfordshire were forced to close as teachers took to the picket lines over concerns of school funding.

Mr Little warned: "We are on the brink of a crisis.

"People feel under pressure, they feel undervalued and they do not feel supported - they are trapped, the pressure from the government just trickles down to all levels from the head to the teachers.

"If you took another profession, say surgeons, and asked them to spend time proving they made the best decision in the operating theatre that would be so much public money down the drain.

"There is no other profession where your abilities are constantly called into question.

"I think immediately what needs to change to is for the Government to reverse the cuts they have made and a rethinking of Ofsted."