The teacher has just begun her second year in a primary school in a depressed area of Nottingham.

Since her student days she has shown a unique talent for the art of teaching and has been perhaps the most enthusiastic and committed practitioner I have encountered in more than 25 years.

And why? She says she simply cannot get through the plethora of documentation: report writing; long, mid, and short-time preparations; curriculum plans, and don’t mention the Office for Standards in Education.

The fact that this excellent practitioner who works most evenings until bedtime and spends at least half her weekends marking or enslaved to the laptop feels compelled to leave an occupation which she so eagerly entered must be a real cause for concern.

How many more of our superb young teachers must we lose in this way before our lords and masters acknowledge the real cost to all our children when we force our most talented recruits to the wall of administrative suicide?

William Robinson

61 Lime Tree Avenue

Retford

Nottinghamshire