Well done to Harper Green School for staying calm for their GCSEs (April 21).

Students definitely need and benefit from relaxation tuition. This stress isn’t confined to teenagers — it’s affecting children as young as four.

Mental ill health is the second largest cause of sick absence in the UK. Teaching is considered to be one of the most stressful professions to work in the UK, if not the most stressful.

People outside the profession often have no empathy for school staff — often citing long summer holidays, large pay packets and short hours.

This is definitely not the truth. Teaching has changed dramatically.

Teachers and children do not have long summer holidays. They convalesce and, hopefully, avoid burn-out.

One only has to study the long list of ailments to know how teaching can make people ill.

I recently attended meetings hosted by the Mental Health Working Party at an National Union of Teachers conference in Cardiff.

I thought I knew how bad things were in schools but I was appalled and saddened by what I heard.

Gifted, once passionate teachers, are leaving the profession over sickness, taking manual jobs or going to work abroad.

Fed up of ticking boxes and of pushing, teachers want to teach.

Our government sets unrealistic goals and this bullying goes down the line until it attacks children as young as four. The stress also affects colleagues and family.

School should be a wonderful part of life, not a journey of tests.

Children and teachers are suffering. We should be grateful to the NUT and the Green Party for their efforts to improve the health and education of our children.

Alwynne Cartmell Bolton