STRESS levels among York teachers have prompted education chiefs to alert the Government to the pressures caused by heavy workloads.

A survey carried out among staff at five York primary schools found health problems were alarmingly high in one of the schools, and were worrying in two more.

At the worst school, about a quarter of staff were classed as being at "red light" level, meaning their blood pressure and cholesterol levels were approaching unsafe levels.

Now, City of York Council, which commissioned the survey, is to pass the results on to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES).

Mandy Coalter, human resources manager at the council's education department, said the survey found that the biggest cause of stress was workload and a lack of "work and life balance" - taking work home and thinking about it all the time.

She said: "There are things we can change in schools, but we can't change the national agenda.

"We are planning to talk to the DfES about what we found out. This is a national issue too."

She said the pilot survey had been carried out after she looked at sickness absence figures which showed that a third of absences were down to stress, anxiety or depression.

"We wanted to do something proactive that would prevent people going off with stress and going off with sickness."

The council had now put in place measures including training teachers how to manage stress and training head teachers so they can manage their own pressures as well as recognise stress among staff.

"We have got a consultant going into each of the schools to work with each head teacher. We are also looking at what can be done in school to reduce teacher workload."

The survey was carried out by a firm called Business Health and was part-funded by the council and part-funded by the schools.

Barrie Ferguson, secretary of the NASUWT teaching union in York, said: "Some alarming features came out of this, which are not surprising considering teachers have been flagging them up for some time.

"We're highly delighted that the council and the LEA in particular are taking an interest in what is the big health and welfare problem for school teachers."

The full report is due to be made public next week for councillors to examine.

Updated: 12:16 Friday, December 07, 2001