NEARLY half of state school teachers in England plan to quit in the next five years due to high workloads and crippling stress, a new survey from the National Education Union (NEU) reveals.

The shocking poll, unveiled on the opening day of the union’s annual conference in Bournemouth, shows 44 per cent of the workforce want to leave the profession by 2027, with half intending to leave within the next two years.

Just over half — 52 per cent — of the 1,788 teachers who responded to the NEU’s State of Education survey, conducted earlier this year, say their workload is either “unmanageable” or “unmanageable most of the time,” a significant rise of 17 per cent in the last year.