NINE out of 10 teachers believe the government’s trumpeted “workload challenge” has failed to make any difference at all, a new study has shown.

A National Education Union (NEU) survey of 8,000 teachers in England, published at the union’s ATL section conference today, was described as a “damning indictment” of government education policy.

Three-quarters of teachers said pressure to increase pupil test scores and exam grades was driving workloads to unsustainable levels.

Fifty-two per cent of respondents blamed government changes to the curriculum and exams and 46 per cent cited Ofsted inspections.

One teacher said she spent a “vast amount of time ... collecting evidence of progress, taking photos, writing detailed observation reports” on a regular basis.

“This is time that I and staff could be spending interacting with very vulnerable students,” she added.

A junior school teacher talked about having to mark “90 or 120 books in a night.”

But half of teachers (49.9 per cent) said it was not clear how the data they collect would be used and 43 per cent said they didn’t believe the information would help pupils to make progress.

NEU joint general secretary Mary Bousted said: “It is a damning indictment but no surprise that so many teachers believe that the government and Ofsted are the biggest drivers of their workload. They are.

“We know that teachers are leaving the profession in droves due to pressures from workload. Teachers are a priceless resource and the government should not be adding to their burnout.”

The conference in Liverpool, which runs until tomorrow, will be the last held separately by the ATL (Association of Teachers and Lecturers), which merged with the the National Union of Teachers (NUT) last year to form the NEU.

Activists hope that greater unity among the profession will help the fightback against increasing teacher workload and school marketisation.

In a welcome address today, Ms Bousted’s NUT counterpart Kevin Courtney said teachers needed “actions not just words” to address the workload crisis.

He vowed: “We are going to succeed. Our young people really need us to succeed.”