South Yorkshire loses two teachers EVERY WEEK since 2014
New research shows a dramatic fall in the number in our county
New research suggests on average South Yorkshire has lost two teachers every single week since 2014.
The stats, produced for teachers network TES, show there were 437 fewer of them in our county last year than there were four years before.
Sheffield's bucked the trend, with a slight rise, but Rotherham's lost almost 1 in 10 classroom teachers - one of the highest rates in the country.
Charlotte Hunter's from the town's National Education Union:
"It's no secret that the workload now of teachers is massive and immense.
"It's impacting the mental health of teachers. As a union we're seeing more and more cases of teachers that have been under undue stress and, as a result of that, they don't want to return to the teaching profession. And that actually indicates this significant drop in figures."
The research comes as a new programme's trying to boost recruitment by inspiring sixth formers towards a career in teaching.
The TES says there's going to be a shortage of almost 50,000 teachers if schools are going to keep the current average pupil-teacher ratio.
Charlotte says the fall of more than 200 teachers in Rotherham since 2014 has had a big effect:
"It has massively increased class sizes for schools. In 2015, average class sizes in secondary schools might be towards the 16 to 20 mark. Now we're actually seeing 30 plus which then affects the amount of instruction a teacher can give and the amount of personalised learning.
"One thing that we are seeing significantly is the impact on young people's mental health. They're not getting that personalised learning that they had previously. If they do have special educational needs then they probably would have been in a smaller class.
"It's seen in some schools students not actually achieving what they should at the end of their educational career."
The Prime Minister says he's going to increase education funding by £4.6 billion to give all young people the chance to succeed.