TEACHERS in Lancashire are being asked to do an impossible job, an outgoing union chief claimed today.

The comment came from Dick Greenfield, who has stepped down after a 26-year stint as the executive member for Lancashire NASUWT, which represents 6,000 teachers.

Mr Greenfield, whose union role came on the back of a teaching career in London and Lancashire, said "unacceptable pressures" to achieve good positions in league tables meant the county's teachers no longer had time to offer one-to-one contact with pupils.

The 65-year-old, who retired after the NASUWT's annual conference last month, said: "In the teaching profession now you have to plan everything to the nth degree.

"In Lancashire teachers have to plan for 30 plus children in any one class and are having to try to cater for a wide ranging abilities.

"To try to spend time and cater for every child I would say is becoming impossible.

"There is little time to develop the human side of pupils.

"Schools and their league tables are now seen as so vital and override everything else and I think it has gone too far.

"As soon as children enter school now they are being prepared for tests so much so they are becoming meaningless.

"Schools know if they get a low league table position they can close, and because of this pressure everything outside this takes second place."