“INCREDIBLE” assessment levels are creating a “climate of fear” and driving teachers to medication, the new president of teachers’ union NASUWT said yesterday.

Dave Kitchen, an RE and PSHE teacher based in Liverpool, said that in “too many schools” so-called accountability measures were “being used as a tool to control teachers.”

On the first day of NASUWT’s annual conference in Belfast, Mr Kitchen said an increasing lack of regulation in the academy sector was having a “devastating effect” — leading to excessive salaries for heads and huge sums of cash spent on education consultants.