Education campaigners are calling for exit interviews to be introduced for teachers leaving Bradford schools to help stamp out bullying among staff.

This comes after it was revealed that one in ten contacts with the Teacher Support Network - a national telephone and online support network - in the past year were because of bullying by colleagues.

The pressure of workload and long hours also accounted for five per cent of the 30,000 calls made by one in 15 teachers.

Today, John Haworth, treasurer of the Bradford branch of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said bullying by head teachers and department heads was a result of the pressures they were under to meet targets.

"There is a culture of 'no pain, no gain' among schools and that people have to suffer in order for targets to be met," he said.

"This can be counter-productive and we see examples of this every day."

Mr Haworth said despite teachers having regular holidays, many were burnt out and could not enjoy them, or found they still had work to do.

"We do hear of cases of bullying but this usually comes to light after a teacher has left. They are worried about saying anything at the time," he said.

"What we need to see is exit interviews being held by head teachers when people leave so the cause can be looked at."

The network, whose counsellors advise teachers to try to focus on their work rather than the problem, also said numbers of queries from new teachers accounted for a fifth of all inquiries.

Mr Haworth said support systems for new staff should be in place to stop teachers falling out of the system.

"It's worrying as despite the number of people being trained there is an enormous fall-out rate within the first five years," he said.

Bradford Council's education portfolio-holder Councillor David Ward said exit interviews were common in business and were a useful way of gathering information.

"Exit interviews are an invaluable way of highlighting any problems and could definitely help crack down on bullying.

"They also give people the opportunity to say why they are leaving, which could be for promotion, a career challenge or moving home."