For a few hours the bustling streets of Manchester and then London came to a standstill this week, when the cities paused to celebrate Olympic and Paralympic success.

The impressive haul of medals is testament to the dedication, hard-work and the unique challenges faced by every athlete who competed in Rio.

But as I watched the celebrations I couldn’t help wonder how many Olympic journeys had begun in the same place - at school.

Whether we have a talent for sport or for music, for science or for drama, it’s very often spotted and nurtured in school.

I have simply lost count of the number of people who have told me their lives would have been different without the support of their teachers.

And this week I couldn’t help but wonder how many of our top performing athletes may have taken a different path without early encouragement at school.

In education our teaching workforce is our finest resource and - even as the Conservative government continues on its ideologically driven rampage - we should never forget that.

Quite simply, without their expertise and dedication our schools would not be the engines of opportunity that they are.

So, I am deeply concerned by recent research by the Education Policy Institute that shows our teachers work longer hours, have lower salaries and have fewer opportunities for professional development than their counterparts around the world.

‘The research, which highlights data from the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), suggests our secondary school teachers are now working more than 48 hours a week, which is significantly more (19 per cent longer) than the average elsewhere. And, it suggests, one in five teachers are working in excess of 60 hours in a typical week.

The data also shows new teachers in the UK are paid less than their OECD counterparts, with starting salaries 16 per cent lower than the average reported in the survey.

And while I know from experience the professional rewards from teaching can be immense, the findings support evidence that too many are leaving the profession - with only 48 per cent of UK teachers in the survey reporting more than 10 years’ experience.

If we value our secondary schools, we need to value our teachers, too.

We need to stem the flow of professionals away teaching by doing more to find out why they are leaving and what would make them stay.

We need to look again at whether we are ensuring teachers are properly rewarded and recognised for the outstanding contribution they make to their communities.

And we need to make sure they have access to the support they need that will make them most effective in the classroom.

Of course we have an overriding responsibility to look after the welfare of our teaching staff, but we should also remember that teachers who are tired and overworked cannot be effective in the classroom.

Any discussion about teacher workload is also about quality of teaching; failing to address this issue may not just impact on the teaching workforce but on a generation of schoolchildren, too.

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