WE WERE extremely angry after reading the letter of complaint about teachers from A D Rogers (Letters, February 20).

Obviously the writer has no knowledge of what teachers do outside the classroom. Do lessons plan themselves, do books get magically marked during school hours?

My daughter has retrained as a teacher in the past three years. She has two young children of her own and the road has not been easy, but she enjoys the work and cares about the children in her care.

Her day starts at 7.30am and finishes at 6.30pm with hardly a break. She visited us during the school half-term and planned nine lessons and marked at least 30 sets of work. Should she take her own precious time out to attend training also?

Get real, A D Rogers. Find out the facts before criticising a profession much maligned by those without knowledge and vastly underpaid and undervalued. Name one personality in Britain who has achieved his or her status without the help of a good teacher. We need more of them and your attitude will not encourage this.

V & R Holdsworth, Springwood, Haxby, York.