A NORTH Yorkshire school is holding a three-day conference to try and attract more people into teaching.

Vale of York MP, Anne McIntosh, has warned that more than 1,730 teachers could leave North Yorkshire schools over the next five years, with a predicted 486 leaving York schools.

A survey conducted by MORI and the General Teaching Council found one in three of all teachers expect to leave teaching within five years.

Some of the reasons teachers were leaving the profession were work load and poor pupil behaviour.

Ms McIntosh said: "This worrying survey reveals that a third of all teachers may quit in the next five years.

"Across York and North Yorkshire, we could see an exodus of over 2,000 teachers."

The conference, which will take place at King James's School, in Knaresborough, from January 29 to 31, is being run in conjunction with the Teacher Training Agency and Leeds University School Of Education.

Participants will be able to observe lessons and take part in question-and-answer sessions with recent and current trainees, experienced teachers and teaching assistants, as well as pupils.

Information will also be available from different universities on the variety of teacher training courses available.

King James's School was designated a Training School by the DfES for the training and professional development of new and returning teachers.

The school has five Advanced Specialist Teachers, who will assist Julie Bradley, assistant head and director of the training school, throughout the three days.

Julie said there had been a lot of interest and the 24 places available had already been taken.

A waiting list had been drawn up and a lot of the interest had come from people looking for a career change.

She said: "One of the things we have noticed is that we have more mature students.

"There are people coming into teaching later on in life who are looking for job satisfaction and stimulation."

She said the course was for secondary school teachers and, although teaching is often dominated by women, the divide had been half and half.

Updated: 09:36 Wednesday, January 22, 2003