Shropshire teacher's widow receives apology from new Education Secretary Nicky Morgan

It comes after former schools minister Michael Gove failed to respond to an open letter she had sent to him.

Alison Utting told Mr Gove she believed the stress of the job had killed her husband.

She received no reply, so she resent the letter to Mrs Morgan when she took on the job in the recent Cabinet reshuffle.

Mrs Utting , from Cherry Drive, Ellesmere, revealed she had received a phone call from the new minister, who apologised for the lack of response from Mr Gove.

In May, the letter was liked and shared by 100,000 people on Facebook.

Mrs Utting's 37-year-old husband Gareth, an English teacher at Thomas Adams School in Wem, died suddenly despite appearing to be fit and healthy.

Mrs Morgan was named as Michael Gove's replacement in July.

Mrs Utting, 41, said: "I had a half an hour phone conversation with Nicky Morgan after she phoned me personally.

"I don't want to say too much because it was a personal conversation, but she did apologise sincerely that it had taken so long for someone from the Department of Education to get back to me and that I had been left hanging.

"We spoke about Gareth, teaching and the pressures I think teachers are under. After talking to her I do believe her heart is in the right place." Mrs Utting said that she hoped something positive will emerge from Gareth's death.

"I know that teachers have all received a personal letter thanking them for their efforts. I'm sure some will have scoffed at it, but it is good to at least get some acknowledgement and appreciation.

"But there are a lot of wrongs to put right following Michael Gove and I hope she has the strength and the resources to be able to do things to make things better."

Mr Utting was an active man, he was a martial arts instructor in Eskrima – what Mrs Utting called his "Bruce Lee stuff" – he was also a qualified scuba diving instructor, played the banjo and harmonica and even tried his hand at beekeeping. He was also a leader of St Martin's Beaver Scouts.

Her died in hospital on April 2 after falling ill at home and Mrs Utting put a lot of emphasis on the cause of his death being the stress of teaching.

She said the family – their children Sam, 14, Ioan, four, and Catrin, two – are now trying to move on while always keeping Gareth in their memories.

The summer holidays are a time when Gareth would normally have been spending time with his family on a break from work.

Mrs Utting said: "We have survived the summer holidays. Gareth, being a teacher, was at home during this time and it has been difficult for us as a family not having him here.

"It has been hard on the children and on me, but now we are trying to live as normal a life as possible. But it is hard, my youngest is now two and is wanting to speak about daddy all the time, and we are looking at pictures of him.

"The other kids' reports were fantastic last year, and that is great considering everything they had been through. We continued to be supported and prayed for by our family, friends and the community.

"We have also had enormous support from Hope House family counselling and the Widowed and Young (WAY) voluntary group who have both been amazing with us.

"We are getting on now trying to find a new life while also keeping memories of Gareth alive with us."

Back in May Mrs Utting wrote an open letter to the then education secretary Michael Gove warning him of the stress teachers face, which sent shockwaves through the country and was viewed and shared by thousands of people in just a few days.

She wrote her husband had been "killed by the system".

Mrs Utting believed that if he had a different job then Gareth might still be alive. She said good teachers were breaking under the load and were becoming embittered and weary.

• Star comment: Minister has a touch of class

Alison Utting’s letter to Michael Gove:

"Dear Mr Gove,

I am writing to inform you of the death of Mr Gareth Utting, a teacher of English at a secondary school in Shropshire.

Gareth died at the age of 37 of a massive heart attack. There were a few contributory factors to his death, but looming large was the word "stress".

He leaves me a widow with three children, aged 14, four and one. This is not the angry rant of a bereaved person.

I haven't got anywhere near angry yet. I am still reeling with shock and wondering if there was anything I could have done to prevent my husband's death. When these thoughts beset me, I keep coming back to the fact that I should have done more to help him get out of teaching.

And how can that be right to think that? I love teaching.

In the few weeks since Gareth died, I have heard and read so many tributes from his students that attest to the positive impact that a good teacher can make. I should be proud that my husband was a teacher.

But right at this moment, I'm not. I'm sorry that he was. Because if he had a different job, he might still be with us.

I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the changes that have hit teachers in the last few years. I qualified as a teacher myself but have been at home raising our young children, so have not been directly involved. But I can tell you what I see around me.

Teachers like Gareth have changed.

Their hopes for the young people in their care have not changed. Neither has their willingness to go the extra mile to help those young people to succeed.

But the work-load that they struggle under and the pressures that are applied to them from above have greatly increased. If this led to better education for our children, then I would be supporting these changes.

But I don't see better education. I see good teachers breaking under the load.

I see good teachers embittered and weary.

I see good teachers leaving the profession.

I see good teachers never even entering the profession, for fear of what lies ahead.

I see pupils indoctrinated with achievement targets, who are afraid to veer from the curriculum in case it affects their next assessment; pupils for whom "knowledge" is defined by a pass mark and their position within a cohort. Within this atmosphere my husband struggled to help his pupils in every way he could. The comments that they have left on social media reflect a teacher-pupil relationship that was honest, helpful and mutually respectful.

He taught them English, and they did well at it. But he also taught them about life, and love and self-esteem. But he did this in spite of, not because of, the current state of the education system.

Gareth is at peace now. But I have some difficult choices to make. Do I return to a profession that takes so high a toll? When my four-year-old son says he wants to be a teacher, do I smile or try to talk him out of it?

When I see Gareth's colleagues, do I congratulate them for being so amazing, or encourage them to explore other career options?

Mr Gove, I don't envy you your job. I don't know the best way to achieve a high standard of education for all pupils, everywhere. But I do know this: people don't become teachers to be slackers, for the pension or for the name badge. Here's an interesting theory of mine that I was discussing recently with my husband. If you took away all external inspection and supervision, all targets and reviews, if teachers were left to themselves to teach what they wanted to teach, the way they wanted to teach it, what do you think would happen?

This is what I think: every teacher that I know cares deeply about their subject and their students. They would teach marvellously. They would share knowledge and encourage each other. They would deal with problems (including less-than-perfect pupils and teachers) with the professionalism that they possess in spades.

Of course we cannot remove all monitoring of teachers and schools. But it seems to me that you have forgotten this basic fact: teachers love to teach and they want to do it well.

I don't know what I want to ask of you. All I know is that the situation as it stands is wrong.

On behalf of all the teachers and pupils out there, I beg you to go back to the drawing-board.

Learn from your mistakes. Gain knowledge. And please don't send me your condolences.

Yours,

Alison Utting"

• Click here for more information on the Widowed and Young charity