Ofsted has criticised the quality of maths teaching in British schools, with the watchdog’s chief Sir Michael Wilshaw warning “too many pupils do not fulfil their potential”. Its report warns schools against encouraging students to take the maths GCSE exam a year early.

Ofsted has criticised the quality of maths teaching in British schools, with the watchdog’s chief Sir Michael Wilshaw warning “too many pupils do not fulfil their potential”. Its report warns schools against encouraging students to take the maths GCSE exam a year early.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has attacked figures showing private school pupils are more than three times as likely to get AAB in their A-Levels than those at state schools. Mr Clegg will launch new measures to promote social mobility on Tuesday, including a "tracking" system which will publish similar data on the relative numbers of state and private pupils achieving AAB grades.

A Government education adviser says schools should use a lottery system in allocating places to make admissions more diverse. Dr Elizabeth Sidwellhas, the schools Commissioner for England, criticised schools in wealthy areas for only taking students from a small catchment with high house prices. Instead she recommends a lottery system combined with the catchment area to allow poorer students a chance to access good schools and have variety.

Michael Gove has called for teachers' pay to be deregulated and salaries set by individual schools.

Ministers feel that the current pay system rewards "the great majority" and therefore fails to incentivise teachers to perform better.

Mr Gove said: “The current pay system is rigid, complex and difficult to navigate.

“It does not support schools to recruit and retain the high quality teachers or leaders they need to address specific shortages and benefit their pupils.”

The Government is to announce that hundreds of thousands of children face being taken off the special needs register because they have been wrongly labelled as requiring extra help.

For the first time, rigorous screening measures will be introduced to prevent pupils from being classed as having special needs when they have merely fallen behind or caused disruption in class.

Children's Minister Sarah Teather told the Today programme that the reforms "focus on early identification and more accurate identification and for those who do have, particularly the more complex needs, that we can join up service for the first time ever".

Nine out of ten academies are selling pupils junk food that is banned in maintained schools to protect children's health, research has revealed. The findings from a study by the School Food Trust contradict Education Secretary Michael Gove's claim that the academies he champions are following the high nutritional standards introduced in 2008-09 after the chef Jamie Oliver exposed how unhealthy many school lunches were.

Nick Clegg this morning highlighted the importance of the Lib Dems in keeping the Coalition focused on social mobility.

In a speech to a school in north London, Mr Clegg flagged up his party's Pupil Premium policy and said: “The Liberal Democrats are in this government to play our part in rescuing and reforming the economy. But we are not going to miss our chance to make Britain a better, fairer place too.”

The Deputy Prime Minister also signalled opposition to plans to impose regional pay bargaining in the public sector.

George Osborne has suggested local pay bargaining should become a major part of public sector pay, and pay review bodies have been asked to draw up proposals for localised pay markets.

Asked about regional pay bargaining, Mr Clegg said: "There is going to be no regional pay system, that is not going to happen."

He said the Government was looking only at some localised bargaining in the public sector, along the lines of the previous Labour government's reforms in the courts service. He added that he would reject any action that exacerbated the north-south divide.

"I think people should be reassured we are not going to rush headlong in imposing a system from above, which if it was done in the way sometimes described would be totally unjust because it would penalise some of the people working in some of the most difficult areas."

Nick Clegg is to announce the launch of a summer school scheme open to up to 70,000 children currently on free school meals or in care. The scheme is aimed at children making the transition from primary to secondary school.

Over 100,000 teachers have considered giving up their jobs in the past year due to low morale. The NASUWT union revealed over half its members have thought about quitting. Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg said there was a "drip, drip of denigration" coming from the Government and new Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw, who last week told teachers to stop complaining about how stressful their jobs were.

Nick Clegg will next week relaunch the Government’s social mobility drive by setting out plans on how schools can use the ‘pupil premium’ to reduce the power of private schools. The move comes after Michael Gove earlier attacked the “morally indefensible” dominance of ex-private school pupils in the media, politics, and business.

The Public Accounts Committee has criticised the system of checking for value for money in schools in England. The MPs said academy schools had "worrying spending" patterns, including inordinately high salaries for some staff.

Committee chair Margaret Hodge said it was not clear who was responsible for ensuring value.