Schools should be allowed to delay a new exam system if they are not ready to implement it, Scotland's largest teaching union says.

A rise in the number of pupils and a shortage of primary schools places has led some councils to consider turning empty shops and playing fields into classrooms.

Education Secretary Michael Gove, facing questions from MPs and Twitter users, says opponents of academy schools are "Trots".

Labour must promise voters more power to improve schools and hospitals and take tougher action against the "robber barons" of big business to win the next election, Liam Byrne, the party's policy strategist, says.

Wales' schools inspection service raises concerns about literacy levels and says exam results are not improving as quickly as other parts of the UK.

Of 125 vocational qualifications that will be permitted to remain, 70 will count as the equivalent of a GCSE on the main performance measures used by schools

Performance data for secondary schools was published last week, and there is an important difference between the latest figures and those that have been published in previous years. For the first time we are publishing separately the GCSE achievements of looked after children and children on free school meals at each and every school –

To believe the Government’s hype, we are currently experiencing a liberal revolution in England’s education system – powers are being decentralised, with schools given more autonomy to innovate, while new education providers are adding further diversity to the state funded system by joining it through Academy sponsorship. The uninitiated could be forgiven for believing Michael

“Tax provides the funding to run the country: hospitals, schools and everything else,” he says. “Every time someone pays cash in order not to pay VAT, the nation gets diddled.” The nation is not the government, the nation is not the government finances. The nation contains within it the government, of course, contains the government

People who pay tradesmen cash in hand are "diddling" the economy and diverting money from hospitals and schools, the country's most senior taxman warns in an interview with The Telegraph.