Weak teachers have their cards marked, both the education minister and senior chief inspector warned. Differences in performance within schools rather than between schools was significant and had to be tackled by headteachers and local authorities.

Mr Donaldson said pupils and teachers within a school knew about the range of performance. “Pupils can tell you where they don’t want to go. They can tell you from the work that, if they go there, they are not going to do well. Can we as a profession accept that? Can we continue to engage in damage limitation and work round it?

“Where young people are consistently let down that is a nettle we have to grasp and we have to make sure that we are giving all our young people a high quality of education.”