Education Secretary Michael Gove is vowing to break down the "Berlin Wall" between state and private schools in education. In a keynote speech today, Mr Gove said state schools were no longer 'bog standard'.

Misbehaving pupils face the prospect being of being told to pick up litter or write out lines hundreds of times under plans by Education Michael Gove for a return to traditional classroom discipline.

Education Secretary Michael Gove. Credit: Tim Goode/EMPICS Entertainment

New guidelines for teachers, to be issued this week, will say that "tough but proportionate" punishments such as writing lines "are just as crucial to an effective education as praising and rewarding good behaviour", The Mail on Sunday reported.