Ahead of a government summit on ‘coasting schools’ held at Downing Street yesterday, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, confirmed his intention to scrap the ‘satisfactory’ judgment for school inspections.

The move is designed to tackle the number of coasting schools that have remained stubbornly ‘satisfactory’ over a number of inspections. The proposals mean that any school not providing a good standard of education will be given a new ‘requires improvement’ grade.

Ofsted’s new Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, who took up his post in January, has announced plans to introduce ‘no-notice’ inspections for all regular school inspections from September 2012.

Sir Michael was knighted for his services to education in 2000 and, before his appointment as Chief Inspector, was head teacher of Mossbourne Academy – which opened on the site of a failing school. He raised standards by imposing strict discipline and robust performance management systems and has subsequently seen 82% of pupils receive five good GCSEs including English and maths this year and an ‘outstanding' rating from Ofsted.

The UK government is under pressure from local councils this week to raise the cap on pupil numbers in infant classrooms due to “unprecedented” demand for primary school places.

Niall Bolger, chief executive of Sutton Council has written to all councils in London for support in asking the Department for Education (DfE) to change legislation limiting class sizes for five to seven-year-olds to 30.

According to the British Social Attitudes Survey published this month, the majority of people in Britain believe that children should be able to go to their nearest state school. This is despite the efforts made by the government to prioritise choice for parents with the aim of improving local schools for all.

The new data shows that 63% take this view outright, with a further 22% saying they would agree if the quality of different schools and their social mix of pupils was more equal.

Chancellor, George Osborne announced in his autumn budget statement yesterday that the government would be investing a further £380 million a year by 2014-15 to provide two year-olds with 15 hours of free education and childcare a week.

In England, children aged three and four already receive 15 hours of publically funded nursery provision each week. Parents can choose where to send their child from local playgroups to day care centres.

The Chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association (NGSA) has spoken of the “unfairness” of the state of the Grammar School system in England after new figures show that thousands of children who pass the 11-plus could not be offered a place due to limited availability.

Grammar Schools are government funded secondary schools and are the only state schools in England that are allowed to select all of their pupils based on academic ability. Prospective pupils are required to sit an entrance exam set by the school, referred to as the 11-plus. Grammars are hugely popular due to their excellent examination results and as a consequence competition for places is fierce.