In England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the education system is divided into three stages:

•primary education, up to age eleven

•secondary education, up to age sixteen

•tertiary education, for those over the age of sixteen.

'School education' refers to the compulsory phases of education that the law requires children to attend: primary and secondary.

Facts and figures

•In England and Wales there are eight and a half million children in 30,000 state schools of which about 1,000 are grant maintained (centrally funded).

•In Scotland there are 2,741 state schools of which four are grant-aided (funded directly from central government).

•In Northern Ireland there are 1,300 state schools, of which fifty-three are funded directly from central government.

•In England over 50 per cent of three and four year olds attend nursery school, in Wales more than 70 per cent, in Scotland 38 per cent and in Northern Ireland fifteen per cent.

•There are 600,930 children in private schools in the UK.