By Sean Coughlan BBC News education reporter at the ATL conference in Torquay

MPs need first-hand experience say teachers

MPs should have to complete a week's work experience in the classroom, say teachers.

A teachers' conference is hearing demands that politicians should know much more about modern schools.

While MPs use schools for convenient "photo-opportunities", they know little about how they really work, say teachers.

They want MPs to take a turn at tasks such as supervising dinner queues and acting as classroom assistants.

The proposal, put forward at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers' annual conference in Torquay, says that MPs should undertake a week's work in a state school in their constituency.

Even though politicians are in charge of the funding and direction of schools, they have little or no experience or understanding of how schools operate and the strains upon them, say teachers.

And if the general election makes education an election issue, teachers want politicians to know what they are talking about - rather than using schools as publicity opportunities.

Photo-opportunities

Schools get calls from MPs who say 'I'd like to visit the school - and by the way can I bring a photographer?" says John Williamson from the Wirral Education Centre.��

"How many times do MPs go into schools to see the impact their decisions have on their constituents and their children?" he said.

Politicians can talk about "zero tolerance" on behaviour, he said. "But how many have tried to implement that in a classroom with pupils with extremely challenging behaviour?"

Jeff Bevan, a teacher at Wallasey School in Wirral, said that MPs should have to experience the full stretch of a teacher's day.