Teachers believe the Liberal Democrats have the best education policies of the three main political parties, a TES survey has found.

The poll, commissioned to coincide with the party conference season, asked nearly 6,000 teachers to consider five education policies from each party, without saying who had proposed them.

On balance they were positive about four of the Lib Dem ideas, two Conservative proposals and only one from the Government.

This is likely to influence their vote in a general election, the survey suggests, with more than nine out of 10 saying education policy made a difference to which party they decided to back.

But teachers’ own policy ideas indicate that what they want most is for politicians to leave education alone altogether.

One primary teacher wrote: “What about an education policy of having no new policies, to give the people who actually have to keep dealing with these on ground level a breather?”

Another called for: “Anything which takes education policies away from inevitably short-termist politicians and ministers.”

The most popular policy was the Conservative pledge to give teachers facing allegations anonymity until their cases are settled. This was backed by 98 per cent of those polled.

The least popular policy was the Government’s National Challenge school improvement scheme.

Its mixture of support and threats of closure, which is designed to improve GCSE results, was opposed by 73 per cent of teachers, 28 per cent of whom “strongly” opposed it.

Read a full analysis in the TES