"Parents' social class has a greater impact on how well their children perform at school than "good parenting" techniques such as reading bedtime stories, researchers have shown.

"A study of 11,000 seven-year-old children found that those with parents in professional and managerial jobs were at least eight months ahead of pupils from the most socially disadvantaged homes, where parents were often unemployed.

"The researchers, from the University of London's Institute of Education, took into account factors such as ethnicity and family size. They found that parents' social class had a bigger influence on a child's progress between the ages of five and seven than a range of parenting techniques, including reading before bedtime."

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