DEPUTY Prime Minister Nick Clegg has been put through his paces by pupils at a Yate primary school during his first ever visit to the town.

The Liberal Democrat leader met staff, parents and 25 children in Years 5 and 6 at Tyndale Primary School, on Cranleigh Court Road, who came to school despite having the day off for an in-service training day.

Mr Clegg answered a range of questions including how many meetings does he attend a day, if he could change one thing about the world what would it be, if he had a choice would he raise petrol prices or lower them and what is his biggest challenge.

He told youngsters at the school on Friday: “My mum inspired me. She wasn’t party political but instilled in me a sense you can do things better if you get stuck in.

“I have the same motivation as those of you on your school council. You do what you can and you have got to do your best.”

He likened working with David Cameron in the coalition government to bickering friends.

“It is like having to work on a school project with someone you don’t agree with all the time,” said Mr Clegg. “You have to try not to argue all the time and work out how you can work together.”

He jokingly added: “I would prefer to work on my own. I wouldn’t mind being Prime Minster but not enough people voted for me, to put it mildly.”

Asked what the best thing about being powerful was, he told the children and their headteacher Ross Newman: “The lucky thing is you can try and do the stuff you always wanted to do but couldn’t because you were not in power.

“For a long time I thought we should be giving more money to schools like your school so you can have smaller class sizes and now we are doing that.”

Mr Clegg was promoting his party’s Pupil Premium policy, which provides an additional £450 annually for each pupil entitled to free school meals. Tyndale is within South Gloucestershire Council’s West Yate and Dodington area of deprivation and has a 30 per cent take-up rate of free school meals – the most in Thornbury and Yate MP Steve Webb’s constituency.

Since starting to receive the premium, the school has split a Year 6 class of 38 in two.

Mr Clegg told the Gazette: “This is a real revolution.

“The real difference is we are not giving a pot of money with strings attached. We are saying here is your money and it is up to the school how they spend it whether that’s on smaller class sizes or catch-up classes.

“One idea I have put forward is to create summer schools between leaving primary school and starting secondary which could really help to bridge the gap.”

He said the Pupil Premium would help all children, not just those receiving free school meals.

Headteacher Mr Newman called on the deputy PM to help Tyndale’s bid for funding to rebuild classrooms, which are based on two sites following a merger of Cranleigh Court Infant and Fromebank Junior schools in 2009.

He said: “We are one school in two buildings. We have put in for a new building so I was pushing my case.”

Pupils said questioning Mr Clegg was ‘really good’.

Jaye Pullin, 10, said: “I didn’t think I would ever get a chance to meet him. It was good.”

Kayleigh Curtis, also 10, added: “We only found out someone important was coming on Tuesday and only that it was him this morning.

“It was really good.”

Kiera Rossiter, aged nine, said: “It was worth coming in to school for. We would like to go to London now to see the House of Commons.”