Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has spoken out against homophobia in schools.

Nick was speaking to gay rights group Stonewall yesterday, where he called for schools to tackle homophobic bullying. Here's some of what he said:

"Parents rightly expect that teachers will not just educate their children in reading, writing and science, but that they will care for pupils and protect their interests, so that they have the security and the confidence to make the best of their educational opportunities."

"I want better monitoring of homophobic incidents in schools. The Government should be made to face up to the true extent of homophobia in schools.

"Schools' performance in recognising and tackling homophobia should be an assessed criterion in Ofsted school inspections. We need to turn the spotlight on every school, and expose prejudice where it exists.

"Having supportive, trained teachers to turn to should not be a matter of the luck of the draw for gay pupils. It should be available to every one of them.

"If we can ensure that the teaching environment meets homophobic bullying with the same degree of outrage as it does racist bullying, and if we can ensure that teachers are confident to give proper recognition and support to gay people, we can reshape our schools into more accepting, open, and supportive environments."

There's more about Nick's speech on the PinkNews website at http://tinyurl.com/5o5dul