An increasing amount of teachers, pupils and whole schools were caught cheating in this summer's GCSE, AS and A-level exams, according to new official figures.

The rising number of cheaters was most dramatic among teachers, as there was a 62 per cent increase, with 97 suffering penalties in 2013, compared to the 60 who were caught in 2012.

In total, 2,590 pupils were caught cheating in their exams - a rise of 1.6 per cent on last year - while the number of penalties imposed on schools rose by four per cent, with 135 found guilty of breaching the rules.

What makes the Ofqual statistics even more worrying is that there was a seven per cent reduction in the overall number of scripts submitted for all secondary and higher education exams this year.

A total of 23 people in teaching jobs were suspended from involvement with exams as a result of this malpractice, but most of the teachers involved received a written warning.

The most common offence committed by teachers involved them giving inappropriate assistance to candidates (59 cases), while the second highest amount of penalties were issued to teaching staff who entered the exam room to coach or prompt candidates or allowed pupils to continue working for an extended period beyond the official finishing time.

Although the figures make for worse reading than last year, there have been more penalties issued once before. This was back in 2008, but there was a higher number of exams sat that year.

Ofqual's report added instances of malpractice "remained extremely rare", explaining that the 2,590 penalties amounted to 0.019 per cent of the total papers marked. The number of candidates who were awarded extra marks because they were disadvantaged in some way during the exam also increased this year.

As a teacher or someone looking for a secondary teaching job, how do you feel about these figures? Let us know your thoughts.