High achieving teachers should be paid more to work in challenging schools, which would go a long way in boosting standards of education and levelling the academic playing field.

This is one of the main recommendations to be put forward by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (SMCPC) in its new report, State of the Nation: Social Mobility and Child Poverty in Britain.

The group explained that introducing a so-called Teachers' pay premium would be a highly effective solution to transform schools in disadvantaged areas. More needs to be done to attract talented teachers to such institutions.

Alan Millburn, chair of the SMCPC, called on the next government to pilot this idea after 2015's General Election, which it estimates will initially cost approximately £20 million to fund.

"More needs to be done to get the best teachers to teach in the most challenging schools," Mr Milburn said at the launch of the paper. "The commission surveyed more than 1,000 teachers and found that better pay would be a powerful incentive to do so.

"For decades, pay systems have rewarded teachers equally, whether they teach in a wealthy leafy suburb or a depressed town. Narrowing the attainment gap cannot happen unless we break from that orthodoxy."

The SMCPC is committed to inspiring politicians from all political parties to deliver real change by 2020, to prevent, it says, the country from becoming a "permanently divided society".

Tackling child poverty is essential in ensuring that a "social recovery" is encouraged and supported alongside an economic one, a fact that is often overlooked when it comes to determining whether a country is thriving.

Other recommendations from the commission include making all children "school ready" by the age of five, investing in numeracy and literacy skills and overhauling the way youngsters receive careers advice.