Teachers throughout Britain have had to take down 48,000 department for education posters promoting literacy- because they featured two glaring spelling mistakes.

The posters were sent out for primary school notice boards across the country but officials failed to spot the gaffes, which included spelling the word "vocabulary" as "vocabluary".

The second mistake urged youngsters to learn about writing "though their own work" when it should have read "through". Whitehall officials said the errors were "unforgivable".

The posters were produced by the department's standards and effectiveness unit. "It's very embarrassing," a department for education spokeswoman said. "Teachers rang up and complained, and when we spotted the mistakes ourselves we reprinted the posters and they will go out to schools again. The mistakes just slipped through the net".