Balls: School heads must do better

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He will announce he is working on a "10-year Plan for Children" to ensure his Department of Schools, Children and Families (DfES) can deliver joined-up policies affecting children and young people.

Consultations will begin this week, with a launch alongside Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday.

In his letter to primary and secondary school heads - the first he has written since taking over his post - Mr Balls will also call for a tough approach to standards of classroom behaviour.

His move comes as the Tories unveiled proposals they are considering to make youngsters resit their final year at primary school or attend remedial summer school classes if they are failing in core subjects.

In his letter Mr Balls will say there has been "great progress" over the last decade but acknowledge more needs to be done. He will emphasise the need to tackle the "stubborn pockets of underachievement" in the system and urge schools to focus on lifting the bottom 10-20% of children through the grades.

Mr Balls will say: "In every community schools are doing better, thanks to the dedication of teachers. Across all age groups we are now seeing more and more children achieving better test results and higher grades. But we all know that in every classroom there are some children that should be doing better."

He will stress the importance of personalised learning for youngsters to stretch the brightest and help the weakest. In the next few months 500 schools will trial new personalised approaches to assessment and testing, backed by one-to-one tuition for pupils at risk of making slow progress.

A DfES spokesman said: "Mr Balls will be looking closely at the experience of these schools and will not hesitate to accelerate national roll out where personalised teaching techniques, one-on-one coaching and catch up classes are proving to work."

Mr Balls also wants schools to continue to reduce "persistent absence" by individual pupils, which has "a devastating impact on their education and life chances".