Although the Government is not promising to legislate in this area, it did say it will consult with parents on how to engage them better in their children's schools and their learning.

It will also consult on how to improve access to information from their child's school, both on standards and attainments of the school itself and their child's progress, behaviour and attendance.

And it floated the idea of giving each child at secondary school a personal tutor who will become the main point of contact for parents.

Legislation was promised yesterday to bring in new powers allowing the Children's Secretary to force local education authorities to intervene early to address under-performing schools where there is cause for concern.

The Education and Skills Bill, which will be introduced in the autumn, will also establish an independent regulator of examinations and tests (Ofqual) and a development agency for curriculum, assessment and qualifications (QCDA).

And it will reform units for difficult children to provide better support and improve behaviour and attendance.

Gordon Brown said: "It is unfair to consign any child to a poor school or even one that is coasting along without the ambition to do better. There will be an education bill to support our plan to ensue that, by 2011, no school is under-performing."

Mr Brown also announced plans to strengthen apprenticeship training so that, by 2011, 210,000 young people will be starting an apprenticeship, three times higher than the numbers in 1997.end