Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said today that he was "very disappointed” in teachers planning to stage their first national strike for 21 years.

More than 1,000 schools could close on Thursday as a result of the pay dispute.

“Teachers should not be walking out,” Mr Balls said. “I’m very disappointed and I think that parents across the country are disappointed.”

Mr Balls, visiting a children’s centre in South London this morning, added: “I’m on the side of parents who will be disappointed if their children’s education is disrupted on Thursday because we have decided to accept an independent pay review.”

Mr Balls said the majority of teachers did not want to strike over the Government's decision to give a three-year pay award of 2.45 per cent rise in September followed by 2.3 per cent over the next two years.

The NUT says three years of below-inflation pay increases would be damaging for the profession and make recruiting new teachers more difficult.

Defending the strike, Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the NUT, said: “Since 2004 teachers' pay has been cut year on year. We're beginning to see that it's harder to recruit young people into teaching.

"We would expect that in London very large numbers [of schools] would close on the basis of the information we have ... We don't expect any schools to be unaffected."

Suffolk and Cheshire, with 28 closures each, look set to be the worst-affected areas. Another ten schools are likely to close in Cambridgeshire, ten in Bedfordshire and nine in Brighton and Hove.

There are ten schools in Hounslow which do not expect to open and there will be restricted lessons in ten others, according to The Guardian.

Two-thirds of schools reopen for the summer term today, leaving little time for head teachers to make contingency plans.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said membership applications have trebled since the strike was confirmed. Thousands of members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, who work in a number of government departments, may also walk out over pay on Thursday.

Echoing Mr Balls' words, Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said: "I am disappointed by the decision to strike, as I think parents will be - and as will the majority of teachers who did not vote to strike.

"Of course teachers should be properly paid, which is why we accepted the recommendations of the independent School Teachers' Review Body for a three-year award, with a 2.45 per cent basic pay rise for teachers from September 2008, additional increases for many London teachers, and increases of 2.3 per cent per year for the following two years.

"We believe that all teachers should be teaching and talking - and not walking out next week," he said.

Bill Cockburn, the chairman of the School Teachers’ Review Body, whose pay recommendations were accepted in full by the Government, told The Times Educational Supplement last week that teachers risked losing the “great respect” they had earned over recent years.

“The trouble about even saying you are going on strike is that it’s like playing a game of snakes and ladders – and you have hit the biggest snake and you’re back down,” he said.

Teachers’ pay has risen sharply over the past decade. An experienced teacher in England and Wales at the top of the pay scale in 1997 received £21,318. Today the salary is at £34,281. Teachers argue that, with inflation running at 4.1 per cent, their current deal represents a pay cut.

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