Tony Blair today put boosting parent power and spreading the use of small tuition groups at the heart of Labour’s plans for improving schools.

Accompanied by Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, he was speaking in London at the launch of a Labour election campaign policy document on education.

The Prime Minister argued that giving parents a bigger say in how their children were taught, coupled with the spread of the kind of low numbers "tailored" tuition groups used by the most successful schools, offered the best prospect of improving children’s performance.

In the foreword to the document, Mr Blair said: "This is our objective: every child to have tailored support to tackle their weaknesses and develop strength. This could happen in a variety of ways, including small groups tuition either during the school day or as part of our expansion of after-school provision.

"Parents should be at the heart of discussions and should agree with schools how best to respond to the specific needs of their child."

Earlier, Ms Kelly said that "parents' voices should be much louder in the education system". She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that more school time will be freed up so that pupils needing extra help with English and maths will get it.

The National Curriculum for 11 to 14-year-olds could be effectively taught in just 50 per cent of school time, she said - freeing up the rest of the time for tailored tuition. "We have to be more serious about meeting individual children's needs," Ms Kelly added.

The best schools already taught some students in small groups while the rest of the class was supervised by a classroom assistant, or at pre and post-school sessions, she said.

However, the plans risk upsetting teachers, already wary of demands from "pushy parents", who fear their authority could be undermined. By contrast, the Conservatives are pledging to hand more powers to head teachers.

Mr Blair believes that his overall plan to make public services more driven by users — be they parents, patients or victims of crime — will strike a chord with voters.

Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The education service has to be there for the education of children, and parents are not always right.

"Parental involvement and support for their children’s education . . . is absolutely crucial, and if that is what Mr Blair is talking about teachers will welcome that. But it would be difficult to have parents dictating teaching methods."

Mr Blair said at today's press conference that Labour would be publishing a series of policy papers over the coming weeks.

"The coming election will, as all elections are, be about the big policy issues that matter to the British people," he said.

"We are starting with education because education was, is, and will remain our number one priority. A good education system, developing the talents of every pupil, is one built around parent preferences and meeting those individual requirements school by school. People pay taxes to get good, individualised, public services - at least as good, or better, than they could get by spending the same money to buy those services directly.

"Public services need to be responsive to what the user - the parent, the patient, the law-abiding citizen - wants and needs. Our whole investment and forward reform programme is aimed at this goal."

Tim Collins, the Shadow Education Secretary, dismissed the promises as "all talk". He said: "Mr Blair’s Government has spent eight years denying parents the choice of a high-quality education for their children. Now, just eight weeks before the election, he tells us he believes in ‘parent power’ and choice.

"Conservatives will ensure schools are accountable to parents, through expanded choice and by giving them a real say over how their children are taught."

Phil Willis, the Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said: "Parents want to hear that teachers will have more time with their child, and the only way to guarantee that is to reduce class sizes.

"Smaller groups for some children, after hours, possibly with teaching assistants is simply not a viable alternative to more pupil-teacher interaction for all children."

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