Children from poor families should be given extra lessons on weekdays and Saturdays to provide them with the levels of support enjoyed by pupils at private school, a controversial report will recommend today.

The study by CentreForum, a liberal think-tank, notes that fewer than 20 per cent of poor children achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths, compared with a national average of 45 per cent. It also claims that schools catering for the poorest pupils should be given extra money to help them close this attainment gap.

Paul Marshall, chairman of CentreForum and author of the report, said that as the money would follow the child, it would give schools an incentive to enrol the most disadvantaged pupils. The present “system isn’t failing the least able, it’s failing the most disadvantaged”, he said.

The reforms would cost an additional £2.4 billion a year. Mr Marshall said this would be better than Gordon Brown’s 2006 commitment to raise the level of spending in state schools to match private schools. The Brown pledge would cost an estimated £17 billion a year but would spread additional resources more thinly because it would go to all state schools, not just those serving the very poor. Research showed that giving more money to the most affluent third of schools had no effect on attainment.

The report, Tackling Educational Inequality, also calls for all schools to be given the freedom to diverge from the national curriculum, enabling them to concentrate on literacy and numeracy.

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