Underachieving children could be forced to spend an extra year in primary school under proposals unveiled by the Conservatives.

Eleven-year-old pupils would be compelled to resit their final year with children a year younger, while their peers started secondary school.

David Cameron claimed that this could be part of a “genuine schools” revolution aiming to raise literacy and numeracy standards.

The Conservative leader vied for the spotlight yesterday with Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, with rival announcements timed to coincide with the start of the school year.

Mr Balls admitted that improvements in education had slowed in the last year and that schools still had “some way to go to deliver a world class education”.

He is writing to all primary and secondary school head teachers for the first time in his tenure, asking them to redouble their efforts, particularly with basic skills and discipline.

The letter will focus on the Government’s “personalisation agenda”, under which individual children can be targeted and taught at a level suited to their ability. As with Mr Cameron’s plans, this could result in pupils moving on to key stages at different ages from their peer group.

During the autumn term, up to 500 schools will trial new personalised ap-proaches to assessment and testing, backed by one-to-one tuition for pupils at risk of making slow progress.

A Department for Children, Schools and Families 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 catchup classes are proving to work.”

Mr Cameron’s comments will be expounded in tomorrow’s launch of a review by his party’s public services improvement policy group. The report will propose that the worst performers in year six should be made either to catch up at summer classes or to repeat the whole academic year.

Mr Cameron promised to “look carefully” at the measure, which is already used in the US and some European countries. He also supported giving extra money to schools for each pupil they take from a disadvantaged background, and said there should be a “bonfire of controls” to free teachers from bureaucracy and targets.

Mr Cameron pledged to stop the closure of special needs schools and to give schools the final say over whether pupils were expelled.

The report also suggests that A/S levels should be scrapped so that students can concentrate on their A-level exams. It proposes that ability sets should be introduced across the curriculum, and that league tables should be simplified and restructured.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary, said that making 11-year-olds stay back rather than go on to secondary schools would be “very much a backstop”. He added: “We can’t have children going from primary school into secondary school without the skills necessary to make the most of what they are going to be taught in secondary schools.”

But Mr Cameron’s announcement was criticised by the Government. Jim McKnight, the Schools Minister, said: “Proposals for what the Tories have called a ‘remedial year’ would stigmatise the very children who need extra help. They would increase class sizes and make it difficult for teachers and parents to plan ahead.”

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