These 'social-worker teachers' would devote all their time to addressing domestic difficulties that prevent children from learning - allowing classroom staff to concentrate on teaching.

A pilot scheme has been launched and the Schools Standards Minister Estelle Morris says that the service could be made available throughout England and Wales.

Estelle Morris says teachers need to be made free to teach

These 'learning mentors', who will be trained teachers, will work with pupils and their parents and liaise between family, school and welfare agencies.

In the pilot scheme, around 800 learning mentors are being deployed in 450 schools over the next two years.

Estelle Morris said that the scheme addressed a problem that she had faced while working as a secondary school teacher in Coventry.

"My memory was that you went to school every day wanting to teach, and spent a lot of time doing other things.

"You were a first-aider, a counsellor, a financial adviser. You were persuading children they ought to go home, and sympathising with those who had to go off and collect younger brothers and sisters.

"I used to feel when I was a teacher that if I had had someone who could go to a child's home and talk to their parents and help sort out these problems, then my job was possible," Ms Morris said.