THE critical letter from Education Secretary Ed Balls should have come as no surprise to city council officials.

It became apparent three weeks ago that something needed to be done to boost primary school performance when this year's league tables showed a dramatic slump in the test results for 11-year-olds.

Out of 150 local authorities, Derby was left languishing near the bottom of the table – alongside Haringey, Nottingham and Southampton and only marginally above Hackney and Medway.

But it is not this alone that has led to Derby City Council being told it must try harder by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

The five schools that have shown a lack of progress have drawn down the criticism.

Four of the schools – Allenton Community Primary, Boulton Primary, Pear Tree Junior School and Sinfin Primary – have failed for four years running to reach the national target of 55% or more 11-year-olds achieving level four in English and maths in the Sats exams.

Moorhead Primary was also included because it is in special measures.

All of the schools are in areas of social deprivation where pupils arrive at the schools with low levels of attainment.

Rita Keogh, head teacher of Boulton Primary School, said: "What we do accept is that a number of children and their families live in difficult, and sometimes very challenging, circumstances.

"A proportion of our pupils have very low starting points in academic ability, basic skills and social skills.

"Staff in schools situated in deprived communities already give a high level of commitment to the needs of pupils and their families.

"While we always welcome challenge to raise pupil achievement we do also need support that will truly help us to face the variety of challenges."

But in his letter to the city council, Mr Balls suggests social deprivation is not an excuse.

He wrote: "There are a large number of local authorities whose schools face at least as significant challenges as your own where no schools have been below the floor target for more than a year."

Mr Balls' criticism comes as the Government has announced a multi-million-pound World Class Primaries programme to help schools improve their performance.

All local authorities have been asked to come up with a plan to improve their primary schools by the end of March.

But it is the 1,472 schools beneath the 55% target, out of 17,000 primary schools nationally, that are causing the most concern – 15 of them in Derby.

Derby, along with 11 other authorities, has been told to come up with a rescue plan by the end of January.

Work has begun on formulating ideas but head teachers are not due to meet with council staff until January 15.

Councillor Les Allen, city council cabinet member for children and young people, said: "Our intention is to continue to work in close partnership with all our primary schools while giving additional support to those schools where standards and progress are particularly challenging.

"It is important to recognise the dedication and commitment of staff and governors."

Mr Balls has made it clear that he wants to see structural changes at the schools such as the creation of trusts – which would see the creation of a new board of governors and formal links to other schools or organisations.

It also been suggested that federations could be formed between schools with one head in charge of more than one school.

A new accredited schools group programme is also being developed, backed by £10m, which would see schools considered to be "outstanding" become part of supportive partnerships with strong and weaker schools.

An academy would allow a business or organisation to come in and take over the running of the school, something successfully fought off by unions when it was proposed for Sinfin Community School.

Andrew Flack, city council director for children and young people, said the council was working hard on the plans.

He said: "In most of these primary schools, teaching is satisfactory. But given the low prior attainment on entry, satisfactory teaching is not sufficient to accelerate children's attainment to exceed targets.

"The plans will need to consider the barriers to learning faced by children and the quality of teaching, learning and leadership."

The Government's new programme is similar to the National Challenge initiative launched two years ago for struggling secondary schools.

This has resulted in Littleover and Bemrose community schools forming a national challenge trust.

Sinfin Community School is forming a similar trust with Chellaston School.

Both are last-ditch attempts to raise standards in Bemrose and Sinfin, where results are below the 30% five or more A* to C grades, including English and maths, target.

It's possible that the five primary schools could link up with other outstanding primaries in a similar way.

Although the five schools have been singled out for specific attention, there is work to be done generally on the city's primary schools.

The average points score per school of 233 in this year's tests put the city almost back to where it was four years ago when the figure was 231. The national average was 247.

This is calculated by adding together the percentage of pupils gaining level four or above in each of English, maths and science out of a possible 300 percentage points. The highest in the city this year was Griffe Field with 290.

Also, only 14 out of more than 50 city primary and junior schools achieved an average value-added score of 100 or above.

This figure is designed to show how much value is put into a child's education from the time they enter the school until they leave at 11.

It is calculated using a series of complex formulae, which include social deprivation and free school meals factors.

All of the five schools are below 100, with Sinfin Primary the lowest on 97.8.