Guidance notes, sent out in fortnightly emails, were analysed by the Tories, who claimed that schools were provided with almost 1.3m words of advice annually - one and a half times as many words as there are in the Bible.
Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove said: "Instead of giving teachers the powers they need over discipline or fixing the devaluation of the exam system, Ed Balls is swamping schools with such a tide of paper that it is obvious heads cannot read more than a fraction."
A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokeswoman denied the claims.
She said: "We do not send out 4,000 pages of guidance; it is not our policy to email full documents to schools, and we only send hard copy documents in exceptional circumstances.
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