Children's minister Margaret Hodge has challenged head teachers who believe that there is a conflict between raising standards in schools and promoting social inclusion.
Speaking on Monday at a conference on extended schools, she said: "We can only eradicate poverty and exclusion if children achieve better at school."
Alan Dyson, professor of education at the University of Manchester, said professions working with children needed to negotiate and support each other's targets.
Dyson also said the Government's anti-poverty and economic strategies needed to be joined up to the extended schools strategy.
"It's too easy to say, for example, that having a nurse on school premises will resolve the problem, when the key problem is actually economic," he added.
