One of the first policy initiatives to appear after what was agreed to have been Gordon Brown's worst week in office was on child obesity. It was launched in a school, with Ed Balls by the prime minister's side. Not startling news in itself, but it did reinforce the difference between the new Department for Children, Young People and Families and the old Department for Education and Skills.

The changes in the machinery of government may have not helped everyone - life is more difficult for further education, which now has to negotiate two government departments - but the winners are undoubtedly children. They have a government department that is better suited to meet their needs than they have ever had before.

The rationale for the change is that it mirrors the "joined-up" approach that headlines the Every Child Matters agenda. It's no good demanding that local authorities bring together all their services for children if the government doesn't do the same. One department with responsibility for schools, children's social services and youth justice is far more likely to develop coherent policies.

This by itself is sufficient justification for the change, but it resolves another issue as well. It is generally agreed that unless we get education right, we won't have the sort of society we want. We also know that the greatest challenge to achieving this is the underperformance of children from poorer backgrounds.

It's here that politics and education most closely meet. How we solve this problem has long been a debate both within and between these two groups. The postwar solution was grammar schools, which did give some working class children a way out. But by the 1970s, ambitions were greater and higher standards for all became the name of the game.

In an effort to achieve this, some schools serving working-class communities did lose their focus and teachers almost became social workers. They understood the barriers to some children's education success, and were more intent on sorting these out than they were on teaching.

That led to a "they've done well, given where they've come from" attitude, and the low expectations that went with it.

Into the 1980s and 1990s - and the pressure was to change. League tables from the Tories made no allowance for a pupil's background, and Ofsted inspected teaching, and not what else teachers did.

The Labour government repeatedly said "poverty is no excuse for low attainment", and put school standards at its centre. The focus was on teaching and learning, and not an inch was given to those who argued that home circumstances got in the way of a child's progress. It was the school's job to raise standards, no matter what the barriers.

The result is that schools are more focused, and thousands of children have benefited. The truth, though, is that for some children other parts of their life do get in the way of doing well at school. But it's not for teachers to sort that out.

The new department can resolve the dilemma. Some argue that it lacks a clear focus on school standards. But in emphasising the health and wellbeing of a child and its family, as well as school standards, it acknowledges that it is only when we provide good services for children both in and outside school that every child can succeed. And it will be held accountable for that.

This time around, teachers are focused on teaching and learning, and the department with responsibility for standards in schools is responsible for removing those barriers to success that have their origins outside the school.

Because schools have raised their game, now is the exact time for the government to widen the focus of its policies for children.