10-hour school day to help working parents

Schools will open for up to 10 hours a day under plans being drawn up by the Government.

Education Secretary Charles Clarke is to back moves to open classrooms from 8am to 6pm to help working parents.

Schools would be encouraged to extend "breakfast club" schemes and after-school care in a radical augmentation of their traditional role.

Mr Clarke was backing the idea, announced in the five-year education plan earlier this year, in a speech today. By 2008 there should be 1,000 such extended- hours schools across England.

But parents were warned they "might be asked to contribute towards the cost of some extended services".