Labour plans education overhaul

The Government today announced its most radical shakeup of inner city education.

The major plan is aimed at rescuing failing schools. At least 10 new schools are to be built in the five London boroughs with the worst standards.

Ministers plan to use Islington, Hackney, Haringey, Southwark and Lambeth as a test for two new "big ideas" being developed in Downing Street before the next general election.

Schools will be encouraged to "federate" - work together so that pupils admitted to one school can attend lessons at another. They will become models for "extended schools", opening beyond the confines of the existing day and also offering services to parents.

These could include childcare to help parents who work, and adult education to widen their job prospects.

The initiative's aim is to reassure parents that failure to get their children into a popular school will not necessarily deny them access to its teachers and facilities.

Ministers believe that alleviating poverty is one of the keys to education achievement and helping parents to learn assists them to help their children-Over five years, at least £300 million is to be spent on education in the five boroughs identified by ministers as those where parental dissatisfaction is most severe.

At least seven of the new schools will be flagship "city academies", each built with more than £2million of private-sector sponsorship.

There will be seven new sixth forms and each of the boroughs' existing schools is to get millions towards renovation and rebuilding.

Details were unveiled today by Tony Blair, with Education Secretary Charles Clarke describing the Government's "vision" for the five boroughs' secondary schools. In addition to the new schools, reflecting a historic shortage of places, they confirmed that every secondary school in the five boroughs is intended to become a specialist school by 2006, with extra cash to fund advanced teaching in some subjects.

The boroughs were identified in May as the focus for the Government's bid to raise educationstandards across the capital. They have 40 of London's worst-performing secondary schools, in most of which fewer than 25 per cent of pupils achieve at least five good GCSEs.

With the next general election perhaps as little as 18 months away, the massive investment reflects Government concern at the impact of poor standards in so many of the capital's schools. Parents in the five boroughs are voting with their feet, with more than 33,000 - as many as a third - sending their children to schools in other boroughs and thousands more opting for the independent sector.

Ministers know how the worst of London education reflects on the state system across the country.

The huge investment represents a new approach after what they privately acknowledge is the relative failure of their previous "big idea" to rescue failing inner-city schools.

Private companies have been brought in to run schools in four of the boroughs but ministers acknowledge that too many schools are still failing.

Cambridge Education Associates has been fined a record £500,000 after failing to hit a series of key education targets in Islington, even though results in the borough improved this year.

In Southwark, CEA has been brought in to help run the borough's schools after engineering firm WS Atkins pulled out of its contract.

Ministers are pinning their hopes on the impact of a large number of wellresourced new schools, with new headteachers and staff, to achieve a break with the past both in achievement and parental perception.

Mr Clarke said: "There are a lot of first-class schools in London and standards are improving, but we agree with all the schools and the education authorities involved that between us we must do more to achieve real transformation.

"Every pupil needs a tailored education which specifically meets their needs and we are focusing our support on schools and areas which face the most challenges and need the most help."

The Government's aim, he said, was to break "for ever" the link "between disadvantage and under-achievement".

Mr Clarke added: "London is a great world city - I want it to have excellent schools which are the toast of education throughout the world."