Top schools offered chance to run own affairs

Education Secretary Michael Gove leaves a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London May 18, 2010.

LONDON (Reuters) - Education Secretary Michael Gove invited England's top state-funded schools on Wednesday to leave local authority control and establish themselves as independent institutions in an effort to improve standards.

Gove wrote to the 2,600 primary, secondary and special schools judged to be outstanding by education inspectorate Ofsted, offering them a fast-track route to "academy" status.

He also extended to all other schools in England the chance to register their interest in becoming academies.

"I'd like in due course for academy status to become the norm," Gove told BBC radio.

"We are hopeful that head teachers in a variety of schools which have been ranked as outstanding will want to take up that offer," he later told reporters.

"We believe that the additional freedoms that academy status can bring can help drive up standards for all children."

Plans to greatly increase the number of academy schools from around 200 today were a key part of the Conservatives' election manifesto, and have survived as one of the priorities of the their coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.

By leaving local authority control, academy schools gain greater control over their curriculum, budget, staff pay and the length of the school day and term, as well as more flexibility over pupil admissions.

Academy schools also get an additional 10 to 15 percent of pupil funding that previously would have been spent on their behalf by local authorities on shared services.

Dan Moynihan of the Harris Foundation, which runs nine academies in south London, said the liberation from "endless local government initiatives" had freed up staff and allowed them to concentrate on teaching.

"This kind of status for all schools in England is the beginning of an education revolution which has the potential to transform the life prospects of disadvantaged children across the country," Moynihan said.

Critics say the plans will have the opposite effect and create divisions between schools that will disfavour the most needy.

"Safeguards will be needed to ensure a two-tier education system is not allowed to develop in a local area," said Margaret Eaton, Chairman of the Local Government Association.

"A share of education money is currently invested in providing services for pupils with special educational needs, and those who are excluded from mainstream education. Councils will be seeking urgent reassurances that disadvantaged children will not lose out," she added.

Gove said top schools leaving local education authority control would be expected to link to weaker schools and offer them help.

Extra money will be given schools who admit children from deprived homes under separate plans for a so-called "pupil premium" to encourage them to widen their intake.

Legislation to remove the requirement to consult a local authority before the establishment of an academy school was introduced in parliament on Wednesday, and will be one of the first acts of the new coalition.

A separate Education and Children's Bill will in due course set out plans to allow schools greater freedom over what they teach after complaints that the national curriculum is too crowded and over-prescriptive.

The coalition also wants to allow parents to set up their own schools if they wish, backed by state funding, along the lines of a 15-year-old experiment in Sweden.

(Editing by Steve Addison)