Specialist secondary schools to double

It has been described as the end of the "one size fits all" or "bog-standard" comprehensive in the words of the Prime Minister's official spokesman. The sort of school that you wouldn't touch with a bargepole, as Estelle Morris, the Secretary of Stae for Education, said last month.

The shake-up announced by Ms Morris yesterday of the secondary schooling system will mean dramatic changes over the next four years. By 2006, there will be 2,000 specialist secondary schools, double the present number.

They will specialise in a range of subjects – from technology, the arts, sport, languages, business and engineering – and can select up to ten per cent of their pupils "by aptitude".

Up to 300 will be selected as "advanced specialist schools" on the grounds of their performance and given extra cash to share good teaching practice with their less successful neighbours. There will also be at least 33 new City Academies – mostly in London. These are schools sponsored either by industry or voluntary groups and run on the lines of independent schools with government cash aid.

Ms Morris said failing schools would be closed or taken over by new leadership teams. They could be merged with neighbouring successful schools. The 164 remaining grammar schools will be kept unless a majority of parents vote for their status to be ended – and over 1,000 secondary schools will remain ordinary comprehensives.