Urban renewal: Gateshead schools have performed strongly

The School Standards Minister, David Miliband, said inner-city schools were raising their standards faster than anywhere else in the country.

He was speaking at the annual conference of the government's Excellence in Cities programme.

The scheme gives schools in deprived areas of England extra resources, with support for individual children.

Potential

Launched in 1999, it now covers 57 education authority areas.

Mr Miliband said the government was "breaking the culture of low aspiration and under-achievement traditionally associated with schools in inner-city areas".

"Every child, whatever their background, has the right to achieve their full potential.

"The rate of improvement in inner cities is demonstrating that, for the first time in British history, growing up in an urban area is no longer a barrier to educational success."

Mr Miliband said he wanted to "re-engineer" the scheme to streamline it, with as much funding as possible going into a single grant allocated directly to schools.

His department said that, last year, schools in "EiC" areas improved on average at twice the rate of schools elsewhere.

In Gateshead, for example, secondary schools had improved on average by more than four times as fast as schools nationally.

Improvements

Since 1997, the percentage of students aged 15 or 16 who achieved the equivalent of five good grades at GCSE level had risen by eight percentage points nationally - but by 11, 13 and 14 points in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

The percentage of 11 year olds leaving primary schools with the expected level of attainment in reading and writing had risen by 12 percentage points nationally.

But it had gone up by 17 percentage points in Inner London, 14 in Manchester, 13 in Birmingham and 14 in Sheffield.

Studies had shown that Excellence in Cities is having a positive impact on behaviour, attendance and attainment of young people, the department said.