Iain and Betsy Duncan Smith opened the new Tabernacle School

The Tabernacle School, after several years in temporary accommodation, has opened a building in west London.

The school is a model for parent power and an example of how underachievement among black pupils can be reversed, said Mr Duncan Smith.

The school had once been evicted from premises, despite a sit-in by parents.

"In recent years there has been a lot of media coverage on the educational under-achievement of black children," said Mr Duncan Smith.

Excluded pupils

"I strongly believe that the solutions to educational failure lie within the communities blighted by it. If every black child could attend a school as good as Tabernacle, black educational underachievement would be reversed very quickly."

The independent school, with over 50 primary and secondary-age pupils, was set up by members of a church with many black families in its congregation.

It charges up to a maximum of �3,700 per year in fees, below the typical fees charged by independent schools. But many pupils from less well off families pay less than this.

Among the Tabernacle School's pupils are children who have been excluded from state schools.

The school has previously struggled to find a base, and its future was threatened three years ago when it lost premises rented from a charity, despite a sit-in protest staged by parents and teachers.

Mr Duncan Smith said that this school was an example of how parents should be allowed to have a greater say in choosing their children's education.

Such parental involvement in setting up schools will "produce a flourishing of high-quality, low-cost independent schools like Tabernacle that will give many more children the kind of education parents want. All parents will have the sort of options that today only money can buy", he said.

The school has also been supported by the Centre for Social Justice, a campaign group which promotes the idea of "compassionate conservatism".

The group, which says it is a "do tank" rather than a "think tank", was launched by Mr Duncan Smith last year, as an attempt to connect with deprived communities.

"We can't walk by on the other side any longer. Westminster politics, this metropolitan view of things we have here, is really very, very far away from people's lives," Mr Duncan Smith had said at the launch last year.

As well as addressing "educational failure", the Centre for Social Justice seeks ways to tackle poverty, poor housing, unemployment, addiction and "broken communities".