Ed Balls wants every school to look beyond the school gates

There will be a �300,000 incentive for high-achieving schools to merge with their unsuccessful neighbours.

The first 30 "trust schools" which have partners in business, education and the voluntary sector were also announced.

Unilever, Dyslexia Action and Capita are among the firms and charities linking up with schools.

Where a strong school merges with a weak one, both schools make more rapid progress Ed Balls

Mr Balls called for more collaborations between schools and other organisations as a means to raise standards.

"I want every good school to be looking beyond the school gates and asking what it can do for its community," said the schools secretary.

"Where a strong school merges with a weak one, both schools make more rapid progress in a federation than they would have on their own," said Mr Balls.

The "trust school" initiative means that a school or group of schools enter a partnership with outside bodies, creating an ethos for this new mini-federation. The trust school would then control staffing, admissions and assets.

And the government announced details of the first wave of 30 such schools, which are launching this month.

These have a combination of partners from charities, higher and further education and business.

For example, a cluster of four primary schools and one secondary school, Sharnbrook Upper School, in Bedfordshire, are linked to Unilever, Capita, Bedford College of Further Education and Cranfield University.

External partners

Monkseaton Community High School in Tynemouth has partners including Microsoft, the local authority and Tribal, a company selling education consultancy services.

South Dartmoor Community College has partners including Capita - which sells a range of support services to education - and the University of Exeter.

Among the list of school's external partners is the Duchy of Lancaster, which manages an estate owned by the Queen.

The duchy is a partner for Ferrers Specialist Arts College in Rushden, Northamptonshire, with which it has had a relationship since the fourteenth century.

It has estates of 11,500 acres, predominantly in the north west of England, but also includes the Savoy Estate, between the Strand and the Embankment in London's West End.