The city's second state-of-the-art academy will open its doors in September.

Staff and pupils at Bradford Cathedral Community College in East Bowling will move lock, stock and barrel to a £20 million structure opposite the current building.

It will mark a transformation for a school which has a history of long-term problems. They include being placed in special measures in 2000 after inspectors labelled pupil behaviour the "worst they had ever seen".

However, since the college emerged from special measures in 2004, hopes remain high that standards at the new academy will continue to rise.

New principal Gareth Dawkins welcomed the Conservative's U-turn announced by the party's education spokesman David Willets yesterday.

Mr Willets claimed middle-class children dominated the grammar school intake, saying "not many poor" children got in. "Academy schools are doing well in very difficult circumstances," he added. "They show that proper academic rigour should never just be reserved for the leafy suburbs and for prosperous familes."

Mr Dawkins said: "I think having consensus at a national level is very helpful. It gives schools security about their future. Bradford Academy will make a real difference in an area where there has been a legacy of promises but a failure to deliver."

He added that academies provided a "highly-attractive strategy to improve the education of young people in disadvantaged areas", and praised the success achieved by the city's first - Dixons Academy in West Bowling.

"I think Dixons have demonstrated what a high-performance school with academy status can achieve," he said.

However, Mr Dawkins said he believed there was room for both academies and grammar schools in the city. "Bradford Grammar is also a high-achieving school and we are anticipating soon being regarded as a high-performing school and being placed in the same bracket.

"We are opening a new school with staff and pupils arriving from Bradford Cathedral Community College. However, around 50 per cent of the staff will be new as well as young pupils and what we will expect from them will be completely different. I am not being brash but I am absolutely confident we will succeed."

Academies are state schools which are privately-sponsored and run independently from a local authority.

Nick Weller, principal of Dixons' Academy, sponsored by the electrical giant Dixons, branded Mr Willets' statement a "positive move". He said: "We offer a good standard of education to a much more inclusive intake than grammar schools. I think it's a very positive think that more of them will be built across the country."

The Government wants to create 200 city academies by 2010.

As reported in the Telegraph & Argus, the British Edutrust Foundation also plans to turn improving Rhodesway School in Allerton into an independent secondary funded directly by the Department for Education and Skills.

Lord Amir Bhatia, chairman of Edutrust, has outlined proposals to pay £2 million to help create the new school. He too welcomed the Conservative Party's change of stance.

"For the first time now both parties are thinking positively about academies," he said. "We will be moving forward with the next stage of the consultation process on Rhodesway from the beginning of June. The investment is on the table."

Bradford no longer has any state grammar schools however, Stephen Davidson, headmaster at fee-paying Bradford Grammar School, said the school prided itself on its social diversity.

He said: "Naturally we share much of the philosophy of state grammar schools, believing that bright boys and bright girls thrive alongside others of similar potential, ability and ambition.

"We pride ourselves on our extraordinary social diversity and very broad geographical catchment. Bradford LEA do not support selection and we are therefore offering something unique to boys and girls in the city.

"As for academies, the jury still seems to be out on how they will select children and what influence the sponsors may have on the values of each one. We must be offering something very special to remain so popular and very successful."

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