Tory 'freedoms' for primary schools
Successful primary schools will be given independence from local authority control by a Conservative Government.
They will get power over their own budgets, curriculum, discipline and staff, shadow education secretary Michael Gove said.
And Conservatives would allow community groups, charities, philanthropists and education federations to set up new state primary schools to give parents of 4 to 11-year-olds more choice.
The Tories have already promised to extend the Government's academy programme to the bulk of secondary schools, but the new policy goes further in offering the same independence within the state sector to thousands of primaries.
Mr Gove said: "Academy freedoms for secondary schools have already helped thousands of disadvantaged children by driving up standards in the state sector. We want to allow the same thing to happen in primary schools.
"Making schools genuinely accountable to parents by freeing them from political interference and giving them control over budgets, curriculum and staff could make a real difference to the opportunities for some of the most deprived children."
Unveiling details of the proposals ahead of this weekend's Conservative Spring Forum in Cheltenham, Mr Gove accused the Government of letting a generation of children down.
He highlighted official figures showing that four out of 10 children leave primary school in England unable to read, write and add up, and that 34,000 11-year-olds have a reading age below that expected of a six-year-old.
And he said that failure at primary level has serious knock-on effects on children's performance at secondary school and in GCSEs.
Schools with consistently poor results under council stewardship will be taken over by organisations with a track record of delivering successful academy schools - such as the ARK charity, the Mercers Company and the Harris Federation.
