Clarke orders U-turn over flagship school initiative

An important policy for reforming secondary schools is to be scrapped amid concern that it is causing resentment among headteachers.

Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, is to phase out the "beacon schools" initiative, which gives certain secondary schools extrafunds to pass on successful strategies to other schools. Mr Clarke is also considering whether to abandon the status– championed by his predecessor, Estelle Morris – for primary, nursery and special schools.

Last year's education White Paper stated that secondary beacon schools would play a big role in Labour's second term and pledged to increase their number to 400 by 2005. But headteachers have been told that all secondary beacons will be phased out by 2005. Mr Clarke is understood to believe that the growing number of different types of school – including specialist, beacon, faith and advanced – can confuse staff and parents.

A recent study also found that ordinary schools resented beacon schools' status and extra funding. Beacon schools can attract about £36,000 a year. The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) spent £47m on the scheme this year. Furthermore, the schools were awarded the status by the DfES rather than applying for it and why some were chosen over others was often unclear, the study found.

Many heads of the existing 323 secondary beacon schools are furious. They believe the move is symptomatic of the Government's desire to launch new initiatives rather than fine-tune existing schemes. A government spokeswoman said: "Our policy is to move towards advanced schools which we see as an evolution of beacon schools."

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said the move was unhelpful. "The Government is switching one label for another. The problem with all these labels is that they come with funding so it matters a lot to the schools involved."