ALMOST 100 extra places for bright children from low income families are to be added to the assisted places scheme at East Lancashire's top three independent schools.

Another 20 assisted places will be introduced at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, with another 29 at Roman Catholic public school Stonyhurst College.

Westholme School for Girls gets 40 extra places.

They are part of Education Secretary Gillian Shephard's proposal to make an extra 4,000 assisted places available in England in the next year. Eventually she hopes to double the size of the controversial scheme where the Government pays schools fees for clever kids whose parents could not afford an independent school education for their children.

Eventually she hopes there will be 34,000 of the places, bitterly opposed by Labour, in England.

For the first time the scheme will be extended to children between five and 11 at schools with their own prep department.

At QEGS there will be five new places in the five to ten age group, ten for 11 to 15 year olds and five in the sixth form.

Stonyhurst gets five places for juniors, 16 in the 11 to 15 age group and eight sixth-formers.

Westholme gets five junior places, 25 in the 11 to 15 group, and ten sixth-formers.

Mrs Shephard said: "The extension of the assisted places scheme improves the opportunities for able children from less well off families to benefit from the excellent education offered by all the schools participating in it.

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