FIVE Bolton schools are hoping to take on highly paid superteachers to boost classroom standards.

And education chiefs have decided to support the schools even though the move has angered teaching unions in the town.

Now the five headteachers are expecting to hear any day if the Government will give them a grant to help pay the wages of an Advanced Skills Teacher.

Schools would pay the new starters the same salary as an ordinary teacher but a Government grant of £5,000 and a council donation of £5,000 would be used to top up their wages.

In return the superteachers, experts in their field, would spend one day each week trouble-shooting for the local authority.

Bolton education chiefs decided not to bid for the first wave of superteachers, which are a central plank of the Government's drive to improve standards, claiming they had other spending priorities.

But now they have put in a bid on behalf of Mount St Joseph, Canon Slade, Little Lever, Turton and Rivington and Blackrod secondary schools. They say the advanced skills teachers would be used to plug gaps in literacy, information technology, science, humanities and GNVQs.

Current Bolton teachers will be able to apply for the highly paid positions but unions claim the move will divide staffroom s and detract from the teamwork needed to raise standards.

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