BOLTON’S leading independent school has welcomed plans to increase the number of poorer students at private schools — stating that such schools are “key contributors to social mobility”.

Bolton School girls’ division headmistress Sue Hincks said that one in five pupils at the school receive assistance through the bursary scheme.

Private schools have offered to create 10,000 free places for children of families who could not otherwise afford the fees — if the Government helps fund them.

The move comes after Prime Minister Theresa May warned that private schools would have to do more if they want to keep the tax privileges that come with their charitable status.

The proposal, by the Independent Schools Council (ISC), suggests the Government pays no more than the cost of a state school place per pupil, thought to be around £5,500 a year, with the private sector paying the rest.

The places would be available to students of all ages, from prep school to sixth form.

Miss Hincks said: “We believe that schools like ours are key contributors to social mobility.

“We are inheritors of the direct grant system and we are trying to operate as close to that model as we can, without government funding. Currently, over one in five pupils at our two senior schools — 359 pupils in total — is in receipt of a means-tested bursary. In 2015-16, our bursary spend equalled £2.7 million. “Our fundraising included £650k from current alumni, £15k from parents, and £35k from legacies in the past year. “In addition to fundraising, we contribute to our bursary scheme in a number of ways, including through the profits from our commercial enterprises, Bolton School Services Limited.”

She added: “It is the Governors’ express intention that we should aim for a bursary for one in four of our children and we are getting nearer to this target each year.

“In addition, we have a number of partnerships with schools (and community groups) in our area and we remain committed to the idea of supporting a broad range of initiatives in Bolton and the surrounding area.

“We would welcome a move to a joint-funding model, whereby we would seek to ‘top up’ state funding with bursary resources.

“Through such measures, we would undertake to expand our capacity to take in pupils.”

Labour former education secretary Baroness Estelle Morris, a former teacher, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “This is about a request to use state money, taxpayers’ money, to extract the brightest children out of our comprehensive schools and skim then off and put them into public schools, and that’s not good for the education system.”