Richard Garner reported for the Independent and i newspapers on Sutton Scholars

Children as young as 11 are set to be offered classes at universities including Cambridge in a bid to help the brightest comprehensive pupils from poorer areas secure places at top institutions.

Around 400 of the most “highly able” 11- to 14-year-olds at non-selective state schools will be chosen to attend regular academic seminars at four of the country’s most in-demand universities.

All those chosen will be from low and middle-income families, attending schools serving disadvantaged communities with little history of sending pupils to such universities.

The scheme is being launched by the education charity the Sutton Trust, which campaigns for equal access to education for all, in the wake of Government funding for “gifted and talented” programmes to stretch the brightest pupils being discontinued three years ago.

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