After more than two years of deliberating, the Department for Education has finally approved a batch of new free schools, including three sixth-form colleges that will be funded and mentored by Eton.

This trio of academies will be opened in Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham – areas which contain some of Britain’s most deprived boroughs.

The Times has previously revealed that these colleges will all be ‘highly selective’ in terms of academic requirements, but will focus on recruiting pupils who live in particularly deprived areas or are on free school meals, to gear them toward the top universities.