Plans for more academy chains and “twinned” opportunity areas have been set out in “levelling up” details published by the government.

Today the prime minister announced that £10 million would be spent supporting teaching in areas where a lower proportion of pupils go to schools rated less than “good” by Ofsted.

Boris Johnson also revealed there would be an £18 million expansion to the Opportunity Areas programme as he hailed the initiatives as “levelling up in action”.

Johnson: PM’s stronger schools plan questioned by heads 

Academies: Williamson wants ‘far more schools’ moving into MATs

Gavin Williamson: Schools to get trial runs before joining academy trusts

Now the DfE has set out more detail about the proposals. Here is everything you need to know.

Up to £5m spent growing MATs in targeted areas

Downing Street revealed this morning that £10 million would be spent supporting teaching in Plymouth,  Ashfield and Mansfield, South Sefton and North Liverpool, and North Durham and City - areas where a low proportion of pupils go to schools rated “good” or “outstanding”.

Now the DfE has said that up to half of that £10 million will be channelled through the Trust Capacity Fund, which opens for applications today from trusts looking to support more schools in those areas and across the country.

The DfE said today that “there is high potential for rapid improvement” in these areas.

Overall, the department is spending £24 million on the Trust Capacity Fund this year.

New church trusts

The department has also published details about a new wave of church trusts, which education secretary Gavin Williamson announced last month in a speech to the Confederation of School Trusts’ conference, where he said he wanted all schools to move into multi-academy trusts (MATs).

In total, £800,000 is to be spent creating seven new trusts, two of which are Church of England and five of which are Catholic:

New Church of England academy trusts:

• The Diocese of Worcester: Elements Diocesan Learning Trust 
• The Diocese of Lincoln: St Lawrence Academy 

New Catholic academy trusts:

• The Diocese of Clifton: The Cardinal Newman Catholic Educational Trust
• The Diocese of Clifton: The Dunstan Catholic Educational Trust
• The Archdiocese of Birmingham: Our Lady and All Saints Catholic Multi-Academy Company
• The Diocese of Lancaster: Mater Christi Multi Academy Trust 
• The Archdiocese of Southwark: South East London Catholic Academy Trust

New catholic turnaround trust focused on Liverpool

The department is creating a new Catholic turnaround trust, which was also announced by Mr Williamson last month.

It said today that this will operate across the areas of the Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool and the Catholic Diocese of Shrewsbury.

It added: “In practice, we expect most of the schools transferring to the trust to be located in the Liverpool city region.”

Opportunity Areas will twin with others facing similar challenges

The DfE has said that £18 million will be spent continuing the Opportunity Areas programme for a fifth year. It also set out plans for them to be twinned with other areas to share the impact of their work.

Examples include:

• Bradford twinning with Knowsley to support school improvement.
• Fenland and East Cambridgeshire twinning with Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, Kings Lynn, and West Norfolk to support social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs and workforce development.
• Ipswich twinning with Felixstowe to support wellbeing, resilience, and key stage 2 to 3 transition.
• Norwich twinning with Breckland and Great Yarmouth to support early years speech and language, and inclusion.
• North Yorkshire Coast twinning with Bridlington to support behaviour and inclusion.
• Oldham twinning with Tameside local authority to support digital learning development.

There are 12 Opportunity Areas that receive government funding to improve social mobility through work in education.