Primary and secondary schools across Shropshire were today being invited by the government to break away from the shackles of local authority control.

Letters from Education Secretary Michael Gove are being sent to some 20,000 headteachers across England – just a day after the new coalition Government unveiled its flagship Academies Bill as part of a radical overhaul of education.

Outlining the plans in central London this morning, Mr Gove said he wanted academy schools to become “the norm”.

Schools rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted inspectors – around 600 secondaries and about 2,000 primaries – could be fast-tracked to academy status by the autumn.

It could see thousands of schools opting out of local authority control, managing their own budgets, and being taken over and run by companies.

The Bill will introduce a reading test for six-year-olds to identify those struggling the most. This follows research showing that children who fail to master reading at a young age fall much further behind by the end of secondary school.

Parents, businesses and charities will also be invited to set up and run “free schools” funded by the taxpayer. Mr Gove said he did not want to “coerce” headteachers into a situation with which they were unhappy, but offer the option of self-government.

Ex-schools secretary Ed Balls said the impact on other schools would be “deeply unfair”.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, warned such “academies and free schools are a recipe for educational inequality and social segregation”.