The Prince of Wales wants to set up a school to teach traditional arts and crafts to pupils excluded from mainstream education, writes Jack Grimston.

Charles’s charities are involved in an application to the government under its academies programme to set up the school in Lambeth, south London.

It will aim to teach artisan skills to give a new sense of purpose to 14 to 19-year-olds, who might drop out of education because of bad behaviour, helping them to gain qualifications and jobs.

Through the Prince’s Trust, Charles has been helping disadvantaged children for more than 30 years, offering scholarships and apprenticeships in crafts such as carpentry and stonemasonry.

The prince’s charities are setting up the school with groups including Lambeth council and the Young Foundation, whose director is Geoff Mulgan, former head of Tony Blair’s Downing Street policy unit.

The school will be able to educate up to 300 pupils. It will be more of a crafts complex, with craftsmen and women on site, as well as workshops, retail and exhibition space.

Officials have been discussing the project with the De Morgan Foundation, which promotes the work of William De Morgan, an Arts and Crafts movement tiler.

The school is expected to be one of the “studio schools” announced earlier by Ed Balls, the schools secretary. It is hoped they will cut the number of pupils who drop out of traditional education by giving them an alternative.

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