Gordonstoun School, the independent boarding school once branded a “hell-hole” by the Prince of Wales for its cold showers and early morning runs, is to help a failing comprehensive by backing a new city academy.

Sherwood School in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, one of 638 failing secondary schools on the Government’s hitlist, is to be renamed the Samworth Church Academy in the new partnership. The elite Scottish school will bring its ethos, based on an holistic approach coupled with plenty of outdoor activities.

In return Gordonstoun will benefit from the academy’s expertise in information technology, in particular that used to create a state-of-the-art virtual learning platform that will soon enable the academy to provide lessons, record pupil attainment and communicate with parents online. Gordonstoun, like many independent schools, has fallen behind the state sector in new technology.

Michael Griffiths, principal designate of the new £20 million academy, which will open to pupils in September and move into a new building in 2010, said that the school had sought a partnership with Gordonstoun because it had been attracted to the philosophy of the school’s founder, Kurt Hahn.

Hahn, who fled Nazi Germany, founded Gordonstoun to offer pupils a special programme of holistic education with a high emphasis on discipline and outdoor activities, such as sailing and hill walking. He was also founder of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, and Gordonstoun, where fees are up to £24,000 a year, prides itself in offering an all-round education rather than a strictly academic one.

Staff concentrate on individual development, which, the school says, is based on the four pillars of internationalism, challenge, service and responsibility.

Mr Griffiths said: “We wanted what are normally regarded as extracurricular activities to be part of our core curriculum. We have a belief that everybody has some talents to find. We also want to put pupils in challenging situations – this is important for them because life is not always sweet.”

Despite its spartan reputation, Gordonstoun recently received a glowing report from HM Inspectorate of Education, which paid tribute to the standard of pastoral care and to the “range of interesting and challenging activities designed to promote pupils’ personal and social development”.

The inclusion of a school of Gordonstoun’s status into the academies project is a coup for the Government, which underlined last month its determination to make the academy programme a key part of its strategy to raise standards.There are now 83 academies open in 49 local authorities. The Government is committed to establishing 400 academies.

Academies are independent, state-funded schools that receive cash help or sponsorship in kind from charities or private-sector organisations and have greater freedom of control from local authorities than most other state schools, particularly with regards to governance, the curriculum and teachers’ pay and admission policy.

The Samworth Church Academy is being co-sponsored by a leading businessman in the East Midlands, David Samworth, and by the Church of England.

In recent months ministers have assiduously courted independent schools as academy backers in the face of opposition from some left-wing MPs and teaching unions.More than 20 private schools are now involved with academies in some way. They include Wellington College, Dulwich College, Marlborough College and Oundle.

Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, said the partnership between Gordonstoun and Samworth “represents a further significant advance in harnessing the excellence of independent schools within the new, independently managed sector of state education represented by academies”.

The announcement coincides with news that a Swedish private school company with a radical approach to teaching has been given approval to start opening a chain of state-funded academies in England. According to The Times Higher Education supplement, Knuskapsskolan has been named as preferred sponsor for two academies in Richmond, Surrey. It has plans for about 30 by 2018.

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