SCHOOLS' Minister Jacqui Smith has announced that four Redcar and Cleveland schools are among a new round of 194 schools achieving specialist status.

They are the Sacred Heart and Rye Hills, both Redcar, Freeborough in East Cleveland, and Huntcliff, Saltburn.

The Sacred Heart, which is building a new school on a nearby site, will become a specialist science college from September 1.

Rye Hills gains sports status and Freeborough becomes an engineering college. Freeborough is having new premises built at Brotton to combine schools at Skelton, Brotton and Loftus.

Huntcliff is being awarded specialist status for humanities, covering geography and English. It is building a new IT suite on the school tennis court, which is also being rebuilt.

Each school has had to raise £50,000 in local sponsorship. The new status will give them access to further Government grants.

The awards are being seen as a boost for Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council. The only other local school is at Hartlepool, High Tunsall Comprehensive, (science).

Two North Yorkshire schools also gained the status - Selby High (arts) and Sherburn High (science).

Ms Smith said the number of specialist schools in England was now 2,382, three-quarters of the country's secondary schools.

Elizabeth Reid, chief executive of the Specialist Schools Trust, which released the full list of successful-bid schools, said that achieving the status meant they had to have "rigorous self-assessment, planning for achievement and developing new partnerships."