The academy will focus on technical education

The move is part of a government project to establish more specialist schools.

The academy will focus on a technical education, in the hope of encouraging more young people to remain in rural communities after they leave school.

Schools Standards Minister David Miliband said that more than 1.5 million pupils would now be taught in specialist schools throughout the UK.

The move to create specialist schools is seen as a key element of the government's drive to personalise education around the needs, aptitudes and aspirations of individual pupils.

Specialist schools out-perform other maintained secondary schools at GCSE level.

'Working together'

Latest performance figures show how specialist schools continue to outstrip non-specialist schools at GCSE/GNVQ, with 56.7% of pupils in specialists achieving five good grades compared to 49.2% in non-specialists.

Mike Major, head teacher of Ruskin School in Coniston, one of the Cumbrian school involved in the new academy, said the move would offer better standards of education.

He said: "Some of our student may well feel isolated at the moment.

"But by working together we can overcome that and technology is such a wonderful way of doing that.

"This decision will actually allow us to bring education to the learner, rather than the learner to the schools.

"We will now be able to work in very small communities, to enable very high quality learning to take place."

The government's specialist schools programme was launched in 1994. There are 1,445 operational specialist schools at present.