The education secretary has revealed more details of the government's flagship initiative to improve the life chances of young people in Norwich.

Justine Greening will visit City College Norwich today, following the announcement the city would be one of six new 'opportunity areas' to help improve social mobility for local children.

She said: 'As far as I'm concerned, children in Norwich have as much potential as children in any other part of the country, and we need to make sure that's unlocked so they can go as far as they want to.'

Speaking ahead of her trip, she said that national programmes, and small businesses, would play a key part in the initiative.

She said the government had also learned from the transformation of education in London how important it is for schools to work collaboratively to raise standards, and said there would be additional investment to back that up.

She added: 'In addition, we want to look not just inside schools, but outside schools. That means we will work with some national programmes, like the National Citizen Service to make sure that young people in Norwich absolutely have the chance to go into that.'

She also signalled an important role for the government-funded Careers and Enterprise Company in offering careers advice.

Ms Greening said she also wanted small businesses in the city to play a role, helping to set students' sights high, providing apprenticeships and help provide mentoring.

As well as visiting City College Norwich today, she said she will go to a children's centre, adding that the importance of pre-school provision had been a priority for Norwich North MP Chloe Smith.

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