Blair's son Nicky to become teacher at tough inner-city school

That plan may have gone slightly awry, but the Prime Minister's son Nicky is picking up the baton by taking a job as a teacher at a tough inner-city school.

Nicky, who is said to be far more of a socialist than either his father or mother, has signed up for a minimum of two years working at a comprehensive school in one of the country's most deprived areas.

The 21-year-old, who sits his history finals at Oxford next month, will start an intensive teacher training course in July, before taking charge of a classroom in September.

He has been recruited by Teach First, a charity backed by 40 leading companies which sends top graduate students to teach in struggling schools before many of them move on to jobs in the City.

Unlike his parents, who both went into highly-paid careers as barristers, Nicky will be paid a relatively modest salary of £17,800, rising to £22,000 in his second year.

Although Nicky will emerge from his two-year stint as a fully-qualified teacher, he may yet decide to follow his father into politics.

Teach First's publicity material boasts that it expects many of its participants to become 'the future ministers, chief executives and entrepreneurs of our age'.

By spending two years in a classroom, the scheme hopes graduates will learn leadership skills which they can later transfer to the business sector if they decide not to take up teaching full-time.

Participants are not sponsored by any individual company, but firms which back the scheme, including HSBC and British Airways, look to recruit management trainees from the Teach First ranks.

Teach First gives presentations at all leading universities to encourage applicants, but Nicky may already have been aware of the scheme after his father's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell was guest speaker at a Teach First awards dinner last summer.

The organisation was founded in 2001 after members of Business in the Community decided to follow a similar scheme in America which enabled companies to help improve educational standards.

Around half of each teacher's salary is paid by Teach First through its donations from businesses, with the rest being paid by the local education authority.

The name of the school where Nicky Blair will be teaching, and its location, have not been revealed.

Nicky won a place at Lady Margaret Hall college, Oxford, after getting A grades in history, english and geography A-levels at the London Oratory, a selective state school.

During his time as an undergraduate, he has served as secretary of the Oxford University Labour Club. By contrast his father, who studied law at St John's College, Oxford, had little time for student politics, spending his spare time playing gigs as the front man of student band Ugly Rumours.

A spokesman for Teach First said, "We can confirm that Nicky Blair is one of over three hundred students who have been accepted on Teach First and who will begin the two year programme in July 2007."

Downing Street described Nicky's career choice as a 'private matter' and said it would be making no comment.

Nottingham University genetics graduate Briony Phillips, 25, spent two years teaching science at the Quintin Kynaston School in Swiss Cottage, north London, where three quarters of students are from ethnic minorities, a fifth are refugees or asylum seekers and pupils speak more than 50 languages.

She said, "It is a big challenge and it gives you a lot of skills which are transferable to business, such as working under time pressure, presentation skills, communication and dealing with unforseen problems.

"You are also sent on a leadership course which gives you another advantage when you're applying for other jobs later on. I had always thought about going into education but I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it permanently, and this gave me the chance to try teaching whilst knowing that after two years it was accepted I might decide to do something else."

Briony is now manager of an internal business centre for management consultants Deloitte in London. She said, "I just went through the normal application process, but having Teach First on my CV was certainly an advantage."