The first new grammar school of Prime Minister’s Theresa May’s revolution could be open by September 2019, a headmaster has said as he prepares an application to build a new annex in a neighbouring borough.

Jonathan Wilden, the head of Wallington County Grammar School in Sutton, is in talks with the Department for Education (DfE) about opening a new campus in Croyden, which would create places for around 1,000 students in a previously non-selective borough.

It will be the first time in half a century that a grammar school has received funding directly from the Government to expand.