Parents and carers will be given four months to voice their opinions about the proposed reorganisation of Harrow's schools.

Councillors decided on Thursday last week that formal public consultation on the proposals should start from September.

Harrow Council wishes to change the way that education is run from September 2010 but it is reliant on a sum of cash from the government's Building Schools for the Future fund if its plans are to run on time.

Harrow's low position on the waiting list means it should not expect its millions until 2012.

But the authority has been lobbying the Department for Children, Schools and Families to leapfrog the borough ahead of other councils which do not have clear plans on how to spend their windfalls.

Providing the money comes, Harrow Council will:

Bring forward the point at which pupils leave first schools to attend middle schools from year 4 to year 3

Convert middle schools (years 4-7) into junior schools (years 3-6)

Rename combined first and middle schools as primary schools

Bring forward the point at which pupils leave middle schools to attend secondary schools from year 8 to year 7

Tranform high schools into secondary schools (years 7-11 with sixth form provision)

If the response of parents, teachers and councillors is positive, Harrow Council will have to publish statutory notices - formal legal notifications of the changes - and overcome any formal opposition to them before the newly school system is introduced.

Councillor Anjana Patel (Conservative), portfolio holder for schools, said: "The consultation is starting in September so it's not over the summer holiday period. We're going through the proper legal processes.

"The school reorganisation is something that will bring us in line with neighbouring boroughs."

Lynne Snowdon, divisional secretary for Harrow NUT (National Union of Teachers) said: "Our concerns are that no staff should suffer because of it. Harrow Council's policy is that nobody will be made compulsarily redundant and if year seven staff are transferred to high schools, we want to make sure that they are well supported and well trained, because secondary school teaching is a different type of job."

Mrs Patel explained: "Some of the funding for the schools reorganisation programme will come from the DCSF but we will not know what the criteria for any submission are until August, with a deadline for resub-mission in October.

"We would expect to know the out-come of that early in 2009 but the earliest we could expect any funding would be 2010/11."

That is because the money is needed is to create additional facilities at Harrow's high schools, which were not built to accommodate an extra year group.

School reorganisation timetable

June 2008 - council cabinet committee agress consultation

July 2008 - informal consultation begins

September 2008 - formal consultation starts

December 2008 - consultation ends

January 2009 - cabinet committee considers report on outcome of consultation

February 2009 - publish statutory notices

March 2009 - report to cabinet committee about statutory notices

September 2010 - year seven and eight pupils admitted to secondary school and year three and four pupils admitted to junior schools