The charity, Absolute Return for Kids (Ark), has no track record of running education services in the UK but is pressing ahead with initial plans to sponsor a series of city academies throughout the capital for an outlay of at least £14m - £2m per school - the Guardian has learned. It is about to appoint members of a new board of UK educational representatives who have experience of British schools.

In some cases Ark will propose "through academies" - combined primary and secondary schools catering for four to 18-year-olds. The idea would be to have "schools within schools", each with their own headteacher and deputy but all reporting to an over-arching principal. The larger schools could comprise nursery and infants, junior, middle, upper and sixth form.

All the schools in the Ark network would use techniques proven to have worked in US charter schools to tackle the widespread problem of youngsters' under-achievement in disadvantaged urban areas. They include offering youngsters longer lessons in blocks of up to three and a half hours every other week in some subjects, to allow better concentration. Strict disciplinary codes would also be in place to minimise disruption and to create the best environments for learning.

Ark is promising "educational vision" for British schools, through its new director of education, Jay Altman, who has just arrived in the UK from the US. Mr Altman was the founding principal of the New Orleans charter middle school in Louisiana, set up in response to parental demand and now a highly successful school with a record of preparing students from the poorest backgrounds for entry to top selective schools.

The US charter school movement is likened to the British academy system - based on autonomy for the individual schools - but without the same degree of state support.

Academies are publicly funded independent schools which provide free education for pupils of all abilities. Teaching unions are highly sceptical about the programme, many seeing it as a form of privatisation of state schools. Ministers set up the initiative in an attempt to transform "failing" secondary schools in the most deprived urban areas.

In exchange for up to £2m, private sponsors have a big say in the running of an academy, including setting the school's ethos and appointing its governors.

The government funds the rest of the costs for setting up an academy - typically reaching £25m. But they are regarded as "independent" schools standing outside the rest of the state system.

Of the 17 academies in existence, 10 are in London. The government wants 200 academies up and running or in the pipeline by 2010.

Critics of Ark's plans claim that in the US most charter schools have been set up from scratch, while the British academy plans involve taking over failing or under-performing schools. They also claim that the plans to create "through academies" are likely to be far more challenging because of the difficulties of merging separate school communities.

Ark, for example, was forced to withdraw from a scheme in the London borough of Islington last month after the proposals became "too complex" and after the governors of the primary school involved voted against it. The original scheme to create a "through academy" involving the closure of a local primary and secondary school is being revamped, without Ark's involvement, to cover a new 11-18 academy to replace the secondary school, Islington Green.

Ark is also looking at setting up academies in Hammersmith, Westminster, Lambeth, Hackney and Southwark, but is also very interested in looking elsewhere in the UK.

In Southwark, the plans are most advanced, with a series of public consultations under way to replace Geoffrey Chaucer Technology College and Joseph Lancaster primary school - which are on neighbouring sites - with a "through academy". It would open its doors in September 2008 at the earliest. Councillor Caroline Pidgeon, executive member for education at Southwark council, said: "We already have two academies in the borough and we're delighted to be consulting on two more.